It's pretty hard to get the code right in this autoconfig script, as the
only feedback you get is whether the script crashed or not. Add a
logging function to make it easier.
With the current implementation, `userChrome.css` and `userContent.css`
are effectively replaced on a package update, but the session still uses
the previous version.
Triggering a restart as soone as those files are updated ensures the
latest version will be used immediately.
The protection, identity, permissions and widget overflow popups were
flickering when their width was larger than the screen. This patch
bounds the width of the viewport.
It also makes the overflow menu use as much vertical real estate as
possible, as this seems to fix flickers for extensions.
Make sure the menu that gets opened when long-pressing the back button
is visible on screen. Note that this is useful not only for navigating
back, but can be used to navigate forward too, and to navigate back to
the new tab/home page.
Update to reflect changes. Remove the part about packaging for distros,
since lots of distributions have packaged this already and now that the
custom home page is removed, the steps are like any other make-based
project. Add notes about coding guidelines etc.
Always reserver the space for the private browsing indicator, even if
not in private mode. This allows using the same width for the displayed
tab in both modes. Without this, the X of the tab is not visible in
private mode.
I think it's nice to have this space in both modes to quickly close the
menu, as it's right above the menu button.
This one is for being connected with the debugger. It's hard to edit the
CSS to make the urlbar look good with the debugger, if being connected
with it gives it another apperance. I'm currently fixing up the padding
to the left where the icon is, so disable it.
Now that there's a nice about:home page, show it in new tabs too instead
of the weird looking blank page. Set this in autoconfig.js instead of
policies.json, so it can be overridden by the user via settings page.
Disable everything but the search bar. This gives a clean page, of a
cog wheel on the top right where the user can adjust it as they want
(e.g. enable most frequently visited pages), then the FF logo and the
search bar.
I've considered enabling TopSites in order to show the most frequently
visited sites according to the browser's history. However, this also
enables built-in links to youtube, facebook, reddit, amazon, twitter.
And while it is convenient to have links you frequently visit available
(based on your history, not these built-ins!), getting an almost blank
page instead is actually a good idea to reduce the bad pattern of
opening a web browser and then forgetting your original intention until
it opens, and instead surfing mindlessly on the most recently visited
websites. The almost blank page gives the user a moment to think about
what they really want to do.
Here's something controversial. Install the wide-spectrum blocker uBlock
origin by default. This enables blocking of ads, trackers and malware
sites. I think these should be blocked for several reasons:
1. Performance on mobile devices
It's clear when browsing the web with this add-on, that there is a major
performance benefit in blocking advertising and tracking on websites. We
don't have these resources to waste on Mobile Linux.
2. Privacy
From uBlock origin's README.md:
> [...] it's important to note that using a blocker is NOT theft. Don't fall
> for this creepy idea. The ultimate logical consequence of blocking = theft
> is the criminalisation of the inalienable right to privacy.
> Ads, "unintrusive" or not, are just the visible portions of privacy-invading
> apparatus entering your browser when you visit most sites nowadays. uBlock
> Origin's main goal is to help users neutralize such privacy-invading
> apparatus — in a way that welcomes those users who don't wish to use more
> technical, involved means (such as uMatrix).
3. Manipulation
Modern advertising platforms are used to manipulate people in the scale
of influencing elections of world leaders. From Cambridge Analytica and
similar companies' perspective, one of the workflows is showing the user
an advertisement, then monitoring search queries to determine if the ad
was effective, then adjusting the ad to convince you better to vote for
a certain party, repeat. This has severe negative effects on society,
for people unfamiliar with the topic I recommend watching the movies
"The Great Hack" and "The Social Dilemma". The mentioned workflow is
described in the "Your Undivided Attention" podcast, episode 10, "Rock
the Voter" in an interview with a former Cambridge Analyticer insider.
Related: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock
Related: cab6a5076c/README.md (policiesjson-45)
Related: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/
Add a script that allows extracting the list of search engines enabled
in the current firefox build. There is no way to simply disable all
built-in search engines, so we need a list like this. Note that the
search engines can only be removed in the ESR version. I've briefly
tried to find such a list in the source code, but didn't find it without
spending too much effort. Besides, I'm guessing that in the source code
it's stored in almost the same format found in the "omni.ja" zip
archive.
