mtbc | Web browsers

Firefox 49 has removed the browser.urlbar.unifiedcomplete configuration property which was but the latest that allowed me to undo another user interface change that I really didn't like; messing with userChrome.css and similar just seems ridiculous. Chrome follows the same pattern of making the user interface increasingly minimal and symbol-centric, decreasingly configurable, with the underlying application becoming increasingly featureful in doing things I don't want (even auto-upgrading addons), making it a real hassle to use sites with poorly configured SSL certificates, etc. I can't help but wonder if browser design didn't peak sometime around when Mosaic gained proper support for the table element. I have used Firefox for a long time but, as with Amazon, almost every obvious change for some years now has for me been a regression in usability.

On the other hand, if I use the wrong browser then I can expect many websites to not work properly. Not using Internet Explorer (or Edge or whatever it now is) probably already causes some trouble and I overhear enough conversations where Mac users find that some website doesn't work and the underlying cause appears to be their optimistic use of Safari. I wonder if there are any browsers that remain configurable and largely limit their feature development to actually showing me webpages and otherwise staying out of my way. Perhaps I should check how Pale Moon's coming along.