Let me choose my Homepage
Why does Firefox purposely choose to alienate their Android users by not allowing them to choose their own home screen. The Firefox web browser on Windows does.
As much as I distrust Google as a company and avoid using their products (as much as convenietly possible), I am very comfortable using their search engine and comfortable seeing a Google homepage with the Google search bar.
Firefox doesn't even give me the courtesy to: 1) know or understand which search engine I am using when I am on the "forced" Firefox homepage, or 2) set my own homepage. Therefore, I have to ensure the cursor is in the "search/web address" bar, start typing "google", and hit enter in order to get to the familiar Google homepage of which I am comfortable. I hate that Firefox forces me to do that!
Otherwise, I like using the Firefox browser as an alternative to Google. Nonetheless, it's your company and you can do what you like, but as soon as I come across an alternative browser that allows me to adjust it's settings to my preferences, it's adios MFr's to Firefox.
FYI, I would LOVE to meet the decision maker at Mozilla that OK'd this change and listen to him/her/they hem, haw and double-speak through their ridiculous justification. Another thing, while I'm at it.... Exactly, when did it become a better idea for companies (challenging the industry leader) to alienate their users?
All Replies (6)
Hi
You may find that this support article helps with changing the default search engine in Firefox for Android:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/manage-my-default-search-engines-firefox-android
With regards to changing the home page, please appreciate that the people who answer questions here, for the most part, are other users volunteering their time (like me), not Mozilla employees or developers. If you want to leave feedback for developers, you can go to the Firefox Help menu and select Share ideas and feedback…. Alternatively, you can use this link. Your feedback gets collected by a team of people who read it and gather data about the most common issues.
You can also file a bug report or feature request. See File a bug report or feature request for Mozilla products for details.
Hi, I don't know if it's just me, but I have a Google link pinned as the first shortcut on the Firefox for Android home screen. Since I can't figure out how to move a shortcut, I assume Mozilla put that there. Are you displaying the Shortcuts section? Does that load a different address than the one you prefer?
This site focuses on making Firefox work as designed. For feedback on the direction of the product, Mozilla has a site at https://connect.mozilla.org/. If you have time, it would be a good idea to post a feature change suggestion over there to get into the current feedback stream. Use the "Ideas" section of the site for specific proposed changes, and the "Discussions" section for more general feedback.
I am grateful that two non-Mozilla employees took time to reply to my concern. However, it begs the question why Mozilla obfuscates the entire feedback process? In reading the different feedback options, it is not intuitively obvious how to communicate most effectively.
Furthermore, it is becoming overwhelmingly obvious that software companies are racing away from customer service at a blinding speed in order to minimize overhead. This has pushed the customer service process back on the customer via FAQs, forums, volunteer support, etc.
The first response from Paul, although a "nice try", is a complete waste of time since it didn't even address my question, let alone answer it. The second response had a nice work around that I might try. If you can't guess from my grammar/vocabulary, I'm an old fart and don't even know how to pin a shortcut, but it seems like a reasonable option since I don't expect Mozilla to change back to something that used to be the norm for their product. They removed that option for a reason, right?
Finally, why doesn't Mozilla hire someone with AI experience to write code to decipher customer comments/feedback and route it to the appropriate department? Please stop making it so difficult to use your product and add insult to injury by making it so difficult to communicate my dissatisfaction!
This site is designed around the idea of asking a question rather than communicating dissatisfaction. But you now have a link to Mozilla Connect for the latter.
The mobile version of Firefox reflected a fresh view of what mobile users need rather than following desktop browser designs. Over time, there has been a little convergence, but less than many had hoped.
They totally plowed it up and left it to us to find the fixes, and not all of us are geeks! Sold us out, took the money and ran! Everything is torn up and I just want MY homepage back right now.
pamclark1 said
They totally plowed it up and left it to us to find the fixes, and not all of us are geeks! Sold us out, took the money and ran! Everything is torn up and I just want MY homepage back right now.
If you are having this problem on your Android device, you can propose feature changes at https://connect.mozilla.org/ -- check the "Ideas" section of the site for an existing submission, or submit a new one.
If you have having this problem on your Windows PC, a Mac, or on Linux, does the article "How to set the home page" work for you? If that doesn't help, please start a new question so you can get assistance: https://support.mozilla.org/questions/new/desktop/form