I am not sure it matters. The dang auto maint. thing installed without so much as and if you please. I have already rolled back to 20.1 and am once again happy.

Unfortunately, strictly as a user, recent upgrades have not been that for me. I will continue to leave the "never check for updates" option checked :-(

When you return to Firefox 23 or higher, you can use an add-on to modify the tab bar. These posts have suggestions:

• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/963676#answer-464257
• https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/967108#answer-464346

I suppose you already know, but there are a number of security flaws in Firefox 20, 21, and 22 that have been publicly announced. https://www.mozilla.org/security/known-vulnerabilities/firefox.html

There are security flaws in everything. As fast as they are fixed new ones are found.

I do not set almost anything to do automatic updates. I do not trust this from almost anyone any more.

I would rather risk those security flaws than allow certain functions I really want and use to be taken away under the guise of an upgrade and security fix. And I do not want to be forced to accept those things I do not want either.

Mozilla knows there are plenty of folks who do not like or do tabbed browsing who use FireFox. this whole issue with forcing it on folks was not necessary, it has nothing to do with security, it doesn't make anything work better of faster. So why was it done in such a way that somebody had to make an external fix to keep users happy? You tick off a bunch of folks that way. So why do it?

Firefox has gradually become less user friendly and more invasive in the past few years, imo. Some of it I found ways around, often in an addon. But the automatic function that wants to check to see things are up to date whenever I start Firefox I will not allow on my machine. The only way I can keep it off is not to use a version above 20.1. Until and unless something changes in FireFox in that respect, I will stay with the earlier version until I am finally forced to choose a different browser entirely.

This whole episode with tabs is just one more example of changes being made for no reason. Forcing folks to accept the tab change has nothing to do with security

It is a shame, but nothing good last for ever.

You are correct that showing the tab bar even when there is only one tab has nothing to do with security. Firefox is changing. This is part of a series of changes toward a new layout for the user interface expected to arrive next year. Perhaps removing the preference now was premature, but it wasn't just a random decision.

To submit comments on the UI in a way that doesn't quickly get buried by other threads, please use Help > Submit Feedback.

TY- I have submitted feedback,