It seems to me projects like Iceraven demonstrated years ago that a great many extensions were usable without any changes. Why not just slap a "here there be dragons" warning on untested extensions and let users have at it?
To be clear, I'm not asking you to justify decisions you didn't make, just to provide some visibility into the process if you can. Mozilla was pretty opaque about it.
We essentially had that as part of pre-release builds. Same with about:config.
The argument we'd then hear from people is, "but I want the stable channel with the 'here be dragons'" stuff. The reality is, though, that the "here be dragons" stuff probably affects stability more than running beta does anyway; people who shat on us for that wanted to have their cake and eat it too, and it just doesn't work that way.
Gecko is not just a web engine; it is in many ways an entire application framework. Gecko inverts control such that it implements the entire main event loop of the application. Desktop Firefox is essentially one big privileged HTML+JS application that happens to embed a non-privileged browser iframe within it. about:config governs settings around everything in this framework.
Now let's look at Android: the modern architecture of Firefox for Android is that of a native Android app that embeds Gecko similarly to a WebView, albeit a much more powerful one (GeckoView)[1]. Many parts of GeckoView's implementation need to deal with reconciling the "Gecko as app framework that controls the universe" paradigm with the "Gecko as a lowly Android View rendering into a graphics surface" paradigm. about:config is still important, but it only affects the Gecko part, not the native app part.
For GeckoView to work correctly, many about:config settings must be set to very specific values -- the free-for-all that is about:config on desktop could actually break an instance of Firefox on Android. This is particularly fatal to an app when run on a non-rooted phone.
Yes, people have come to accept shitty software. You'd think that software developed for the public good would try to be better though and at least retain the old standards for power user tools.
Also I wonder where do those decision makers work now.
- Google pays Mozilla more than 400m per year.
- Its in Google's interests to not have good Firefox add-ons. (For both Ads and Chrome's market share).
Google's negotiator could easily added some incentive for Mozilla's management to set the focus somewhere else.
In fact, given what Google's team is likely earning, they wouldn't be doing a good job if Firefox's mobile strategy wasn't discussed before signing such deals.
There is a much simpler potential explanation for such a product management decision. Suppose Mozilla determines that 90% (made-up number) of users want addons because they want uBlock Origin. It then seems sensible to prioritize that addon and not others when determining how to spend limited engineering resources. Reasonable people can of course disagree with that decision, but there's no need to bring conspiracies into it.
(NB: Even though I worked at Mozilla I have zero insight into this particular issue; it's entirely speculation.)
That idea is supported by recent disclosures revealing that Google paid or attempted to pay Activision, Aniplex, Bandai Namco, Bethesda, Blizzard, Com2uS, EA, King, Mixl, Niantic, NCSoft, NetMarble, NetEase, Nexon, Nintendo, Pearl Abyss, The Pokemon Company, Riot, Square Enix, Supercell, Tencent, and Ubisoft to influence each company’s product roadmap. [1]
I think it makes sense that they would attempt to exert similar influence over an entity whose continued existence is entirely dependent on revenue received from Google and (ostensibly) competes with one of their of their strategic initiatives.
Sure, it’s speculation, but it’s not wild speculation.
[1] https://www.theverge.com/2023/11/9/23954107/here-is-the-full...
I already know the answer; it would have to whitelist Google or Google would stop paying Firefox to be the default search engine. And if it whitelisted Google, that would only confirm what people say about Firefox being a pet on Google's leash. All the denials of this are laughably unconvincing, people know how the money flows.
I.e. having unlock origin available at launch might have been a conspiracy.
E.g. the yes men types tried to sabotage it, while the unsung heroes did it anyway.
