Wherever I setup a new VM/PC and install FF, I always have to reset so many things:
Standard search SearXNG/DDG
New tab = blank page (privacy, no 3rd party request on new tab opening)
Delete Amazon, Google, etc ( out of spite)
Opt-out of analytics and studies
Change theme to dark
Add shortcut for other searches
Install ublock origin and ublock matrix (apparently redundant now, but I like visiting websites and blocking everything by default. Looking at you google analytics/fonts/etc.)
delete cookies on Exit
HYTPS only enable
add DNS (if not inside my network where it is handled on router level)
I'm so confused by this thread.
Standard search, sure, okay. Not a big deal. But I never had sponsored links appear, it also does not come with Amazon or Google "installed"? What does that even mean? Search bars? Plugins? The theme also gets switched depending on my system settings, as it is set to auto by default.
Is this like a Windows exclusive thing? Or geolocated US / outside EU thing?
FYI you can just copy over the settings directory to port all your config/passwords/bookmarks/profiles/history. On Linux it’s in the ~/.mozilla directory, on Windows it’s somewhere in the user directory, AppData specifically IIRC.
That's a Linux (and similar) issue. When Linux updates via it's package managers it will update Firefox in the background even though it's open. Firefox then forces you to close it rather than open other tabs to prevent problems.
But you don't have to install Firefox via the package managers or flathub. You can build it yourself or install a binary manually and I believe it well self update as it does on other platforms. I haven't done it for a while though.
Otherwise manually control Linux updates so it doesn't mess with Firefox when you're in the middle of something important.
Edit: the exception on Windows would be if some other software is handling firefox's updates or there is a group policy / system management of Firefox. I've never had this issue on windows on my own PCs
Edit: btw I have had worse happen on windows with chrome on a work pc. An update was forced on my and chrome close itself without warning and reopened with the update. Pissed me off no end.
In 4 or 5 years on Ubuntu I have no memory of ever seeing it.
My complaint is the roulette of sometimes being unable to reopen my last session after restarting my computer. I’d say once every 10 restarts, the “reload last session” button is grayed out and I lose all my open tabs.
You could try pinning tabs you want to keep before restarting. I do the same if I really want to be sure. Pinned tabs generally survive restarts, even during updates.
I had this exact scenario (asking me to restart after an update) happen to me yesterday on pop os which is Ubuntu based. And I’ve definitely seen it other times too. Having said that, it was absolutely no big deal whatsoever.
I don’t remember seeing the other issue you mention. I’ve literally had some tabs open several months. Have you tried looking for the “restore tabs” option in the History menu when this happens? Afaik that’s available even if you don’t have any option set to save your tabs
If you are okay with trusting an extension, I use Tab Session Manager, it takes snapshots of all your open windows and tabs, and it can restore them when, for example, you forget to restore the previous session before closing Firefox, and overwrite the previous session of dozens of tabs, with the current session that you don’t care about.
I usually just rely on the built-in restore, but having the backup just in case is such a relief to have on those occasions when “reload last session” is grayed out.
That’s a Linux (and similar) issue. When Linux updates via it’s package managers it will update Firefox in the background even though it’s open.
This is fundamentally wrong. If you are using Firefox on Linux, you would not update at a time when you’re working - because you KNOW that you have to restart it.
It is considered a ‘User Error’ if they update their system and then complain later that they’re unhappy that they suddenly need to restart something.
I feel like it would be better as a toggle in the settings? I wonder if they envision it as something that’s always enabled for everyone in the future.
I would prefer to have only one of the options in the menu - the one I want to use. I’m not going to change my mind on whether I want trackers stripped on a day-by-day basis, and I think having both taking up space at the same time is bad UX.
You can consider using Stonecrusher's "simpleMenuWizard" to apply custom CSS to hide a menu item. (Disclaimers: I'm not affiliated with the developer, and I haven't used this myself.)
As listed there, the "Copy Link" menuitem element's ID is "context-copylink". If you want to hide that menu item, you would uncomment that line in the list (by removing the '/*' at the beginning of the line) as described in Step 5 of the simpleMenuWizard instructions.
At the time when I'm writing this reply, the aforementioned list hasn't yet been updated to include the "Copy Link Without Site Tracking" menuitem's ID. If you want to hide that menu item, sorry I can't check its ID for you right now, but here's how you can find it:
In the Browser Toolbox, click its 3-dots icon to get an options menu. Click "Disable popup auto-hide", to make context menus persistent. Invoke a context menu on a link (the menu should persist). Use the toolbox inspector's element picker to pick the menu item that you want to hide. Then you can find that menuitem element's "id" attribute in the inspector. (Open the 3-dots menu again and click "Disable popup auto-hide" again to re-enable auto-hide.)
I misread and got excited for a second thinking this meant you could install Chrome-only extensions in Firefox. Turns out it’s just for migrating extension settings and such between browsers.
People have created solutions to do just that, but they seem to be hacky unofficial work-arounds, and not sure if they’re still working. Last time I tested was a few years ago when it worked so-so
Yeah clickbait titles and obnoxious thumbnails generally let me know which channels to avoid. I’d hate to accidentally stumble across shitty videos by obscuring their obnoxiousness in the preview.
Exactly this, when my choices are ‘History of the iPhone’ vs ‘Calling Steve Jobs At 3AM (GONE SEXUAL)’, I know which will be more informative. This plugin is neat, but it removes my ability to filter out what I don’t want from a video.
Fixed issues with drag-and-drop functionality on Linux. (Bug 1897115)
For anyone that has to wait for their distro package manager before they get this update, here is a workaround for the most annoying bug (losing the ability to drag/re-order tabs in Firefox):
If the bug is present, you will find that drag-and-drop functionality has seized working in Firefox and it is not possible to select and drag drop images, texts, URLs, tabs etc.
4 Either restart Firefox or do the following to restore drag-and-drop functionality:
a Open another application like a text editor.
b Enter some random text, select it en drag it unto the URL-bar area in Firefox.
This will cause Firefox to try and open the selected text as if it were a URL.
c After this, try step 1 again to see if drag-and-drop functionality has returned.
Thunderbird has been thriving since it was spun out as a semi independent organization. Lots of new features and a whole new UI. This sounds like they’re moving to a similar model for the browser and it sounds like great news to me. Hopefully we see nimbler decision making. Shouldn’t have taken 3-4 years to make a tablet UI for Android and open up Android add ons
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