Oh, it's not just this screwup. I've had growing misgivings about the way Mozilla has handled Firefox's path for years now. Most of my grievances have to do with refusing to provide tools to enable users to kill off idiotic and/or evil decisions on the part of website developers. For example:
No ability to restrict websites' overrides of keyboard shortcuts as long as Javascript is enabled.
In a similar vein, the scourge of scrolljacking. Every time some web developer thinks that my scrolling down a few notches with my mouse wheel equals "that user wants to scroll precisely one whole page down in slow motion!", my blood pressure spikes.
The Mr. Robot thing. (I came very close to abandoning ship after THAT one.)
The unsettling creepy nature of Pocket, Snippets, and studies.
The stubborn refusal to put easy-to-use media autoplay controls in the normal preferences.
This whole "killing off almost everyone's extensions" debacle.
And now this Normandy thing that's just been publicized, which allows Mozilla to quietly override user preferences. Even if they have the best of intentions in its use, can they be trusted to competently and wisely wield that power?
I just don't trust Mozilla's intentions or competence anymore. So I'm jumping ship. And frankly, I'm starting to develop a real dislike of the web in general. I used to regard Mozilla as the group that provided a great way to access all the cool sites built by talented developers. More and more I'm starting to see Firefox as a necessary evil alternative to Chrome, and the average web developer as a soulless cog in the wheel of the "fuck your privacy, user, we've got advertising we need to ram down your throat and personal data to slurp up en masse!" advertising industry.
No ability to restrict websites' overrides of keyboard shortcuts as long as Javascript is enabled.
In a similar vein, the scourge of scrolljacking. Every time some web developer thinks that my scrolling down a few notches with my mouse wheel equals "that user wants to scroll precisely one whole page down in slow motion!", my blood pressure spikes.
The Mr. Robot thing. (I came very close to abandoning ship after THAT one.)
The unsettling creepy nature of Pocket, Snippets, and studies.
The stubborn refusal to put easy-to-use media autoplay controls in the normal preferences.
This whole "killing off almost everyone's extensions" debacle.
And now this Normandy thing that's just been publicized, which allows Mozilla to quietly override user preferences. Even if they have the best of intentions in its use, can they be trusted to competently and wisely wield that power?
I just don't trust Mozilla's intentions or competence anymore. So I'm jumping ship. And frankly, I'm starting to develop a real dislike of the web in general. I used to regard Mozilla as the group that provided a great way to access all the cool sites built by talented developers. More and more I'm starting to see Firefox as a necessary evil alternative to Chrome, and the average web developer as a soulless cog in the wheel of the "fuck your privacy, user, we've got advertising we need to ram down your throat and personal data to slurp up en masse!" advertising industry.