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Firefox has a dangerous (IMO) default setting for clearing history (cookies) - "last hour" instead of "everything." When a person is in a routine - clicking History -> Clear Recent History -> okay, it's very easy to miss that Firefox reset your settings to "last hour" when you upgraded. That setting change is not at all obvious.

Is there a way to make Firefox preferences persistent when you upgrade?

Firefox 82.0.2; Windows 10 (current)

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2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Given the nature of software development, this isn't really feasible. Otherwise, your test coverage has to include every version you ever developed, and each of the settings on and off; including the deprecated settings. In addition, the upgrade would have to report out which settings could be persisted, and which had to be reset as they're obsolete, or the behaviour of the function has changed.

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  • I think critical preferences, such as no longer deleting all cookies when the okay button is pressed on the dialog, should be an exception to that.
    – Richard
    Commented Nov 9, 2020 at 22:43
  • I'm not disagreeing with that. Ultimately it's the decision of the Firefox Product Owner(s).
    – spikey_richie
    Commented Nov 10, 2020 at 8:16
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You can't prevent the update from doing what it is programmed to do. The most you can do is to backup your preferences and compare the new with the old to detect any changes.

You may backup the whole profile folder, although in most cases backing up the file pref.js may be enough. A good tool to compare two text files is WinMerge, which makes it very easy to copy differing lines between the two files in order to return a changed preference.

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  • Thanks. I considered your pref.js suggestion, and adding a reminder file on my desktop. Then I realized it would be easier to just use that desktop file to keep a log of any preferences I change. I definitely need to remember to turn auto updates back off after an update, so this not deleting cookies problem doesn't sneak up on me.
    – Richard
    Commented Nov 9, 2020 at 22:45
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    WinMerge would be easier to use than such a list.
    – harrymc
    Commented Nov 10, 2020 at 7:05

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