I don’t even want to use it “disabled”, I just don’t want to have uBlock on my system. That’s bloodware (3rd party apps that are preinstalled and even further that are hard to remove). A practice I usually just know from Microsoft Windows and similar.
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Just to be pedantic, “bloodware” may refer to software made using torture, human sacrifice, killing of innocents or sucking someones neck to regain life energy (I assume to code through the night) 
“Bloatware” was coined to refer to software that was mostly unusable, unnecessary and unwanted - and sometimes unremovable. These can be thought of as the latter, but as these are more useable than what the MS, Android, Apple et al. add/ed, and because those do provide security and privacy features (which you apparently do not want), the term (either one) seems a bit of an exaggeration - though I agree, user should have easier option to de-select them 
But all kidding aside, more importantly, I am left to wonder, if you might be doing yourself a disservice by removing them, as that may differentiate you from other users and make your online fingerprint more specific (something that Tor-browser model is trying to avoid)…? It may not matter for your use-case, of course. See also: https://coveryourtracks.eff.org/
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if it is as I suspect, installed from a package then:
- uninstalling the package(s) should solve this
- prevent the re-installation of the extensions if the package gets updated
dpkg -S /path/to/file/or/dir
should indicate which dpkg owns the files or dirs, and help figuring this out…
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That missing my point of view. It’s already an issue that we need such methods.
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My point is about discovery: is it REALLY a package installed by default or is it included in some other way? Trying to find some actual facts before making any other judgement call.
Further more my opinion does differ from yours if it is indeed just a simple package that’s installed by default: uninstall it, and it’s done. You as the owner of a device running PureOS (or Debian etc) have this power and ability.
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And than more and more things are Preinstalled “that I just can uninstall”, but where I take 2 days work at some point. I also still don’t know how to remove keyring and GNOME web. I don’t want to search for every single thing what’s the specific uninstall behavior. It’s already an issue that apps got renamed and I have to search for the package name before I can apt remove.
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Oh well. Some day someone will dare run the command or answer if the extensions are indeed installed by some extra packages and then maybe we can make some progress on this (I don’t have pureOS or a computer capable of running Crimson at the moment, L5 could I suppose I’m not sure if it’s setup the same way).
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Doesn’t PureOS on the Librem 5 use a policies.json file to pre-configure the browser profiles and install the specified extensions on startup?
Personally, I use scripts to periodically delete everything in ~/.mozilla/firefox/ and recreate my profiles with my own custom configurations, including a user.js file and the extensions of my choice. I think my configurations override the policies.json file set by PureOS, and I’ve never noticed any issues.
Also, I’ve noticed that Privacy Badger has been recommended against for several years now in various privacy communities, since the heuristics feature can be used for tracking (ironic) and the blocking feature is better handled by uBlock Origin. Why install both? Redundancy in this case seems counter-productive.
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If I’m not mistaken, I think I’ve sometimes noticed trackers being caught by Privacy Badger that I didn’t see (or didn’t know how to see) in the uBO panel.
In my case, I want as much redundancy as possible: strict browser settings + NoScript + uBO + Privacy Badger + VPN w/DNS filtering and Network Lock (and/or Pi-hole). 
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Here is the output:
dpkg -S /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}
webext-ublock-origin-firefox, webext-privacy-badger, firefox-esr: /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}
This is after I already deleted the folders within the directory.
both webext-ublock-origin-firefox and webext-privacy-badger are installed because of pureos-webext package.
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Thank you for the hints, I successfully removed pureos-webext, fonts-open-sans, webext-privacy-badger and webext-ublock-origin-firefox. Here is the new output:
dpkg -S /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}
firefox-esr: /usr/share/mozilla/extensions/{ec8030f7-c20a-464f-9b0e-13a3a9e97384}
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Great! So at least there’s a clear source to these extensions which is the packages, as is it is Byzantium and other Oses. and they can be removed. Thanks @FranklyFlawless foe checking it out and @Moon3 for the additional info.
And moreover there’s now a clear target if someone thinks those shouldn’t be installed by default, to send feedback to Purism.
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With the Purism philosophy of “the power of defaults”, it may be a difficult sell that these extensions should not be installed by default, particularly as it is now straightforward for the owner of the device to uninstall the packages.
There is however always going to be a diversity of opinions about the dividing line between “defaults” and “bloat”.
This is not the recommended approach. However if you frequently blow away your entire disk contents and reflash then it won’t really matter.
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Agreed, however I was trying to bring the discussion beyond calls that that “purism should do something about it”, to at least understanding what is happening and empowering the user to handle their situation (though they appear overwhelmed at all that needs to be learned at this point in time… Have to take it step by step, @Ick 
)
Agreed, uninstalling the packages is the better approach in this case.
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Right, but I am more concerned about the message that Purism is sending to new PureOS users if this issue remains unaddressed.
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Agreed. Freedom of choise is what Purism always advertises.
This should also apply for plug-ins and/or extensions.
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While I disagree that the current situation is bad – after all, you own your device and can change it using sudo and remove packages, you have that freedom and choice.
I did some thinking and concluded that it IS possible to do what is proposed here, and if anyone believes it strongly they should address it (at the source - Debian, who provide these webext packages…)
Case in point, the browserpass extension requires a “native client”, some kind of software that communicates between the extension and the command line pass util.
Their Makefile has a few options, namely to install it for all users or for the user (and I believe, though not sure, it applies for all profiles of a user). The Makefile symlinks the policies etc files in the appropriate locations to accomplish this.
Would this apply to Firefox extensions as well? I’m unsure. I will not research this further as I am happy with the situation as is (apt remove webext-...), but thought I’d share the knowledge anyway
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Who said that the current situation is bad? But it could be a beginning of “we know better what you need” and at some point we also take 2 days to remove bad defaults. For new people it’s may even impossible at some point. Not because they have not the power to control it, but because it becomes more and more complicated to do so.
It starts with an addon here and an addon there and some time later in worst case you have a filter deep into system that blocks internet traffic systeme wide for privacy and security purpose - but with many issues (like website that does not send data to users with filters). You still own and control your system, but you may have troubles to follow 10 steps to uninstall that may also break things if done in a wrong way. PureOS is also made for non-tech-people.
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Yes, we’ve seen that before i.e. sudo apt remove onepackage and getting prompted with: this command will also remove “list of seemingly important packages”, and user won’t be sure whether to go ahead, and things might break if the user does go ahead, and then user won’t have sufficient knowledge to fix up the mess.
However ultimately your post is a “slippery slope” argument. The slope may or may not be slippery.
It is also getting away from what the OP actually asked … which was for easier removal, rather than that those extensions are not installed at all.
In my opinion, I would lay down solid markers for what Purism should pre-install or use as default settings e.g.
- core phone functionality (e.g. Calls, Chatty, Contacts), or
- clear, realistic security or privacy benefits
- and with an easy way of changing.
Ideally this would be covered by documentation e.g. if Purism wants to install a firewall by default then this should be documented and the appropriate command for getting rid of it should be documented. It might be that we end up writing that documentation.
But we are not all going to agree on what should be pre-installed. For example, I run Privacy Badger on my big computers anyway so I am happy for Purism to pre-install it on my phone (although I have been using Epiphany more than Firefox anyway).
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