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enable about:config in stable release #21276

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ghost opened this issue Sep 14, 2021 · 21 comments
Closed

enable about:config in stable release #21276

ghost opened this issue Sep 14, 2021 · 21 comments
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feature request 🌟 New functionality and improvements

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@ghost
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ghost commented Sep 14, 2021

I'm aware there is an open issue but it's locked and it haven't had any progress since release. People in favor of this don't need to add comments only like this post so they realize it's an important feature.

What is the user problem or growth opportunity you want to see solved?

Since the release of this abomination (fenix) there have been so many users complaining about how you ruined thier experience but non has been more important than this there have been so many people who either left ff or started using forks that often lag behind in updates and generally not very safe.

How do you know that this problem exists today? Why is this important?

As i said many including myself left ff and are reluctant of using it on android for it's flaws but tbh i can tolerate them if only you hadn't removed this feature.
I understand ff has a smaller team than chromium and can't compete with them but please think this over, chromium (and forks) allow a lot of configuration through thier gui (managing cookies, java script, etc) and offer a supreme ux and while they are targeted at normal users they allow users to change many settings that can break the browser through chrome://flags without even a warning.

On the other hand firefox has both terrible ux and ui it dosen't allow many configuration in ui and all controls are hidden in about:config there is just no way you could dramatically allow users to enable them through gui (if you could you would have done that by now), also even if you could it would take alot more time to add them.

Who will benefit from it?

Many users who want to configure thier browsers or use a feature that can be only enabled or configured through about:config.
Pelease respects your users freedom to control thier software this is supposedly an opensource project that respects users, taking thier right to control thier browser (which even google somehow respects in stable chrome) is just so much against what you advertise yourself.

┆Issue is synchronized with this Jira Task

@github-actions github-actions bot added the needs:triage Issue needs triage label Sep 14, 2021
@0x391F
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0x391F commented Sep 14, 2021

Yes, I need to use 1.1.1.1 DoH server to encrypt the DNS traffic and avoid DNS pollution, so that I needn't use VPN to access some blocked website. But I couldn't enable it in Fenix, so I need to enable DoH in Android system settings, unfortunately, it makes all APPs which need network very slow. If I could modify about:config in Fenix, I can only enable DoH in it.

@0x391F
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0x391F commented Sep 14, 2021

Besides, I need about:config to disable WebRTC (media.peerconnection.enabled=false), disable cache on disk (browser.cache.disk.enable=false) and so on, but I couldn't do them now.

@0x391F
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0x391F commented Sep 14, 2021

One reason I don't want to use Fenix Nightly is, Fenix usually crash, even I'm using stable release, so Nightly must be worse.

@0x391F
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0x391F commented Sep 14, 2021

One reason people (include me) like Firefox is, it's CUSTOMIZABLE, about:config is a very easy way to adjust it. I know one reason Fenix team disable about:config is, user maybe monkey the config, then Fenix go wrong, and they will complain Fenix is hard to use. But I think we can show a warning after user into about:config as same as Firefox desktop version.

@0x391F
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0x391F commented Sep 14, 2021

And I think Fenix could add a feature so that user could easily reset the settings and about:config, but retain user data (history, bookmarks, etc). This feature is available in desktop Firefox.

@Nickoriginal
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Nickoriginal commented Sep 14, 2021

Since the release of this abomination (fenix)

Why you are even using Fenix or its forks if it is so abominate for you?
Sadly, it (closed about:config) became a philosophy for Fenix developers in a stable channel and there will be no changes. If it is critical enough to you, I propose the best solution - Fennec F-Droid, what have about:config enabled, syncs with the stable Fenix and fully open-source (checked by F-Droid). Also you can try Firefox Beta, what is less unstable than Nightly and change the major version number only when the second beta released (e.g. update to 93.0.0.-beta.2 after last 92.0.0-beta.x) It will a little bit help you from losing your data due to critical issues.

@Nickoriginal
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Nickoriginal commented Sep 14, 2021

DoH issue:
#4584
WebRTC issue:
#15071
You can vote there if it is important to you.

