While I agree with the pragmatic choice of keeping older TLS enabled a while longer, I am very much at unease of Firefox remote updates and management (pushing code fixes as studies etc), disrespecting preferences in local configs and proliferation of services and multitude of background service connections.
Mozilla, please, I want a browser that I, as a "power user" can manage. Not an idiot-proof remotely managed on-prem SaaS.
Note: I and I'm sure many others would donate meaningful amount of money, if it could be restricted to categories of use, such as Firefox development or Rust development. You don't have to become a service vendor to wean off Google.
> Mozilla, please, I want a browser that I, as a "power user" can manage. Not an idiot-proof remotely managed on-prem SaaS.
Then you need to accept that Firefox will linger at a very low number of users and many of those users will be left with insecure browsers because they fail to update them properly. Maybe that's a fine thing, but that's the world you need to accept if Firefox is explicitly targeting power users.
It's not either or. They could make it easy do disable all various background activity, document users prefs and respect provided settings (perhaps with different branding), accept targeted donations etc.
Firefox is already providing automatic updates. Would it be so bad to release a point version (do they even to that anymore) instead of a remote preference change?
Still, it's not exclusive - they could do both, while providing a clear power user mode, where you may need to update, because they don't do such shenanigans.
It's not an idle offer - I'm offering 1k€ to properly document user prefs and not second guess their setting (could be a compile time switch, possibly with altered branding, but on a supported/LTS versions). Anyone want to set up a gofund me or something?
By issuing a new release with updated defaults via the standard distribution channels. Remotely applied preference change implies a more direct intervention - it means you can't vet firefox to have certain behavior, as they may whimsically change your preferences.
Good for most consumers. Not necessarily so, if you are managing it.
Mozilla, please, I want a browser that I, as a "power user" can manage. Not an idiot-proof remotely managed on-prem SaaS.
Note: I and I'm sure many others would donate meaningful amount of money, if it could be restricted to categories of use, such as Firefox development or Rust development. You don't have to become a service vendor to wean off Google.