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Reminds me how Mozilla removes various things from Firefox such as [Compact density](https://www.pcmag.com/news/firefox-redesign-will-see-compact...) because their telemetry tells them nobody uses them. And oh boy the backlash from the community...

> Reminds me how Mozilla removes various things from Firefox...because their telemetry tells them nobody uses them

Got I hate telemetry. I usually (and I imagine many people) turn it off because I don't like my stuff phoning back to the mothership, but then some brainless moron mindlessly uses their "data" for decision-making, and rips out good features.

This is especially dumb for Mozilla. Who do they think still uses Firefox? The people who want some dumbed down minimalist lookalike? Their overall browser market-share isn't too much more than Samsung Internet, and probably the only reason anyone still uses it anymore is that it's not as dumbed down as Chrome. Maybe they should just run with being the browser for power users, with all kinds of interesting niche features and customization.

Honestly, UX telemetery probably should be banned for everything except error reporting. Nothing good seems to come of it. If you want to know what people do with your stuff, just try to empathize and maybe have some focus groups.

You could argue that the majority of telemetry is produced by the most compliant subset of the users. Critical or privacy-savvy users will probably reject telemetry when asked. These users will accept all the bad UX ideas.

In other words, the data is just acting as confirmation bias.

> Maybe they should just run with being the browser for power users, with all kinds of interesting niche features and customization.

The ship has long sailed after they killed their addon ecosystem by killing XUL addons. The quality and feature-sets of addons took as much a nosedive as their user-share.

Since then, they were keen on continuing this trajectory, and introduced multiple UX/UI regressions that alienated all (most?) of their power users, sometimes even disallowing fixes through about:config.

That .gov analytics site that was posted here yesterday showed Firefox setting at 2.4%, which is just about right for all the string of horrible decisions they've made.

The horse is dead, Jim. And, unlike an old movie or a videogame, almost no one is going to have nostalgia feelings for a web browser.

> The horse is dead, Jim. And, unlike an old movie or a videogame, almost no one is going to have nostalgia feelings for a web browser.

I have more nostalgia for old Firefox [EDIT:] and for the old W95/NT4/98/2K GUI [/EDIT] than for any game or movie.

This is why power users and developers like us should be running with telemetry enabled, so that our actions, the features we use, and the way we use them get accounted for and stop being removed or nerfed into uselessness.

Yes I know there is talk about privacy and security issues with telemetry, and I don't necessarily like it myself, but if we don't vote with our data then the developers of these systems won't recognise what we use and we will lose it.

Probably not the most popular view around here but if companies use these metrics to decide what is important then maybe we should contribute some data.

Compact density, bookmark descriptions, rss support... They've removed so many "niche" features that I decided to try Chrome and found the only thing I miss are multi-account containers. I used a container for personal stuff and another one for work, and I've switched to using Chrome for work and Firefox for personal stuff so I don't even use that anymore, but I hope they don't remove it.

Mozilla removed add-on support from Firefox Android for non-approved add-ons. So now 90% of the add-ons I used to use are gone.

There is a workaround using custom AOM collections but it's annoying to have a feature removed.

The initial versions of PowerToys Run used the old WindowWalker default shortcut of Win+Ctrl, which I found to be fantastic. Then they rewrote the whole hotkey detection code which made that hotkey combination nonfunctional.

Now I use Win+Ctrl+Space but it doesn't work at all if certain apps are focused, ironically VSCode and Windows Terminal, so you have to enable some "compatibility mode" that also doesn't work properly sometimes with those apps in focus. The PowerToys Run window pops up but it isn't always focused.

Might have to fork the damn thing and reinstate the old hotkey code :/

> I tried to use that trick for a window that got stuck offscreen.

Aside to your larger point, but WIN+SHIFT+DOWN ARROW (restore), WIN+SHIFT+LEFT or RIGHT ARROW (move monitor) are an alternative go-to for saving off-screen windows.

You can also reconfigure Powertoys Run to use a different key-combination than ALT-Space.

I didn’t expect to see a Powertoys rant in this thread. Seemed like one of the few teams at Microsoft that’s clearly power-user-focused and eats its own dogfood. Has made my life easier in several ways. Very difficult to live without once you become accustomed to it, has a number of features that should be shipped with Windows but aren’t for some reason.

It’s an optional power user add in you’re complaining about not a system wide change. Just disable that feature if you don’t like it.

I was describing how this metrics-driven style of development infected not just the core Windows team, but peripheral teams like the PowerToys group.

PowerToys used to be a rather benign system enhancement. It didn't take away any features I already relied on, it just added new features.

So when I saw that there was a new PowerToys for Windows 10, I installed it. I figured it wouldn't get in the way and I would discover its enhancements over time.

I didn't know at the time that it would disable a basic system keyboard shortcut that I had relied on decades.

Couldn’t you just open PowerToys and disable the feature though, or does that not restore the other shortcut?

Of course I could, and I did, eventually.

The problem was that in the moment, I did not understand why my Alt+Space shortcut that had always worked before instead brought up this weird launcher window instead of the standard system menu I was expecting. After fiddling around for some time, I gave up and rebooted and lost data.

Once I learned what was going on, I switched the shortcut in PowerToys.

That does not excuse the PowerToys team for disabling a fundamental Windows shortcut key combo.

They very existence of PowerToys is a testament to Windows's mismanagement. They wrapped search around Wox, an app that uses Everything, to appease users who were unhappy with Windows Search. Microsoft declined to use Everything to power their search, by the way. Most PowerToy suggestions on their GitHub are just Windows suggestions and bug fixes.

Mine's set to Win+Space.

Finally a use for the windows key! (on top of win+shift+arrows)

They did?!? Please excuse me a sec, while I go uninstall that shit...