> On Firefox I must save all history be to 'restore the current session'. Wish we had more control over this.
What do you mean by that? I have mine set to never remember history, and I often force-kill FF as a way to save a session. When I start it up again it prompts to restore the previous session.
> You can't disable Firefox from checking for updates (I wish this could be left to package managers on some systems).
Firefox's updater is disabled on Arch Linux and iirc also Ubuntu/Fedora/etc. The 'About' window says that it has been disabled by the system administrator. Presumably this is either an about:config setting (good) or a compile-time flag (sad).
> Why the fuck would I want "Recommmend features as I browse?" or "Recommend extensions as I browse?" I hate being advertised to.
These aren't ads; you can't pay to have your extension shown to users. Recommending features is done by the browser on your computer; iirc the addons recommendations are also computed locally based on anonymized data (don't quote me on that though).
I at least find the feature suggestions to have been helpful. Many normal people won't know about reader mode, and FF on Android also tells you that bookmarking a page will save it for offline use, which I would not have otherwise known.
> "Warn you about unwanted and uncommon software" - who is making this determination? Who is Firefox talking to about what I download?
Google is used; if a file seems suspicious only then are details sent to google to give the final word. I wish they were more upfront about that.
But FF is targeted at normal people, and this does help them not get malware. Advanced users like us can easily disable it. That doesn't excuse the lack of transparency though.
> Sucks that in hotels Firefox determines if there's a captive portal in effect by querying a Mozilla-hosted site (detectportal.firefox.com).
How else do you propose they do this? And better to have Mozilla host it than someone else. On Android you are forced to use Google's NTP servers, and I have no doubt their captive portal detection is also google-hosted. I'd bet the detection URL is exposed in an about:config flag on FF.
> I wish I could sync settings, open tabs, addresses, history, etc - to an simple archive on close or periodically. No online service to sync against with another account I have to worry about.
For what its worth, Firefox Sync is e2e encrypted with your password. If you log out of sync on all your devices and forget your password, the synced data is gone forever. To log back in you will have to reset the password, and since none of your devices are logged in (they act as backups for the data), it is gone forever.
Addon recommendations do not anonymize their input data, which I think is just what browser features and maybe sites you've used (I'm not sure). But it doesn't matter, since it is never sent anywhere. The data is local, the decision is local. Your browser already knows your browsing history.
What do you mean by that? I have mine set to never remember history, and I often force-kill FF as a way to save a session. When I start it up again it prompts to restore the previous session.
> You can't disable Firefox from checking for updates (I wish this could be left to package managers on some systems).
Firefox's updater is disabled on Arch Linux and iirc also Ubuntu/Fedora/etc. The 'About' window says that it has been disabled by the system administrator. Presumably this is either an about:config setting (good) or a compile-time flag (sad).
> Why the fuck would I want "Recommmend features as I browse?" or "Recommend extensions as I browse?" I hate being advertised to.
These aren't ads; you can't pay to have your extension shown to users. Recommending features is done by the browser on your computer; iirc the addons recommendations are also computed locally based on anonymized data (don't quote me on that though).
I at least find the feature suggestions to have been helpful. Many normal people won't know about reader mode, and FF on Android also tells you that bookmarking a page will save it for offline use, which I would not have otherwise known.
> "Warn you about unwanted and uncommon software" - who is making this determination? Who is Firefox talking to about what I download?
Google is used; if a file seems suspicious only then are details sent to google to give the final word. I wish they were more upfront about that.
But FF is targeted at normal people, and this does help them not get malware. Advanced users like us can easily disable it. That doesn't excuse the lack of transparency though.
> Sucks that in hotels Firefox determines if there's a captive portal in effect by querying a Mozilla-hosted site (detectportal.firefox.com).
How else do you propose they do this? And better to have Mozilla host it than someone else. On Android you are forced to use Google's NTP servers, and I have no doubt their captive portal detection is also google-hosted. I'd bet the detection URL is exposed in an about:config flag on FF.
> I wish I could sync settings, open tabs, addresses, history, etc - to an simple archive on close or periodically. No online service to sync against with another account I have to worry about.
For what its worth, Firefox Sync is e2e encrypted with your password. If you log out of sync on all your devices and forget your password, the synced data is gone forever. To log back in you will have to reset the password, and since none of your devices are logged in (they act as backups for the data), it is gone forever.