Not hard to swallow at all. You forget that the basics of fast lane technology: only those who pay get access. Sure, it may start out free but eventually it'll start getting a nominal fee and another and another.

Keep it neutral - it works.

Or just uncheck the box.

I'm running 64bit but I can't control whether a program runs in 32bit or 64bit. Firefox 64bit will solve the browser portion of it - Win8 is just fucked.

Oh and to clarify - normally I wouldn't restart the browser but Windows 8.1 has a limit of 2GB of accessible 32bit memory so every time I launch a game I have to quit firefox or get nag messages from Win8 about low RAM (which pull me out of the game). If I could I'd just leave the browser open.

I tend not to have that many tabs open at once since they introduced the "reload on restart" (for lack of a better name). Since I've got to reload the content of a tab after a restart of the browser I figure it's faster to just re-search the page rather than sort through the tabs to figure out which tab belongs to what information. Especially since not all tabs have useful title names.

Chatzilla has been around for years. It is a full fledged IRC client as an addon - pretty light weight as well.

Definitely going to check out some of those, thanks!

As well, why not have a neutral platform you can build on to your needs instead of introducing bloat that only some people will like/use.

Firefox:
  - AdBlock Plus + Element Hiding Helper
  - Chatzilla (IRC Chat)
  - FireFTP
  - SnapLinks Plus (right click multi-link select/copy/open)
  - Firebug
  - HTTPS Everywhere
  - Quickdrag (drag drop links into white space to open in new tab, drag drop images to download them)
  - SQLite Manager (manually browse and fix Mozilla's privacy blunders)
  - TableTools2 (manage table data when site options don't offer it)
  - YouTube HD (forces specific sizes when possible)
  - Live HTTP Headers (see what's really being sent)

No, it's that this will do little to affect those crappy addons - they'll find a way around the signing but legitimate/new developers will have more hassles to deal with. It's effectively DRM and we all know how well that whack-a-mole game works.

Not sure. I would need replacements for:

Firebug
Chatzilla
AdBlock Plus & Element Hiding Helper
QuickDrag
SnapLinks Plus
TableTools2
LiveHTTP Headers

There are a few others that are nice but I could do without, every other addon I have is to fix what Mozilla broke.

I care because it increases the cost of the device, increases electrical consumption in operating the device (again, costing more money), generates extra heat which shortens the lifespan of the electronics, creates possible failure points which could cause electrical shorts/interference with other parts of the device. Then there's the software aspect, bugs which require patching, "features" which can't be turned off, slowness in turning the device on and off, advertising when no signal is present, etc.

I want my devices to be smart, not my displays. I want my displays to be interoperable through several generations of devices.

It's not tinfoil-hatism when it's true. Big brother issues aside, there's a very valid point in his post: Why pay for all those extra electronics/failure points when all you want is a display device. Personally, all I want is a screen and speakers with enough ports on the back for my various systems.

I RTFA. If addons require signing they have to be submitted for review by Mozilla. Mozilla becomes a gatekeeper meaning they can in theory be legally forced or simply themselves choose to not sign specific addons. That would effectively block them from being used by mainstream Firefox users who don't know about various builds/etc.

Tabs on top does have some logical sense but following that logic the bookmarks toolbar is out of place, the search bar behaves in a global manner instead of a tab based manner, etc. They just did too many "me too" things without thinking them through fully.

Most recently they removed the ability to place UI elements in the file bar - I used to keep search there (since it's global) and the address bar below the tabs. It worked really well but of course they want the file bar gone so they have to make sure no one can use it to its full potential.

If you don't sign an extension it's effectively blocked - that's the entire point of signing. The malware douches will find a way around it easily while the rest of the community suffers the consequences. It's a game of whackamole you know you can't win.