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Firefox opens new tabs saying “We care about your privacy, look, LOOK!” every time you start, sometimes two of those tabs (release notes + privacy). I wish I co

Firefox opens new tabs saying “We care about your privacy, look, LOOK!” every time you start, sometimes two of those tabs (release notes + privacy). I wish I could just deactivate those built-in ads.

Semaphor 5y ago
Recently, they had this annoying modal ad (with no "close when clicking outside" feature) telling me that I can make my browser colorful. I care about web-health and containers is far too much of a must-have feature to make me switch, but I’m finally starting to get annoyed. Without containers, I’d probably bite the bullet and start using some chrome fork that doesn’t show me useless ads.
- ComputerGuru 5y ago
  Yes, I got that one too and was extremely perplexed that it didn’t close when I clicked outside it and I had to hunt the tiny x instead.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  I found the colored browser cool, but the infuriating part is that Firefox is deliberately only offering features for a limited time. And if I didn't want to pick a color, not being able to click outside to close would be annoying.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    Unlike many here, I don’t mind FF giving their browser more mass-appeal (here in Germany it’s still a major browser), so adding that color feature is fine. I just don’t need intrusive advertisement about it. It’s even worse for me, because I use FF on multiple machines and with several profiles, so I saw the ad over 10 times in total.
- ldng 5y ago
  Recently they also changed the urlbar to do a search when you type anything... even localhost. INFURIATING. To stay polite. Messed with about:config but did not find a way to disable that crap. So Chrome and FF are in the same boat: "UX" "designer" taking non-sensical decisions for the whimsical greater good.
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    I do not have this change.
    - berkes 5y ago
      Me neither. And this is the first time I've heard about it; such changes often raise a lot more havoc on the social media outlets. I presume grandparent has either hit a bug, has some unusual/untested about:config combination, or, most likely, an addon that broken.
  - pitay 5y ago
    I do not have this issue, but I have a very customized about settings. Here is the relevant about:config settings I have these changed for the URL bar: browser.urlbar.suggest.searches false browser.urlbar.searchSuggestionsChoice false browser.urlbar.showSearchSuggestionsFirst false Also for your urlbar you want to change it so it always shows the scheme and every part of the URL. browser.urlbar.trimURLs false Stop Firefox trying to help with incomplete urls and loading the wrong site: browser.fixup.alternate.enabled false Setting the above about:config entries should stop URLS you type being sent to a search engine and also stop some other surprises in the URL bar.
- berkes 5y ago
  The Settings have several checkboxes to switch of (or on): * Tips and News from Mozilla and Firefox * Recommendations while surfing * Recommend addons while surfing I'm not entirely sure what you saw that made you angry, but I'm pretty sure you can switch them off rather than abandon the entire browser. That goes for a lot of Firefox hate, I find: quite often people are ranting online about some new or removed feature, which they can dis- or enable easily in the settings. Or -a tad harder- in about:config. Or even a tad harder, with an addon. That makes me think those ranters don't really want their problem solved, but just want to vent some anger about X changing something that they are emotionally not ready to see changed.
  - egberts1 5y ago
    Firefox for iOS has NO about:config feature and a paltry amount of settings under Settings submenu.
    - zinekeller 5y ago
      Weirdest criticism I've heard. Either someone know it's all Safari in a skin (due to Apple's restriction), or someone didn't heard of this limitation.
      - tzs 5y ago
        How much does all iOS browsers being built on top of Safari actually limit what one can do? Obviously the actual page rendering and JavaScript executing would be Safari. But 99% of the time when I hear people advocating for browser X over browser Y it is not because X has better rendering or a better JS engine. It is because of higher level things, like containers (Firefox over Chrome) or better profile handling (Chrome over Firefox) or better spell checking (everything over Firefox). Does having to build on top of Safari on iOS also constrain those higher level things?
        zinekeller 5y ago
        > Does having to build on top of Safari on iOS also constrain those higher level things? Yes! > containers (Firefox over Chrome) No, they can't install add-ons (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-ios). Even if they could built this into the browser, they can't (see how the profiles are handled). > better profile handling (Chrome over Firefox) No, Chrome does not support this feature on iOS (https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en&co=GE...). iOS' WebKit limits this to only one permanent profile and one ephemeral profile. You can technically have multiple profiles in the iPad - that is, if you're a school, and that's really more of a OS-wide user account thing. (G did a hack over this by rewriting that profile when switching profiles - but it's not truly a multitask thing, and violates Apple Developer Guidelines). > better spell checking (everything over Firefox) No, and for more sensible reasons. Users do expect consistent spell checking because they use the keyboard to do that. Regardless, if you want to implement spell checking in-browser, that's impossible. If you want to do it outside of Safari, go ahead - it's just not integrated to those Apple things (more of a dedicated Grammarly interface rather than desktop spell checking).
beebeepka 5y ago
Baffling. You replied to my statement that you can easily change those with a rebuttal that you don't like the defaults
- laurent92 5y ago
  On the contrary, there is no option that says “Stop bugging the user with ads for Mozilla.” They keep coming back with another form of showing up (button in the top bar, label on the new tab experience, new tab experience itself, Mozilla login…) and you have to disable it again. It’s like spam when they use several Mailchimp accounts, reupload your email and tell you “but it’s easy to unsubscribe!”
- oefrha 5y ago
  Can I easily disable the post-update splash page telling me how great the latest Firefox is (or something like that)? I use developer edition to test Firefox compatibility of my webapps, I seem to get that a lot, and I really don’t care about that marketing.

