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IronFox
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User Experience Patches

These patches improve the overall browsing experience by blocking annoyances like autoplaying media, creating a smoother and less disruptive user journey.

Patches

Default Site Permissions

Configures IronFox’s default site permissions. Currently blocks Autoplay, Geolocation prompts, and Notification prompts by default.

Reason
To prevent websites from prompting users to access Geolocation and send Notifications, and to prevent unwanted audio/video playback.
Effect
Improves user experience, and blocking Autoplay reduces bandwidth usage.

IronFox Fingerprinting Protection (FPP) Overrides

Adds support for an internal list that disables specific fingerprinting protections as needed on a per-site basis.

Reason
To reduce website breakage for end-users. Setting the overrides this way specifically also avoids us needing to use the ‘privacy.fingerprintingProtection.granularOverrides’ preference like we have in the past, allowing users to easily set their own overrides (via that preference) if needed.
Effect
Provides users with a seamless browsing experience and allows them to benefit from our strong fingerprinting protection, minus the breakage and headaches.

IronFox Onboarding

Adds IronFox-specific onboarding screens.

Reason
To allow users to configure IronFox to their liking on first install.
Effect
Users can toggle features as per their liking before they take effect in the browser.

Allow uBlock Origin in Private Browsing by default

Allows uBlock Origin to run in private browsing windows by default.

Reason
To ensure that users are protected with strong content blocking in private browsing windows.
Effect
Users are always protected against ads/tracking/malware/etc.

Disable Automatically Pinning Recently Visited Sites to Home

Prevents Firefox from automatically pinning random recently visited website to the browser homepage.

Reason
To reduce annoyances and get rid of obnoxious/unwanted behavior.
Effect
Users are provided with a cleaner, faster, and more focused browser homepage.

Hide the ‘Remove’ and ‘Run in private browsing’ toggles for built-in add-ons.

Hide the no-op ‘Remove’ and ‘Run in private browsing’ toggles for built-in add-ons.

Reason
To improve UX and prevent users from seeing/attempting to use toggles that do not work (The ‘Run in private browsing’ toggle simply immediately resets, and built-in add-ons are simply re-installed on the next launch if uninstalled with the ‘Remove’ toggle).
Effect
Users are provided with a cleaner UI and won’t try to use toggles that do not work as expected.

Lock GeckoRuntimeSettings Preferences.

Locks Gecko preferences controlled by GeckoRuntimeSettings to ensure they stay in sync with Fenix (Firefox for Android)‘s UI settings.

Reason
To avoid bugs/unexpected behavior from UI settings not matching with related Gecko preferences, and to prevent from users from attempting to change these preferences directly from about:config (as doing so simply results in the pref resetting on the next browser launch).
Effect
Gecko preferences remain in sync with their corresponding UI setting(s), users are provided with a more stable browsing experience, and users can avoid having their preferences unintentionally reset (when set from about:config directly).

Control Gecko Autofill From UI Settings

If autofill is enabled/disabled from the browser’s UI settings, this patch also enables/disables support for it within Gecko.

Reason
Helps ensure that Gecko preferences/behavior is in sync with Fenix settings/behavior, improves UX, performance, and provides additional attack surface reduction, by ensuring that autofill functionality is fully disabled within Gecko when it’s disabled by the corresponding Fenix UI settings.
Effect
Users can fully disable address/credit card autofill functionality from the UI.

Control Gecko Password Manager From UI Settings

If the password manager is enabled/disabled from the browser’s UI settings, this patch also enables/disables support for it within Gecko.

Reason
Helps ensure that Gecko preferences/behavior is in sync with Fenix settings/behavior, improves UX, performance, and provides additional attack surface reduction, by ensuring that password manager functionality is fully disabled within Gecko when it’s disabled by the corresponding Fenix UI setting.
Effect
Users can fully disable password manager functionality from the UI.