'Stylish' the Firefox addon - why is this installed?

[unprinted]

As per the title, what useful function has it?

I am having huge problems with Firefox 26.0 repeatedly crashing. Firefox 25.0 also did that, until the 25.0.1 release. If the latter were still in the repositories, I'd have gone back to that weeks ago.

More than one user on the same PC has the same problems with Firefox 26.0 and we have just three plugins in common: AdBlock Plus, Flashblock and Stylish. Thinking about it, I do not have these problems with Firefox 26.0 on the netbooks running Xbuntu, even though they have AdBlock Plus and Flashblock installed. It doesn't fall over on a Windows 7 PC with those two either.

So... if it is an addon to blame, it's highly likely to be Stylish. I have not set up anything from userstyles.org (I can't even see how to!) so why is it installed? What's it doing?

I am not happy that the 'Mint Search Enhancer' is installed in the way that it is, and again here, if I want to remove Stylish, two meta packages would be removed too.

[Flemur]

If the latter were still in the repositories, I'd have gone back to that weeks ago.

"You can get anything you want at" ...
https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org ... /releases/

I am not happy that the 'Mint Search Enhancer' is installed in the way that it is, and again here, if I want to remove Stylish, two meta packages would be removed too.

I just deleted the files for both those (don't recall where they were.. /lib... /opt...?), and "/etc/firefox*" ;
I'm using FF installs from the above link.

FWIW, FF26 (and 18) works fine here with M16 and 12 add-ons ...one glitch is that it shows the add-ons disabled, but they're not (that went away when I updated one of them before, didn't happen this time - I keep switching between 18 and 26, staying with 26).

[unprinted]

"You can get anything you want at" ... ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

You can indeed, but as you can see from the thread about 'downgrading' to 25.0.1, installing from the .bz2 archives there is not as simple as downloading a .deb and doing

sudo -i whatever.deb

.. and you risk breaking the Debian package system's idea of what is installed where. I've done that in the past, and it's not a good thing to do.

I just deleted the files for both those (don't recall where they were.. /lib... /opt...?), and "/etc/firefox*" ;

dpkg -L

shows what they are, and I am slightly happier doing this. I just think I shouldn't have to.

[Flemur]

You can indeed, but as you can see from the thread about 'downgrading' to 25.0.1, installing from the .bz2 archives there is not as simple as downloading a .deb and doing
sudo -i whatever.deb

It's about a half-step harder - just extract the archive (from firefox/*) into /usr/lib/firefox/.

What they're saying about /opt in that thread is, I think, wrong, and made to sound more difficult than it is, because I have (before any changes, and currently):
/home/lemur : which firefox
/usr/bin/firefox
/home/lemur : ls -l `which firefox`
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 25 Nov 15 04:59 /usr/bin/firefox -> ../lib/firefox/firefox.sh

There's no "firefox.sh" in the archive file, so I just leave the old one there. The menu stuff still works without any fiddling.

[unprinted]

OK, fine, if you say so, but why does LinuxMint insist on installing Stylish? What are they doing with it?

I know the answer for the 'search enhancer' - attempting to make money. Is it the same here?

[MikeF90000]

OK, fine, if you say so, but why does LinuxMint insist on installing Stylish? What are they doing with it?
I know the answer for the 'search enhancer' - attempting to make money. Is it the same here?

The package description claims it resolves some issues:
This is the Stylish add-on for Firefox, including a fix for Shiki and the awesome bar, and tweaked not to annoy the user with a first-run page.

Another very important reason to examine the package mint-stylish-addon are the major changes to Firefox with version 29.
I need an up-to-date version of Stylish to use an important (for me) style that improves bookmark usability.

I have also updated this Launchpad bug report:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/linuxmint/+bug/890355

Someone needs to get the attention of the Linux Mint devs on this!

TIA, Mike

[MikeF90000]

Sad to say, LM 17 XFCE (the last spin) still has the ancient, broken version of Stylish.
Easy to replace but still, why not fix the package?

[krow7]

The first thing I did on installing Linux Mint 17 was remove stylish completely.

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge mint-stylish-addon

[unprinted]

The downside is that also involves removing mint-meta-mate (2014.05.20) and mint-meta-core (2014.05.20), two 'these are collections of packages that make up Mint' packages. This may have implications when you upgrade.

[eanfrid]

Meta-packages are empty informative packages. They can be removed without harm. I don't have any "mint-meta-something" and removed "stylish" a long time ago...

7323147b6b9bf2.png

[krow7]

Thanks for sharing the code. For the life of me, I cannot understand why mint installed this piece of crap.