@ghost
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ghost commented Sep 14, 2021

@Nickoriginal I didn't say i'm using ff on android let alone it's forks, forks are not maintained well the best version of ff is it's official stable release, you shouldn't encourage such behaviors if you have read my post you would have known i'm already aware of alternatives.
The problem here is as an old firefox user i left when they replaced fennec with fenix, since then i have came back every few months to check for improvements.
Sadly ff devs have given alot of promises that they make things better but they didn't, the only reason i perfer to use ff over chrome is all the control i get using about:config.
It's not reasonable saying since firefox devs made such a decision it cannot change, if we were to go by devs decisions and wouldn't have an effect on changing them, then why use ff we can just use chrome and let google decide for us. The whole point of using firefox is to take back control, but unfortunately fenix devs took that away with this decision.

@amedyne amedyne added feature request 🌟 New functionality and improvements and removed needs:triage Issue needs triage labels Sep 20, 2021
@DrSensor
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DrSensor commented Oct 8, 2021

I also need this to enable Screen Capture API for presentation. Does GeckoView support this?

(the API supported in chrome for android through chrome://flags where the default is disabled)

@plwt
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plwt commented Jan 6, 2022

User feedback: https://discourse.mozilla.org/t/about-config-missing/66537/29

@codingepaduli
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I just want this feature on stable release for my customization. Why not? Lots of user don't even know the existence of that.

If you think about:config can make the browser seriously unstable, you can choose to let us enable it from the "debug menu", as explained in the chapter "Running the Sync server" Run your own Sync-1.5 Server.

I extract the following sentences from the document: "Firefox for Android (“Daylight”, versions 79 and later) does support using a non-Mozilla-hosted Sync server. Before logging in, go to App Menu > Settings > About Firefox and click the logo 5 times. You should see a “debug menu enabled” notification. Go back to the main menu and you will see two options for a custom account server and a custom Sync server.

@yutayu
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yutayu commented Feb 11, 2022

I want to disable diskcache.
So I agree with this.

@JJRcop
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JJRcop commented Feb 21, 2022

I would like to say I support about:config in stable, but think the original issue body is way too opinionated and negative.

Since the reporter is a ghost now, I hope the body can be edited to be more friendly and focus on the issue instead of purely subjective experience.

I want to access about:config on stable because I want a stable experience by default, while being given the option to reduce stability by my own choice.

Firefox Nightly for Developers is not suffucient, as it is an unstable experience by default, with an option to reduce stability further. This is not a good experience for a tech savvy end user who doesn't intend to develop anything new for Firefox.

I want to have the end-user polish and shine, but also the ability to ruin it and break it myself at my will.

@Rexogamer
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I'm slightly surprised that it was removed from stable to be honesty - surely, as mentioned above, a warning (similar to the one on FF Desktop) would be sufficient?

@heham
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heham commented Mar 6, 2022

I want to support the tampermonkey or like this plugin.

@Krjal
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Krjal commented Mar 10, 2022

I need this option currently to use security certificates for my work intranet and https filtering at home. Currently I need to use either unstable versions, older (less secure) versions or Chromium browsers which work fine with system level installed certificates by default.

Now restricting things by default to cut down on user errors and unstable, insecure situations is fine and understandable but removing the options as well goes against the whole reason I'm using Android and Firefox in the first place.

I think the old boilerplate warning was more than enough.

PS. Do any other users have suggestions for a 'stable' nightly release I could sit on for a bit until about:config gets restored?

@bigConifer
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@Krjal As mentioned above you could switch to Fennec F-Droid where about:config was re-enabled by a prebuild.sh script.

PS: While proposing third party builds is an ugly workaround and not good practice in use of issue trackers, the developers will see that demand is still high for having this issue fixed.

@user8446
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There is a lot more demand for this than the Firefox team realizes because alternatives such as F-Droid Fennic and others that users are going to for this do not have telemetry.

@RokeJulianLockhart
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@user8446, that's one of the problems of opting-out of telemetry, be it during compilation or not.

@nICEnnnnnnnLee
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nICEnnnnnnnLee commented Oct 18, 2022

Hmmm... The feature's not really that important for me, at least.

I'm a user with no access to Google Play in my working or living network environment, so I install the app from Github Release.

It's no different for me to download a Stable version or a Beta version nearby.

For example, with Firefox 106.1.0 Released, and I want about:config enabled, I could select Firefox Beta 107.0b1 or Firefox Beta 106.0b5 to download

@kbrosnan
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Duplicate #7865

@kbrosnan kbrosnan closed this as not planned Won't fix, can't repro, duplicate, stale Jan 21, 2023
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