List Day: 8 Shortcomings of Newer Firefox Versions

Firefox has been my primary web browser for over 15 years, since it was called Mozilla Firebird. Over the past few years, I never liked the direction the User Experience (UX) was going in but always appreciated that I could overrule their awful changes with add-ons.

Firefox 57 rewrote the add-on framework which probably did a great deal to erase technical debt, but the new framework didn't include all of the same hooks that were originally available. Most egregiously, this broke the awesome add-on, Tab Mix Plus, which is a key part of my workflow. This is why I still have an old version of Firefox installed on at least one computer in the house:

1. I want the address bar to be above the tabs rather than inside the tabs.
2. I want a "Close Current Tab" button in a consistent location on the tab bar, rather than chasing the "X" on individual tabs as they resize.
3. I want to be able to lock a tab so it cannot be changed or closed by accident. I want to be able to mark a tab for auto-refresh at periodic intervals.
4. I want new tabs to open at the end of the tab bar, rather than to the right of the current tab.
5. I want to quickly change the search engine for several new searches from the search box without having to go into Options.
6. I want status information on a dedicated status bar rather than a distracting pop-up bar of varying lengths.
7. I want to be able to set a local file as a homepage.
8. I want in-line links to open in the same order as bookmarks.