Comment by cortic | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cortic | Hacker News Reader

My advice; stop reinventing the wheel, and if you must reinvent the wheel, make sure its at least as round as the last one.

I've been using FF since Netscape, and it used to be a few settings and we're off. Now, you have to edit policies.json to get updates stopped, autoconfig.js and firefox.cfg to disable telemetry, legacyUserProfileCustomizations to use userChrome.css to get anything like a proper menu system.

'Lockwise' has dumbed down the login system so much you can't even change field names, making many sites incompatible. Nor can you import logins from file or even point to installations to import. The add-ons system is like traveling back in time ten years, bugs and fewer alternatives than ever, still can't figure out how to stop Tree Style Tabs from stealing mouse focus from the page onmouseover like a widget. -And these are problems that were fixed before they were reinvented.

For the first time in 16 years I'm seriously trying alternatives.

-these were my views on 83, i hope to hell 84 fixes some of them.

> autoconfig.js and firefox.cfg to disable telemetry

You can change this in the configuration dialog, and once disabled, that setting will be preserved through Firefox upgrades. You shouldn't need to change this repeatedly.

> legacyUserProfileCustomizations to use userChrome.css to get anything like a proper menu system.

By "proper menu system", do you mean having the menu bar always visible? You can enable that with View->Toolbars->Menu Bar.

> you have to edit policies.json to get updates stopped

Doing so would result in running an outdated and potentially insecure browser.

> can change this in the configuration dialog,

The options in config were greyed out in 83.

> "proper menu system", do you mean..

The ability to make multi tier menu with icons or text instead of both

>Doing so would result in running an outdated

Doing so would result in a stable system that wouldn't just randomly disable all addons from working, security related addons at that.

> The options in config were greyed out in 83.

I'm running Firefox 83, and those options are still available. It's critically important that Firefox support disabling telemetry.

If you've edited those options via one of the lower-level preference systems, such as autoconfig.js, you may have locked them, which would cause them to show up as greyed out.

about:config and search toolkit.telemetry.enabled I checked on a fresh 83 and its greyed out.

You need to create the file firefox.cfg in install Dir and enter lockPref("toolkit.telemetry.enabled", false); To override it And to get that to work you need to create /defaults/pref/autoconfig.js with pref("general.config.obscure_value", 0); and pref("general.config.filename", "firefox.cfg.js");

Its getting harder and harder to make a good browser out of FF, I personally don't mind the work, but things like Lockwise replacing a working password manager without the needed options and no addons to fix it or workarounds, i can see it messing up fields in PasswordFox but can no longer do anything about it.

You seem to be diving directly to the low-level settings. I don't know why those would be locked, but the telemetry checkboxes in the UI work just fine, and aren't disabled. And once disabled, they'll stay disabled. Firefox is never going to prevent people from disabling telemetry.

>Doing so would result in running an outdated and potentially insecure browser. //

No thanks.

MS pulled that shit.

It's _my_ computer. That's a principal reason I installed Phoenix in the first place.

I don't auto-update because people running projects do what for me are stupid things like break all the add-ons, knock holes through my adblocking, remove key settings, add non-removable addons, etc., etc., and they do it without warning or option.

Not to mention the UI changes which annoy and confuse elders that I support.

I don't have time for supporting forced beta testers (family & friends, I'm a home user) so auto-update stays off for projects that think it's their device one is using.

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