1178139 - add a textbox to set the new tab url

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Untriaged, defect)

Description

[u538344]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
Build ID: 20150525141253

Steps to reproduce:

Bug 1118285 intends to remove the new tab url pref in about:config. Instead of removing the feature altogether and making users install yet another addon just to accomplish this simple task, Firefox's own UI should provide a textbox for this. 

Adding a textbox for this is not much work at all and prevents people having to depend on an addon. Depending on addons is bad because they hurt startup time, developers could quit or be slow with updates, developers can push dislikeable updates, etc. Basic features should not require addons for these and other reasons, they should only be required for more advanced functionality.

Comment 1

[u538344]

A textbox would reveal the pref to the user quite clearly and make hijacks a trivial thing. Hijacks should not be a factor in these decisions anyway because it's the user's responsibility to keep his pc clean/safe in the first place. Store previous values somewhere and let the UI show a clear notification when Firefox detects a change in the pref with an option to revert it or ban the specific new value (or a matching pattern) if you must.

Comment 2

[Benjamin Smedberg]

This is the exact opposite of bug 1118285, which was clearly decided. WONTFIX.