I deal with a lot of VMs for varying purposes, and it seems frequent that my purpose for opening firefox is derailed by some kind of nag. For example, I frequently get the “you haven’t used firefox in a while” in vms that I rarely use firefox and have to go disable the “meta refresh” option in the “about:config”.
Now, I’ve started seeing this one… it’s not even one of the passive banners but a full-page stop-the-world w/ semi-transparent background and right-click prevention.
Before I invest too much time trying to figure out how to disable these, or templating profile options en-masse, or the like… I thought I might ask… is there a way I can tell firefox that I only want it to only be a web-browser? i.e. an effective tool and not an attention sink or exciting video-game-like challenge of exploration and closing popups and suggestions while trying to remember why I launched it.
Somewhat relatedly, there is some kind of irony with firefox prominently offering to copy a URL without tracking for other sites, but when it is their own ad (however benign it might seem) that they disable right-clicks and load up on the trackers. The above button links to:
Perhaps we need a new word for this sort of thing. Popupification? Appsplaining? Encruftening?
Onboarding?
That doesn’t really capture the feeling of a sincere and cheerful “Welcome aboard!” delivered by clown in a business suit to an old salt who hasn’t left the ship in six months.
Hand-holding? Condescension?