[ale] AARG Firefox devs delete several important UI options

[Michael Trausch]

Looking at the list I can't say I am unhappy with it. There are command line utilities to manage the SSL stuff, and everything else can be (and probably is if you're the paranoid sort) blocked of handled by plugins. 

Given that JS is a requirement for most modern sites and all user agents are capable of it in a standard manner, sites are rarely designed to fall back for full-featured apps. If you turn off JS, you're going to miss out on the latest wave of applications, period. 

There is little need to turn it off anymore anyway. The browser is the new terminal, but with support for graphics and load distribution via client side logic. This improves UI and UX significantly.

Anyway, nothing major is being lost here. Most of the people making changes to SSL, for example, are system administrators managing a system-wide storage for them and never use any of the single browser UIs anyway, since then that only applies to one browser and not all of them. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 7, 2013, at 9:11 PM, "Ron Frazier (ALE)" <atllinuxenthinfo at techstarship.com> wrote:

> Hi all,
> 
> Just thought I'd pass this along.  The Firefox dev team has deleted several UI options in Firefox 23 that they think are unimportant but that I and a number of people commenting on blogs etc. think are important.  This article lists most of them:
> 
> http://www.askvg.com/mozilla-to-remove-several-unnecessary-options-from-firefox-preferences-window
> 
> Some of them impact the way I have my Firefox's set up and some of them change user defaults even after the user had intentionally modified them.  If you care about any of these, you can temporarily turn off auto updates on ff 22 (if you even still have ff 22) and look at the menus to see where things have changed.  I spent several hours last night researching how to undo what the dev team has done.  I've found alternate ways of setting or workarounds for almost all.  I'm going to have to spend more hours reconfiguring all my ff installations, pc's, logins, vm's, after they upgrade to 23.  This will take a large and annoying amount of time.  When I'm done, I should still have the system configured the way I want but will still be able to do auto updates.  As has been stated here before by others, you don't want to leave auto updates off if you can avoid it.  I hope to post detailed instructions on how to override the changes in a separate post.  Posting the details now would!
>  take a good bit of time.
> 
> Here's what they've changed:
> 
> A) Tabs on top checkbox is gone - I hate this feature.  I want the menu on top, then the address bar / nav bar, then the tabs.  Some may like it, but the point is, you need to be able to change it.  This is fixable.
> 
> B) Load images automatically checkbox / exception list is gone - I and many people use this periodically when they don't want to load images, for speed or bandwidth considerations or data caps, etc.  Fixable.
> 
> C) Enable javascript checkbox / advanced javascript configuration is gone.  This is something that's security related and something I set on every installation I do for myself.  What really burns me is that they've not only deleted the controls, but have altered the default settings I already had.  I keep javacript turned on here and let noscript control it on a site by site basis.  However, the advanced screen would let you disallow scripts moving or resizing windows, raising or lowering windows, or changing or replacing context menus.  I had all these features turned off and that's the way I wanted them.  Now, the dev team has changed the defaults that I HAD ALREADY SET to be the opposite in two of the three cases.  As a consequence, I have to go to every pc, vm, and login I have and use a very kludgy method that takes 5X longer to configure, and put the systems back the way I had it.  But, it's fixable.
> 
> D) The dialog to override automatic cache management is supposedly gone, but I think it may still be there, at least for the moment.  I don't know if that's fixable if they remove it.  I've never used it.
> 
> While I'm here (in the options / preferences, advanced, network menu) you should know that html 5 websites can potentially store many MB of data for offline use on your system.  There are a couple of dialogs in this menu to control and monitor that, as well as a checkbox to "Tell me when a website wants to store data for offline use".  I'd leave that checked.
> 
> E) Options to turn off or on SSL3 or TLS1 are gone.  The entire certificate management interface is supposed to be gone, but I think it's still there.  I've never used the first options.  I occasionally have to tinker with security certificate exceptions.  I don't know if the SSL TLS things are fixable or if they need to be.
> 
> F) The option to turn off the nav toolbar is gone supposedly, but it still looks like it's in the view menu.  I don't know if that's fixable if they remove it.  Many people like to eliminate tabs and the nav bar and just have a small window with information displaying in it, like weather.
> 
> G) The always show the tab bar option is gone.  Conversely, is the easy option to hide it.  Logic for why people want this is the same as for the nav bar.  This is fixable.
> 
> That's it for now.  I hope to be posting detailed instructions to implement the fixes, but that email will take me a while to type and I have to find time for it.  If anyone has specific questions, feel free to ask.
> 
> HTH
> 
> Sincerely,
> 
> Ron
> 
> 
> 
> --
> 
> Sent from my Android Acer A500 tablet with bluetooth keyboard and K-9 Mail.
> Please excuse my potential brevity if I'm typing on the touch screen.
> 
> (PS - If you email me and don't get a quick response, you might want to
> call on the phone.  I get about 300 emails per day from alternate energy
> mailing lists and such.  I don't always see new email messages very quickly.)
> 
> Ron Frazier
> 770-205-9422 (O)   Leave a message.
> linuxdude AT techstarship.com
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