Bug#865322: firefox-esr: after upgrade, firefox ignoreres configured helper apps and has n way of selecting it again

[Marc Lehmann]

Package: firefox-esr
Version: 52.2.0esr-1~deb9u1
Severity: normal

Dear Maintainer,

I upgraded firefox from a slightly older version in stretch/testing to the
version in stretch/stable.

For nzb files ("NewszBin usenet index"), I have a helper script,
/home/user/s2/tonzb, which handles them for me. I configured this once
years ago and firefox ever since used it to open nzb files.

After the upgrade, two things happened:

1. firefox now longer uses that script, nor does it offer it in the
   "Opening ..." dialog.
2. It seems impossible to select it - when I click on the "Open with" dropdown box,
   it's not there. When I click "Other...", I get another dialog box which
   offers me "Chromium Web Browser", as the single recommended application, which
   is a bit weird. Clicking "View All Applications" gives me a gian tlist of useless
   programs, such as "winebrowser" or "KTelnetBrowser" and even applciations with
   just an icon and no name, and only the options "Cancel" and "Select".

   Typing into this or the previous dialog box apparently allows me to
   search the useless list.

   There is no (apparent, at least for a tech-savvy person capable of
   basic googling) way to just select a program by path, or even programs
   in the PATH (tonzb is in firefox's PATH).

I would expect firefox (especially in Debian GNU/Linux) not to remove the
ability for users to specify their own helper applications. There probably
is a way by editing config files to get the desired outcome, but this
makes it a) extremely hard for expert users to customise their usage and
b) impossible for non-expert users to customise the downlaod action. This
is a regression.

-- Package-specific info:

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 9.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (990, 'stable'), (500, 'unstable'), (500, 'testing'), (1, 'experimental')
Architecture: amd64 (x86_64)
Foreign Architectures: i386

Kernel: Linux 4.4.47-040447-generic (SMP w/8 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=C, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8), LANGUAGE=C (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /usr/bin/bash
Init: systemd (via /run/systemd/system)

Versions of packages firefox-esr depends on:
ii  debianutils               4.8.1.1
ii  fontconfig                2.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libasound2                1.1.3-5
ii  libatk1.0-0               2.22.0-1
ii  libc6                     2.24-11+deb9u1
ii  libcairo-gobject2         1.14.8-1
ii  libcairo2                 1.14.8-1
ii  libdbus-1-3               1.10.18-1
ii  libdbus-glib-1-2          0.108-2
ii  libevent-2.0-5            2.0.21-stable-3
ii  libffi6                   3.2.1-6
ii  libfontconfig1            2.11.0-6.7+b1
ii  libfreetype6              2.6.3-3.2
ii  libgcc1                   1:6.3.0-18
ii  libgdk-pixbuf2.0-0        2.36.5-2
ii  libglib2.0-0              2.50.3-2
ii  libgtk-3-0                3.22.11-1
ii  libgtk2.0-0               2.24.31-2
ii  libhunspell-1.4-0         1.4.1-2+b2
ii  libjsoncpp1               1.7.4-3
ii  libpango-1.0-0            1.40.5-1
ii  libsqlite3-0              3.16.2-4
ii  libstartup-notification0  0.12-4+b2
ii  libstdc++6                6.3.0-18
ii  libvpx4                   1.6.1-3
ii  libx11-6                  2:1.6.4-3
ii  libx11-xcb1               2:1.6.4-3
ii  libxcb-shm0               1.12-1
ii  libxcb1                   1.12-1
ii  libxcomposite1            1:0.4.4-2
ii  libxdamage1               1:1.1.4-2+b3
ii  libxext6                  2:1.3.3-1+b2
ii  libxfixes3                1:5.0.3-1
ii  libxrender1               1:0.9.10-1
ii  libxt6                    1:1.1.5-1
ii  procps                    2:3.3.12-3
ii  zlib1g                    1:1.2.8.dfsg-5

firefox-esr recommends no packages.

Versions of packages firefox-esr suggests:
ii  fonts-lmodern          2.004.5-3
ii  fonts-stix [otf-stix]  1.1.1-4
ii  libcanberra0           0.30-3
ii  libgssapi-krb5-2       1.15-1
ii  mozplugger             1.14.5-2+b1
ii  otf-stix               1.1.1-1

-- no debconf information