It’s very sad, but many software downloaders/ installers will trick you into installing not only their program, but other programs as well.

You have heard of the fine print in shady contracts, right? Well, some installers you need to look at the itsy bitsy teeny weeny fine print.

You are thinking you are giving the installer permission to install the program you want by using the recommended option. But if you use the Manual Option Instead, you discover all kinds of stuff that you do not even know what it is or what it does.

From now on, everyone needs to Use The Manual Option to put a stop to this.

Note that these programs can also change browser/computer settings.

You may have ad/mal-ware. Further information can be found in this article; https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-caused-malware?cache=no

Run most or all of the listed malware scanners. Each works differently. If one program misses something, another may pick it up.

Type about:addons<enter> in the address bar to open your Add-ons Manager. Hot key; <Control> (Mac=<Command>) <Shift> A)

In the Add-ons Manager, on the left, select Extensions. Make sure you know what each one is and what it does.

Hi omidsolo, where did you get the file you unarchived? Is that extension in the archive or did it install later as a system add-on?

If you haven't deleted it already, you should be able to find more info on the Troubleshooting Information page. Either:

• "3-bar" menu button > "?" Help > Troubleshooting Information
• (menu bar) Help > Troubleshooting Information
• type or paste about:support in the address bar and press Enter

Scroll down past "Application Basics" to the "Firefox Features" and "Extensions" tables.

Is it listed in either table? You can select and copy one or more rows of the table using either Ctrl+c or right-click > Copy and then paste it into a reply. It will be messy, but we're used it.

That GUID then could be queried in web results, the source code search site (DXR) or via the Add-ons site (I have it as an option in my extensions search page: https://www.jeffersonscher.com/sumo/extensions.php).

Thanks buddy, FF setup manual mode, just allows to not install FF Maintenance Service, which I also NEVER install. Nothing else.

Interesting is that inside FF about:addons that's NOT visible. I found it in CCleaner! I never install anything on my main PC except very few highly trusted software, this cannot be from out side, but from a recent FF update!

Where can I found a history of all recent FF updates? I think it's time to get back to an older version and keep it for a while.

Hi, I download the en-US x64 setup from: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/all/ Then using WinRAR, extract it to a folder, and remove "features" folder then install it. Well in about:support I found Firefox Features: Baidu Search Update! I'm extremely disappointed to see a Chinese crap thing is a FF Feature, and feel so bad about it, just wanna get back to an older version without it, in each version this was added?

What is the GUID of that extension?

Oh wait, I have it too:

Firefox Features Name Version ID Baidu Search Update 2.66 [email protected]

Beside that, I manually remove the whole "features" folder in setup and then install FF! Why it is installed then?!

I think someone messed up the regional system updates files in the process of trying to push out the Add-ons fix for Firefox 52-60. Ugh. It's really not logical for this to be in a file outside of the zh-CN locale (the only one that ships with a baidu search engine plugin).

Show me a non Chinese guy in the whole world that use a Chinese search engine! I'm sure they can embed it in the Chinese version of FF, but they should not embed this in the en-US version. And force install it?! Even with removing "features" folder this one is still installed. I don't want to be disrespecting but the fact is that most software made inside Ru/Cn has governmental back doors, this is the confess of a Chinese developer friend, he advise me always stay out of their software! Even if this is a simple search engine addon, I cannot have it on my work system. I'm going to find the latest version without this, Reinstall the whole Windows, and stay with that old version for as long as I can.

What you need to do to avoid a system add-on update after cleaning this out is disable system add-on updating. In about:config, that would be

extensions.systemAddon.update.enabled => false

Location on mine:

[profile]/features/{28668156-29e4-46ae-b839-9464a5537e7c}/[email protected]

This extension doesn't do anything if you don't already have a search engine plugin named 百度:

   let engine = Services.search.getEngineByName("\u767e\u5ea6");
   if (!engine) {
     return;
   }

If you are a Mr. Robot fan, the fact that this installed on 5/9 may ring a bell.

I filed a bug suggesting it needs to be recalled. No idea whether that is possible, but maybe there is some way to clean it.

well, thanks for the advise, I'm not a Mr. Robot fan as I'm not anti capitalism, that ideology never worked, I'm just anti communism. I think I should start going back here until I found a safe version: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/ Thanks for filling a bug report, if at some point it's fixed please let me know so I can update :)

See also: bug 1541316 - Ship Baidu searchplugin code update via SAO to Firefox 45+ bug 1548578 - Deploy Baidu code update addon

to Firefox 45+ ??!! Means need to get back to v44???!!!! That's also a security risk, what to do :(

The extension probably doesn't do anything because it check whether the Baidu ("百度") search engine is installed.

  overrideSearchEngine() {
    let engine = Services.search.getEngineByName("\u767e\u5ea6");
    if (!engine) {
      return;
    }

There are probably more SAO (system add-ons) that do nothing and only get active in specific cases.

Hi omidsolo, this is a system add-on installed via the regular system add-on installation system. In other words, it will be pulled into any recent version. You need to turn off system add-on updating to avoid it until it stops being available through that channel.

Thanks all, So that's a regular and perfectly normal add-on on the US version of FF?!

From what I've found: Perhaps they paid a lot to FF for that very normal behavior! And it won't get removed from FF.

I prefer to migrate to Chrome at all, let the right side to spy on us, rather than the dark side. Thanks everyone :)