Firefox 127's private window handling angers users

Yeah, about:config is one of the best things about Firefox. It allows a standard user not to stumble into settings that would lead to frustration or needing help. But it also lets power users use Firefox the way they want to. I’m always annoyed when a setting is removed from there.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

The latest Firefox 127 appeared on June 11 with a modest list of changes – automatically reloading the browser when the OS reboots, closing duplicate tabs, and requiring more authentication to access stored passwords.

A change Mozilla didn't mention in the release notes has users complaining online, though.

Users complained on Mozilla's forums and on Reddit at the time, but it was at least possible to recombine the icons with the option in about:config – but no longer.

As you might imagine, people are not happy, although according to the official response in this complaint, it looks like the change will be reverted in Firefox 128:

According to this thread, users of Firefox on Apple iOS are finding that if you have both a main and private Firefox instances open, when the main one is closed, all the tabs in the private instance are closed too.

Slip-ups like this suggest to us that, as has long been the case, the Firefox developers lack a good understanding of how its remaining followers use it, and why they stick with it.

The original article contains 406 words, the summary contains 179 words. Saved 56%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

Is this a Windows problem I'm too Linux to understand?

Yes - this is why my dad (80) and my nephew (23) stopped using Firefox . It’s the only reason anyone use Firefox and without it nobody will use it.