What are these 'saved telemetry pings' in 42.0

[Big Al]

The new FF 64bit 42.0 has this folder and tons of files.
C:\Users\Alan\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default\saved-telemetry-pings

I know we're aware and fearful of telemetry in Windows 10, has FF gone over to the dark side too?

[WaltS48]

Depends on whether a user wants to assist Mozilla in developing the
product or not.

Firefox 7: Telemetry | All About Performance -
<https://blog.mozilla.org/tglek/2011/09/20/firefox-7-telemetry-faster-startup/>

Telemetry/FAQ - MozillaWiki - <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/faq>

Share telemetry data with Mozilla to help improve Firefox | Firefox Help
-
<https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-telemetry-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox#firefox:win10:fx42>


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[Big Al]

WaltS48 wrote on 11/10/2015 2:17 PM:
> On 11/10/2015 02:05 PM, Big Al wrote:
>> The new FF 64bit 42.0 has this folder and tons of files.
>> C:\Users\Alan\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default\saved-telemetry-pings
>>
>>
>> I know we're aware and fearful of telemetry in Windows 10, has FF gone
>> over to the dark side too?
>>
>
>
> Depends on whether a user wants to assist Mozilla in developing the product or not.
>
> Firefox 7: Telemetry | All About Performance -
> <https://blog.mozilla.org/tglek/2011/09/20/firefox-7-telemetry-faster-startup/>
>
> Telemetry/FAQ - MozillaWiki - <https://wiki.mozilla.org/Telemetry/faq>
>
> Share telemetry data with Mozilla to help improve Firefox | Firefox Help -
> <https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/share-telemetry-data-mozilla-help-improve-firefox#firefox:win10:fx42>
>
>

Interesting, I have that option turned off yet I have 117 files in the folder.

[Delrio]

Thanks for the heads up. I had 476 files in that folder and have all
telemetry turned off. Deleted them all and Firefox still adding files to
it. So I added that folder to Ccleaner to clean up. This is getting as
bad as Msft Windows 10.

[VanguardLH]

Big Al wrote:

> WaltS48 wrote:
>
>> Big Al wrote:
>>
>>> The new FF 64bit 42.0 has this folder and tons of files.

>>> %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default\saved-telemetry-pings

>>
>> Depends on whether a user wants to assist Mozilla in developing the
>> product or not.
>

> Interesting, I have that option turned off yet I have 117 files in the folder.

Options -> Advanced -> Data Choices
I have all of those deselected.

I, too, have some files under that folder but they are dated about 2
months ago. That's about when I first installed Firefox and went
through its options and most likely when I disabled all the reporting
options. When I go to about:telemetry, both the FHR (Firefox Health
Report) and Extended Telemetry recording settings show as disabled
(which matches on the options setup).

If you disabled all those reporting and telemetry options, did you check
the datestamps on those 117 files? Could be those are remnant files
created before you disabled the reporting & telemetry options.

[Delrio]

I have every telemetry disabled and it's still doing it.
After shutting down FF there's an entry appearing in that folder for
every site you visit.

[Delrio]

On 10-Nov-2015 16:44, VanguardLH wrote:

The only way I found to stop it is to change to false and remove all url
in about:config telemetry.

Here's a pic:
http://i63.tinypic.com/20qjjn6.jpg

[Big Al]

Yep, like others have said, they are dated today and the past weeks.
And I wiped them and there are 5 new ones.

[Delrio]

Now that I have modified about:config telemetry I don't see any at all.

[Big Al]

Yep, that works here too. I just made a copy of prefs.js just in case.

[VanguardLH]

Delrio wrote:

> On 10-Nov-2015 16:44, VanguardLH wrote:
>
>> Options -> Advanced -> Data Choices
>> I have all of those deselected.
>

> I have every telemetry disabled and it's still doing it.

With my settings for Firefox, and within a single session of Firefox (to
eliminate cleanup options on exit), and after visiting 580 sites in my
Bookmarks while figuring maybe a third were for duplicate domains (but
different entry points) so that's about 380 domains, there were no new
files created in my ping folder.

> After shutting down FF there's an entry appearing in that folder for
> every site you visit.

Doesn't happen for me. Of course, there are most likely other settings
for Firefox that I changed and are different from what you changed.

[»Q«]

In
<news:mailman.6246.144719501...@lists.mozilla.org>,

Delrio <Del...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

> >>> Big Al wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> The new FF 64bit 42.0 has this folder and tons of files.
> >>>> %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default\saved-telemetry-pings

> The only way I found to stop it is to change to false and remove all
> url in about:config telemetry.

Setting toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled to false is sufficient.

[Delrio]

Actually I found a better solution. I uninstalled Firefox. :-)

[EE]

What folder?

[Delrio]

See Big Al's post.