Semaphor 5y ago

Recently, they had this annoying modal ad (with no "close when clicking outside" feature) telling me that I can make my browser colorful. I care about web-health and containers is far too much of a must-have feature to make me switch, but I’m finally starting to get annoyed. Without containers, I’d probably bite the bullet and start using some chrome fork that doesn’t show me useless ads.

ComputerGuru 5y ago
Yes, I got that one too and was extremely perplexed that it didn’t close when I clicked outside it and I had to hunt the tiny x instead.
nyanpasu64 5y ago
I found the colored browser cool, but the infuriating part is that Firefox is deliberately only offering features for a limited time. And if I didn't want to pick a color, not being able to click outside to close would be annoying.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  Unlike many here, I don’t mind FF giving their browser more mass-appeal (here in Germany it’s still a major browser), so adding that color feature is fine. I just don’t need intrusive advertisement about it. It’s even worse for me, because I use FF on multiple machines and with several profiles, so I saw the ad over 10 times in total.
ldng 5y ago
Recently they also changed the urlbar to do a search when you type anything... even localhost. INFURIATING. To stay polite. Messed with about:config but did not find a way to disable that crap. So Chrome and FF are in the same boat: "UX" "designer" taking non-sensical decisions for the whimsical greater good.
- Semaphor 5y ago
  I do not have this change.
  - berkes 5y ago
    Me neither. And this is the first time I've heard about it; such changes often raise a lot more havoc on the social media outlets. I presume grandparent has either hit a bug, has some unusual/untested about:config combination, or, most likely, an addon that broken.
- pitay 5y ago
  I do not have this issue, but I have a very customized about settings. Here is the relevant about:config settings I have these changed for the URL bar: browser.urlbar.suggest.searches false browser.urlbar.searchSuggestionsChoice false browser.urlbar.showSearchSuggestionsFirst false Also for your urlbar you want to change it so it always shows the scheme and every part of the URL. browser.urlbar.trimURLs false Stop Firefox trying to help with incomplete urls and loading the wrong site: browser.fixup.alternate.enabled false Setting the above about:config entries should stop URLS you type being sent to a search engine and also stop some other surprises in the URL bar.
berkes 5y ago
The Settings have several checkboxes to switch of (or on): * Tips and News from Mozilla and Firefox * Recommendations while surfing * Recommend addons while surfing I'm not entirely sure what you saw that made you angry, but I'm pretty sure you can switch them off rather than abandon the entire browser. That goes for a lot of Firefox hate, I find: quite often people are ranting online about some new or removed feature, which they can dis- or enable easily in the settings. Or -a tad harder- in about:config. Or even a tad harder, with an addon. That makes me think those ranters don't really want their problem solved, but just want to vent some anger about X changing something that they are emotionally not ready to see changed.
- egberts1 5y ago
  Firefox for iOS has NO about:config feature and a paltry amount of settings under Settings submenu.
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    Weirdest criticism I've heard. Either someone know it's all Safari in a skin (due to Apple's restriction), or someone didn't heard of this limitation.
    - tzs 5y ago
      How much does all iOS browsers being built on top of Safari actually limit what one can do? Obviously the actual page rendering and JavaScript executing would be Safari. But 99% of the time when I hear people advocating for browser X over browser Y it is not because X has better rendering or a better JS engine. It is because of higher level things, like containers (Firefox over Chrome) or better profile handling (Chrome over Firefox) or better spell checking (everything over Firefox). Does having to build on top of Safari on iOS also constrain those higher level things?
      - zinekeller 5y ago
        > Does having to build on top of Safari on iOS also constrain those higher level things? Yes! > containers (Firefox over Chrome) No, they can't install add-ons (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-ios https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/add-ons-firefox-ios). Even if they could built this into the browser, they can't (see how the profiles are handled). > better profile handling (Chrome over Firefox) No, Chrome does not support this feature on iOS (https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en&co=GENIE.Platform%3DiOS https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en&co=GE...). iOS' WebKit limits this to only one permanent profile and one ephemeral profile. You can technically have multiple profiles in the iPad - that is, if you're a school, and that's really more of a OS-wide user account thing. (G did a hack over this by rewriting that profile when switching profiles - but it's not truly a multitask thing, and violates Apple Developer Guidelines). > better spell checking (everything over Firefox) No, and for more sensible reasons. Users do expect consistent spell checking because they use the keyboard to do that. Regardless, if you want to implement spell checking in-browser, that's impossible. If you want to do it outside of Safari, go ahead - it's just not integrated to those Apple things (more of a dedicated Grammarly interface rather than desktop spell checking).

beebeepka 5y ago

Baffling. You replied to my statement that you can easily change those with a rebuttal that you don't like the defaults

laurent92 5y ago
On the contrary, there is no option that says “Stop bugging the user with ads for Mozilla.” They keep coming back with another form of showing up (button in the top bar, label on the new tab experience, new tab experience itself, Mozilla login…) and you have to disable it again. It’s like spam when they use several Mailchimp accounts, reupload your email and tell you “but it’s easy to unsubscribe!”
oefrha 5y ago
Can I easily disable the post-update splash page telling me how great the latest Firefox is (or something like that)? I use developer edition to test Firefox compatibility of my webapps, I seem to get that a lot, and I really don’t care about that marketing.