gHacks

It's possible. Last I heard was that the unbranded builds were too eager to update [1] so it could well have been disabled totally. The Mozilla wiki doesn't mention anything about updating being disabled which to me implies it is not. If you find out for certain, please let me know!

I don't personally use the builds as Mozilla has not yet blocked signing of our extensions and `web-ext run` serves me well for development. Automated signing is not brilliantly documented but works well enough [2-3] to ensure that our builds are tested by real users before we release a stable version.

[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/?p=123637

[2]: https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl/blob/f45c990eac074df815e9cd8c27bf7a56b0527bbd/scripts/sign#L5

[3]: https://github.com/tridactyl/buildbot/blob/master/autobuild.sh

This isn't exclusive to Apple - Microsoft recently decided that starting from August Windows Defender will have the option for blocking PUAs enabled by default for those users who doesn't have other third-party security software [1]. This also I belive falls under "we know what's best" and "the customer is not to be trusted" or "is too stupid to run things by on its own".

This does looks good on paper - caring for customers and their security, peace of mind but tomorrow it might be a total vendor-lock with no ways of installing any other software than one approved by the corporate entities.

[1] - https://www.ghacks.net/2021/08/03/windows-10-blocks-potentially-unwanted-apps-by-default-now/

> so far FF/Mozilla 1, Brave/Chrome 0

Mozilla has had more missteps than Brave because it's been around longer. I can't name all the ones which betrayed trust, but the Mr. Robot scandal comes to mind:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/12/16/16784628/mozilla-mr-robot-arg-plugin-firefox-looking-glass

and:

https://www.ghacks.net/2017/02/12/firefox-focus-privacy-scandal/

and:

https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/anxfz8/firefox_is_spyware_extension_recommendation/

and many others.

Having said that, I still use both Firefox and Brave. It's ok to make missteps as long as you fix them and learn from them. Otherwise, I'd never use any product and never have any friends. No one is perfect.

The statement "this is how the internet should be, free for everyone, without censorship and restrictions" comments on the business activities of online publications, without offering any alternative.

It's pretty on-topic in this specific instance.

The author also wrote "Top 4 Chrome ad blockers that you need to know about"[1] which rails against ads. So they don't want paywalls. They don't want ads. Then what?

It seems their views on all of this are rather unsophisticated (yet they still make broad sweeping statements about it).

[1]: https://www.ghacks.net/2021/08/12/best-chrome-ad-blocker-extensions/

Is this the version that kills Live Bookmarks? Some of us FF old-timers are hopelessly reliant on these things, and it's, as far as I have found, the fastest way to quickly scan lists of headlines from all your favorite sites at once. Seriously, one click and you can quickly mouse over the sites on your bookmarks toolbar to consume hundreds of headlines.

I really, REALLY hate that they're killing this feature, but this addon promises to restore it: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07/30/livemarks-restores-live-bookmarks-support-in-firefox/

Edit: here's the official GitHub: https://github.com/nt1m/livemarks/

I used Firefox for years.

I recently moved back to a Chromium based browser (Edge). Even on a fairly powerful system (16 logi cores/4GHz) it's just noticeably faster. SPAs are actually usable again. Video decoding is hardware accelerated and I can now play 4k videos without every interaction with the browser lagging like crazy.

Firefox is great, theoretically. But even then, Mozilla keep making inane decisions - lately their plans to remove compact mode [0] were in the news. Why?!

[0] https://www.ghacks.net/2021/03/14/mozilla-plans-to-remove-the-compact-density-option-from-firefoxs-customize-menu/