Add-ons data...
By glazou on Sunday 8 May 2011, 15:50 - Mozilla - Permalink
My Firefox profile being corrupted, I had to dive a little bit into its salted directory. What I found there is just scary... Here are the contents of that profile:
GoogleToolbarData extensions places.sqlite
User_Gear.owg extensions.ini pluginreg.dat
adblockplus extensions.log prefs.bak
addons.sqlite extensions.rdf prefs.js
antbar extensions.sqlite rainbow-easel
blocklist.xml fireFTPprograms.dat scribefire.sqlite
bookmarkbackups fireFTPsites.dat search.json
bookmarks.bak firebug search.rdf
bookmarks.html foo.dat search.sqlite
bookmarks.html.sbsd.bak formhistory.sqlite searchplugins
bookmarks.postplaces.html foxyproxy.xml secmod.db
bookmarks.preplaces.html freerecord.sqlite sessionstore.bak
bookmarks.xml gm_scripts sessionstore.js
bookmarks_history.sqlite gtb-metrics.xml signons.sqlite
cert8.db hostperm.1 signons.txt
cert_override.txt imagescatch_autosave.owm signons2.txt
chatzilla jetpack signons3.txt
chrome jetpack-editor-code.txt tidy_base.html
chromeappsstore.sqlite jetpack-example-code.txt tidy_cleanup.html
compatibility.ini jetpack_ann.sqlite tplbug.sqlite
compreg.dat key3.db twitfactory.sqlite
content-prefs.sqlite kf.txt twitterfox_1.9.sqlite
cookies.sqlite kosa ubiquity_suggestion_memory.sqlite
cookies.sqlite.bak lightweighttheme-footer urlclassifier.sqlite
cookies.txt lightweighttheme-header urlclassifier2.sqlite
cookperm.txt localstore-safe.rdf urlclassifierkey3.txt
defaults.ini localstore.bak useragentswitcher
despin-scratchpad localstore.rdf venkman-settings.js
dh-conv-rules.rdf localstore.rdf~ weave
dh-media-lists.rdf messages.sqlite webappsstore.sqlite
dh-smart-names.rdf mimeTypes.rdf webchunks2.sqlite
downloads.sqlite minidumps xpti.dat
dta_history.xml permissions.sqlite
dustmeselectors-data persdict.dat
Hum, to say the least... Ok, some files there (*~ and *,bak) are mine, edited using emacs or another editor because I needed it. But I think user profiles should contain a addon-data/ folder with a subfolder per add-on, its name being the add-on ID of the add-on and that AMO editorial rules should force add-on authors to store *ALL* data there. It would then be easier to migrate, backup, delete, cleanup. Thoughts ? In particular is it ok to put sqlite databases in such a deeper folder for sqlite-based templates (I haven't checked yet)?
Comments
Good idea, but it must not be FORCED. Think of addons like Zotero. It'd be a disaster if I had to keep the data in the firefox profile.
@goo: my proposal above was ONLY in the case of add-on data stored in the profile, of course. If you store data outside, then fine!
To me, the much more obvious problem with that file listing is that Firefox isn't cleaning up files left from older versions of itself (bookmarks.*, signons*.txt, and more). Some of these files - which are no longer managed at all by Firefox - contain personal data (cookies.txt!), so data you've asked Firefox to remove and sites that you've asked Firefox to forget can still hang around in your profile...