I recently started using firefox and was very frustrated with how large the UI was, how it autofilled entire URLs while i was trying to search something, and how it changed my system’s titlebar buttons (minimize, maximize, close) to windows ones when I changed the theme from the default. I just found out about about:config and was able to solve every major issue i had with firefox literally within minutes, so why do they hide most of the settings?
it makes way more sense to just put the settings in the settings menu. also, why hide the compact density option? on a 1920x1080 display the default is about an eighth of my screen, my taskbar is only like 60% of that. having tried a couple of firefox-based browsers, i can confidently say the only thing any of them do better (aside from telemetry that can be easily turned off) is their settings. why does firefox hide most of the settings?
Because when the Proton UI was released, management decided to officially support three density levels and dropped Compact. They still left the css there and it still works, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually breaks down the road.
There is already one minor breakage that I’m aware of. Tabs can display additional text, for example when a tab is playing audio, it shows “PLAYING” underneath the tab title. This requires tabs to be two lines of text tall, so it’s just not displayed in Compact density…