[paulryanrogers]

You can load local extensions from about:debugging. They just won't be permanently installed. (Developer edition may be different.) And Chrome's local loading comes with a disable modal at every startup. So I'm curious what browser you consider worthy.

Edit: forgot to mention you can install from 3p sources as I've done from my own site in the past. They just need to be signed by Mozilla first.

[nix23]

>They just need to be signed by Mozilla first

No they don't, xpinstall.signatures.required to false

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Doesn't work on "normal" Firefox, does it? Only dev builds or the unbranded version without automatic updates.

[nix23]

Sorry true, should have mentioned that, just works on dev build's and some version from distributions.

[yaiNua9o]

Yes, you can temporarily load extensions in firefox, but I certainly won't reload all my extensions manually at every startup :)

I don't think there's really a good browser for both privacy and hacking. I use chromium when I have no choice (not sure what you're referring to concerning the disable modal ; if it's an issue with chromium too, I haven't hit it, and I have 11 extensions loaded from sources).

But my "main browser until it's not enough" is elinks (slightly modified by me to fix ruby support and offer a few more api methods to extensions). I can write extensions as simple ruby scripts, doing things like adding native markdown support, allowing to edit local files, adding proper indentation to HN comments, etc. It's the perfect browser for me (and with cookies disabled and js, css and images not fetch nor executed, it's a good privacy browser as well). But of course, you won't be able to use that to buy something on the web. Still, it's surprising how much I can accomplish with just that.

[paulryanrogers]

Disable modal may only impact unpacked extensions then. My apologies for the confusion.

Forking a text browser is impressive. Though to be honest the older I get the less energy and time I have to be picky. (And building Firefox was so painful I vowed to only make changes via extensions.)

[yaiNua9o]

It's not that a big deal to modify elinks, because it's a codebase way simpler than full blown browsers. But yes, it still a handful of hours of work, like modifying any software, so you have to actually find it fun to tinker with free software :)

Actually, my first attempt to fix my problem was to try to find in firefox codebase where it deletes the extensions loaded from sources, either at the end or the start of the session, I supposed, to shunt that "feature". But after a week a free time spent on it, I made no progress. The codebase and the architecture are just too gargantuan to be tinkered with - at least for me.

[nix23]

Try mothra, the browser for the real 'hackers' ;)

http://man.9front.org/1/mothra

[yaiNua9o]

Thanks, never heard about it, I'll have a look.

[nix23]

OK now i feel bad, you have to install 9front (it's a plan9 fork) first, then you can use mothra