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/
The reason for disabling these was, to free up space in the menu. The
menu entry is hidden in userChrome.css now, so we can enable it again.
Having this enabled is required to use the Firefox remote debugger,
which is very useful for developing userChrome.css.
