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Why do you disallow disabling the default browser check, when ff is the default?

  • 2 replies
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  • Last reply by Happy112

flurbius
flurbius
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I made FF the default browser (FF 57.0) and the check box for 'Check if FF is the default ...' becomes checked and disabled, - enforcing the check. I prefer to be in control of what my defaults are and I don't need FF to check this.

Its not a big thing but it does mean that if/when I decide to change the default browser on my PC FF will nag me about it next time it starts.

What is more perturbing is that FF has decided that it needs to check and it needs me not to stop it from checking.

Please enlighten me as to what legitimate reason there is for such behaviour? My best guess is that Mozilla want to know when or if I choose another browser as default. There is nothing wrong with wanting that information, however I would prefer Mozilla asked me for it, instead of disabling the checkbox, it should change the label to something like 'Inform Mozilla that default status has changed' AND make sure that it is still enabled and unchecked by default.

I made FF the default browser (FF 57.0) and the check box for 'Check if FF is the default ...' becomes checked and disabled, - enforcing the check. I prefer to be in control of what my defaults are and I don't need FF to check this. Its not a big thing but it does mean that if/when I decide to change the default browser on my PC FF will nag me about it next time it starts. What is more perturbing is that FF has decided that it needs to check and it needs me not to stop it from checking. Please enlighten me as to what legitimate reason there is for such behaviour? My best guess is that Mozilla want to know when or if I choose another browser as default. There is nothing wrong with wanting that information, however I would prefer Mozilla asked me for it, instead of disabling the checkbox, it should change the label to something like 'Inform Mozilla that default status has changed' AND make sure that it is still enabled and unchecked by default.

All Replies (2)

Happy112
Happy112
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Hi,

Please see : https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1189038

When you scroll down some, you'll see :

"Bug 1041516 made it so that when you set Firefox as the default browser, checking for default status on startup also gets set. That's good but we didn't prevent the check on startup setting from being unchecked. So a user can sabotage themselves by opening the options tab and unchecking "Always check if Firefox is your default browser." This will put them in a state where another browser can be set as default without Firefox noticing. We should make this setting unable to be changed when Firefox is the default browser."

Happy112
Happy112
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You can always do this :

Type in the address bar about:config (press Enter) (promise to be careful, if asked)

Type in the search bar and look for the preference :

browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser

Set its value to false - then close and restart Firefox.