A little historical baggage can be a dangerous thing when multiplied by a few hundred million individuals

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Firefox ships with numerous settings that can completely break the browser experience for users, including options to disable images, JavaScript, SSL/TLS, and navigation toolbars. These dangerous checkboxes exist due to historical reasons and design-by-committee decisions. The author argues that features used by less than 2% of users should be moved to add-ons rather than exposed in main settings, as they can render the browser unusable and harm the product's reputation when accidentally triggered by regular users.

Checkboxes that kill your product

<h1>This article is from 2013!</h1>
<p>So don’t fall for the bait…</p>


<p>Having so many options isnt just confusing for users, its a maintenance nightmare for developers. Each new toggle doubles the possible states your software can be in: 2 features = 4 states, 3 features = 8, 4 features = 16, and so on. With 20 togglable features, thats over a million combinations to support and test.</p>
<p>That level of complexity is simply unsustainable!</p>


<p>This is from 2013. Take it as it was in its time. Having said that, if you want firefox as a way to have a browser with no images etc, then that’s a feature for you. Maybe hide it further away, but not a reason to put it as an extension.</p>