Welcome!
They install it to theme Firefox into green (Mint) color: some selections, and download notification, etc... if i remember correctly. Unfortunately their version of plug-in is custom and (I guess) hence outdated.

[cockney]

Dear Mr. Linux Mint,

Y U NO remove this crap!?!?!?

I really like both Linux Mint and the Stylish addon. I rely on it in my everyday web usage. But with this defunctional addon preinstalled I cannot use Stylish.

Here's how you get rid of it without breaking package dependencies:

1. Open terminal and type: sudo nemo
2. GoTo /opt/firefox/extensions
3. DELETE EVERYTHING
4. GoTo /usr/lib/firefox/extensions and repeat step 3
5. GoTo /usr/lib/firefox-addons/extensions
6. Don't delete everything here! Just {46551EC9-40F0-4e47-8E18-8E5CF550CFB8} and the search "enhancer" (if u want to, yes u do!)
7. PROFIT!

[jefboyardee]

The only reason I use Stylish is to enable 'Sidebar without size restrictions,' to make my sidebar really narrow.

https://userstyles.org/styles/902/firef ... strictions

[krow7]

....Here's how you get rid of it without breaking package dependencies....

Code: Select all

sudo apt-get purge mint-stylish-addon

This command removes Mint Stylish add-on (which comes per-installed) but it does not remove any dependencies, it only removes meta packages! These packages do not do anything on your system.

"Meta packages do not contain actual software, they simply depend on other packages to be installed. This setup allows entire sets of software to be installed by selecting only the appropriate metapackage. For example, an Ubuntu user can install the Kubuntu environment (KDE and all its associated programs) by selecting "kubuntu-desktop." - read here more https://help.ubuntu.com/community/MetaPackages

Examples of Mint meta packages - mint-meta-cinnamon, mint-meta-mate, mint-meta-core...

The only reason I use Stylish is to enable 'Sidebar without size restrictions,' to make my sidebar really narrow.

This is a thread about per-installed Stylish Mint add-on. But thanks for useful info (didn't know that stylish could do that)!

[Laugh2]

Hi unprinted,

are you still following this? Did removing Stylish (and perhaps the Mint Search Enhancer) resolve your original problem with Firefox crashing?

In case it didn't solve the problem, try turning off "hardware accelation" (if it's on). I had lots of problems with FF crashing even in "safe" mode and/or add-ons/extensions removed - until I turned off hardware acceleration. Apparently there are issues with hardware acceleration and FF on linux. (I found some posts about this elsewhere.) Once I turned hardware acceleration off, FF was again the stable browser it usually is. It can be turned off at Preferences/Advanced/General.

(It's a pity not to be able to use hardware acceleration on laptops as it helps spread the load between CPU and GPU. This in turns reduces the CPU temperature and slows the fan, which gets loud esp. when watching vidoes, TV, and movies. The GPU can also run at higher temps, so there is a double gain in reducing the laptop's CPU temperature.)

[oldgranola]

I had become concerned about an add-on or extension appearing without my intention and there not being an obvious way to remove it from the addon tab. That is very creepy to me. I don't like it. I want more control over such things on principle even if some people think its a 'cool' addon. We have a comprimized windows laptop which from time to time has the browsers hijacked and a bunch of malware-addons installed even though I've worked fairly hard to rid it of stuff. Clearly in deep doodoo on that machine. So I don't like much auto updating so much. I do install recomended LM security updates but not much else unless I feel I need to. So my question is why is this hapenning at all? I was told it was from a github update. No like. Why does this or any unintended app or addon appear on my browser? yes easy enough to remove via command line but I'd prefer just not to have to deal with someone elses push.

[krow7]

Hello oldgranola!
mint-search-addon is installed to monetize all the searches.
Although if I a not wrong some search engine monetization is built in anyway (even if this add-on is removed) - as the search engine links are added/updated from Linux Mint website... BUT this is completely understandable, the project cannot survive on donations alone. I think many distros do this though.
mint-stylish-addon was supposed to solve some FF appearance color glitch (or change search page appearance? not sure). Any way, its looks fine/better (in case of search page) even after removing this plug-in.

This bugs me too, to be honest. But then not every Debian based distro can boast relatively new software and everything working almost perfectly out of the box (and without Unity! ) . So its a small price to pay.
If you like vanilla Gnome or KDE you can also try Tanglu. Great distro, fresh software and yet as quick as Debian. If only they had Mate out of the box... (not a fan of reconfiguring stuff).

On the bright side, Betsy is coming to Linux Mint soon!