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Submitted via IRC for TheMightyBuzzard
Mozilla Firefox may reset custom browser preferences when the web browser is updated to a newer version so that the preference is set to its default value.
I was contacted by two Ghacks readers in the past two weeks about Firefox resetting preferences of the web browser during updates.
Jern informed me that Firefox reset the block lists setting of the browser's Tracking Protection feature from strict to basic when the browser was updated to version 50 from Firefox 49.0.2.
Basic protection is the recommended and default value of the setting. It does not block as many trackers as the strict blocking list. I confirmed that the upgrade to Firefox 50 did indeed reset the preference.
Michel told me a week later that a recent Firefox update (to 50.0.1 or 50.0.2) did reset another preference. This time an URL string that Michel modified on Firefox's about:config page.
Source: http://www.ghacks.net/2016/12/05/beware-firefox-updates-may-reset-preferences/
(Score: 3, Insightful) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 06 2016, @09:07AM
Reason 1: Because it is better than the alternatives. Which Firefox for a long time was. And most unwanted changes in Firefox could be reversed by installing the right extensions.
Reason 2: Because there would be a considerable cost of switching. I'm using a heavily customized Firefox. So any switch would not only come with the cost of relearning things, it would also come with the cost of finding adequate replacements for all the extensions I've installed. A switch only makes sense if the cost of switching is larger than the cost of staying.
Firefox mass-invalidating extensions soon is the reason I'm now seriously considering a switch. I'm just not yet sure to which browser.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.