Path: csiph.com!weretis.net!feeder8.news.weretis.net!reader5.news.weretis.net!news.solani.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com>
Newsgroups: alt.comp.software.firefox
Subject: Re: policies.json
Date: Wed, 29 Apr 2026 11:47:14 +0100
Organization: Frantic
Message-ID: <82zf2m59hp.fsf@example.com>
References: <10sin49$tkil$2@dont-email.me> <10sj6tg$10uuo$5@dont-email.me> <10ssk79$3qbto$3@toylet.eternal-september.org> <n5e33fFedvlU1@mid.individual.net>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit
Injection-Info: solani.org; logging-data="1222677"; mail-complaints-to="abuse@news.solani.org"
User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13)
Cancel-Lock: sha1:LVA3udlzZeIBFfSwYypmOCLIDKM= sha1:7zI1I0PF3evBJ1BzAnVTVeJsACc=
X-User-ID: eJwFwYkBwCAIBLCVtPdQxxGU/UcwETxdQctUq6nqaZx1G/m1cPa+GI4AyT99JrPgxRUagw8dBxB2
Xref: csiph.com alt.comp.software.firefox:16931

Andy Burns <usenet@andyburns.uk> writes:

> Mr. Man-wai Chang wrote:
>
>> The Real Bev wrote:
>>
>>> cat -A distribution/policies.json         ;reveals ^M corruption
>>> echo '{"policies":{"DisableAppUpdate":true}}' > policies.json ;fixes it
>>> about:policies                     ;confirms "Active"
>>>
>>> I did the same for Thunderbird and then marked both files read-only.
>> I think it's those carriage return and line feed characters
>> thing. Linux *TEXT* file format is a bit different from WinDOS.
> Except the json spec specifically states that no whitespace characters
> are significant (outside of quote marks).

If anyone had the patience they could test this theory (that an update
to firefox caused LF to be replaced with CRLF, by creating a new linux
user, downloading the previous version of firefox, unpacking it locally,
creating a json file, creating a backup of it, then allowing firefox to
update itself, then comparing the json files. Then, if necessary, report
the results on Bugzilla.

Note that linux line terminator is LF not CR (as someone said upthread).