# What is firefox upto?

## Gentree

Hi, 

I have just started using firefox 35 on a new gentoo installation and I see it spamming the console with msgs like this at the rate of about 2 / second. 

```
ADB server didn't ACK

* failed to start daemon *

* daemon not running. starting it now on port 5037 *

```

What is it up to ?!

TIA, Gentree.   :Cool: 

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## v_andal

Are you sure it is from Firefox? ADB is a tool for accessing Android devices. Normally it is part of Android SDK.

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## Gentree

Well it dumps to the terminal window where I start firefox and it stops when I close firefox, so it's what's called circumstantial evidence.  :Wink: 

It may be page on FF or a plug-in, rather than FF itself. I have not looked any closer yet.

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## SirRobin2318

Maybe something like this?

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/android-debug-bridge-for-fi/

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## Gentree

Thanks, that kind of thing looks like a security nightmare. 

What worries me is that something like this , whatever it turn out to be, is running a freshly installed firefox without any user added extensions. 

 :Confused: 

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## Gentree

I just found this from the troubleshooting option on the help menu.

```
Extensions

Name    Version    Enabled    ID

ADB Helper   0.7.4   true   adbhelper@mozilla.org

Valence   0.3.0   true   fxdevtools-adapters@mozilla.org
```

This option does not seem to be configurable run-time. Maybe there is a complier switch to disable. 

This is ff 35 built from source, It is no longer one of the versions in the main tree. 

```
[ebuild     U  ] www-client/firefox-37.0.2::gentoo [35.0::gentoo] USE="bindist hardened minimal -custom-cflags -custom-optimization -dbus -debug (-gmp-autoupdate) -gstreamer (-pgo) -pulseaudio (-selinux) -startup-notification -system-cairo -system-icu -system-jpeg -system-libvpx -system-sqlite {-test} -wifi (-jit%)" LINGUAS="en_GB fr -af -ar -as -ast -be -bg -bn_BD -bn_IN -br -bs -ca -cs -cy -da -de -el -en_ZA -eo -es_AR -es_CL -es_ES -es_MX -et -eu -fa -fi -fy_NL -ga_IE -gd -gl -gu_IN -he -hi_IN -hr -hu -hy_AM -id -is -it -ja -kk -km -kn -ko -lt -lv -mai -mk -ml -mr -nb_NO -nl -nn_NO -or -pa_IN -pl -pt_BR -pt_PT -rm -ro -ru -si -sk -sl -son -sq -sr -sv_SE -ta -te -th -tr -uk -vi -xh -zh_CN -zh_TW" 175,423 KiB

```

looks like we get the devtools.webide.ADBAddon whether we want it or not.  :Sad: 

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## toralf

 *Gentree wrote:*   

> looks like we get the devtools.webide.ADBAddon whether we want it or not. 

 ? Whxy do you think so ? about:plugins doesn't show anything in that direction here and Tools-Add on neither do it. for ff 37.0.2

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## Gentree

Which precisely why I say we get it whether we want it or not. It is not an user installable plugin nor is it even enabled/disabled from about:config.

Neither is it a compiler option AFAIKS. 

ie we  get it whether we want it or not. 

It spams the console because gentoo is light enough not to have whatever is was counting on to get a sneaky connection to mozilla HQ. What data it would like to transmit about my system I have not established but I don't like this sort of thing. 

I'm currently building ff-37 which will probably take most of the weekend, but I doubt this 'feature' will be any different. 

The profile indicated "developer version" so that may be the reason. I don't see why the Gentoo build is providing a dev version nor how to get a vanilla one that may not have spyware activated.

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