[EE]

I do not have one of those. I guess I disabled telemetry in time to
avoid it.

[Christian Riechers]

It isn't sufficient here.
Setting the pref to false still creates a new file underneath
saved-telemetry-pings upon shutting down Firefox.
FF 42, Linux

[»Q«]

In
<news:mailman.6320.144727596...@lists.mozilla.org>,

AFAICT, the pref change doesn't take effect until Fx is restarted, so
you should expect one more file to be created after the toggle. If
that pref really turns out not to be sufficient for you (it is for me),
you could also toggle toolkit.telemetry.unified to false; likely that
doesn't take effect until after a restart also.

> FF 42, Linux

Same here.

[Christian Riechers]

On 11/11/2015 10:18 PM, »Q« wrote:
> In
> <news:mailman.6320.144727596...@lists.mozilla.org>,
> Christian Riechers <chrie...@netscape.net.invalid> wrote:
>
>> On 11/11/2015 08:53 PM, »Q« wrote:
>>> In
>>> <news:mailman.6246.144719501...@lists.mozilla.org>,
>>> Delrio <Del...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>>>>>>> Big Al wrote:
>>>>>>>> The new FF 64bit 42.0 has this folder and tons of files.
>>>>>>>> %appdata%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default\saved-telemetry-pings
>>>>
>>>> The only way I found to stop it is to change to false and remove
>>>> all url in about:config telemetry.
>>>
>>> Setting toolkit.telemetry.archive.enabled to false is sufficient.
>>
>> It isn't sufficient here.
>> Setting the pref to false still creates a new file underneath
>> saved-telemetry-pings upon shutting down Firefox.
>
> AFAICT, the pref change doesn't take effect until Fx is restarted, so
> you should expect one more file to be created after the toggle. If
> that pref really turns out not to be sufficient for you (it is for me),
> you could also toggle toolkit.telemetry.unified to false; likely that
> doesn't take effect until after a restart also.
>
>> FF 42, Linux
>
> Same here.

Toggling toolkit.telemetry.unified to false; as well did the trick.
Thanks for that information.

[Big Al]

I found on winapp2.com a winapp2.ini file, an expanded config for CCleaner, that includes an entry to delete those
telemetry files. It also includes a ton of other patches, and you could just isolate the one entry via notepad or such.

I found it interesting and as much as I deleted 70% of the entries in the file, I kept a fair # of them and have
expanded CCleaner to delete a lot more stuff. My normal passes usually deleted a max of ~500meg. This first pass
with the expanded ini deleted 1.7 Gig.

However after all the comments I did find those changes in about:config to kill the telemetry files at the source.

[VanguardLH]

Big Al wrote:

> Big Al wrote:
>
>> The new FF 64bit 42.0 has this folder and tons of files.
>> C:\Users\Alan\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxx.default\saved-telemetry-pings
>

> I found on winapp2.com a winapp2.ini file, an expanded config for
> CCleaner, that includes an entry to delete those telemetry files.
> It also includes a ton of other patches, and you could just isolate
> the one entry via notepad or such.

Actually you do not need to employ the .ini file to clean that folder.
Just go into CCleaner's options and add the folder to the Include
settings. You can elect to delete just files under a path, files and
subfolders under a path, or the files, subfolders, and folder itself.
In this case, I would probably just go with deleting files and
subfolders (since I don't know if Firefox will automatically recreate a
missing folder it expects to use which could cause a program error if
not coded to handle).

For example, I added an entry to delete files and subfolders under the
path where IE stores its DOM Storage. Just in case purging DOM Storage
as part of the cleanup on exit did not work, CCleaner will nuke it. I
also have a media streaming capture program that keeps adding a
subfolder under My Documents and leaves behind a history of download
URLs although it is configured not to save history, so I add those paths
to CCleaner to also include them in a cleanup.

One feature I've asked to add to CCleaner is that its Include feature
not only let me list paths in the file system to include in cleanup but
also registry entries. Either it would let me specify the registry key
to delete or specify its subkeys to delete or just the data items under
a key or it would let me specify "reg.exe delete <key>/<item>" entries
to have CCleaner use the reg.exe program to do the registry cleanup.

[Mathias Korber]

On 11/11/15 3:05, Big Al wrote:

> I know we're aware and fearful of telemetry in Windows 10, has FF gone
> over to the dark side too?

"what immortal hand or eye / Could frame thy fearful telemetry?"


scnr

[»Q«]

In
<news:mailman.6325.144727769...@lists.mozilla.org>,

I'm glad that worked for you, but NB: toolkit.telemetry.unified has to
do with the merging of Firefox Health Report with telemetry, so once
they are sure they have everything merged and working, I expect
they'll completely removed the unmerged stuff and that pref will no
longer have any effect.

There's a bug for these files that are being created, in case anyone
wants to follow. <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1182805>