Incorrect. As has been made clear previously, you can still install unsigned extensions if you're using Beta, Nightly, or Developer Edition, which are intended for power users. The discussion here is around the vanilla, mainstream version of Firefox. They still support power users.
What are my options if I want don't want to be a guinea pig running bugging prerelease software, and I want automatic updates because I don't want to accidentally be a chump running outdated software?
As far as I know, unbranded doesn't autoupdate while beta, nightly, and developer are all buggy software for guinea pigs.
Edit: Why are both the responses I've received worded rudely? Did I say something wrong?
You could probably compile the release version and change anything you want to, but that won't get you automatic updates.
As a fully open source product, with a demand and will large enough, someone could make a fork, even a minimal one, where they take upstream and keep this feature enabled. I personally don't think sufficient demand and will exists for that to happen.
I suppose they could make an about:config option out of allowing it, but really, so few users will probably find it so much of a problem that even a bug report/feature request for that probably wouldn't get traction.
They can't please everyone. Overall, it seems like a reasonable move to me.
They're entitled to complain, though; that's a proper, by-the-rules way to signal preferences to the market.
FWIW, I agree. Having the choice only between casual user version and unstable dev version is missing a power user option in the middle. I'm personally not going to abandon Firefox over this, but I'm that less interested in embracing web as a platform for productive work.
Then you educate yourself on those versions, and discover that the "dev" edition is not a prerelease version at all, unlike beta and nightly, which are. The Dev edition is a version of the main release channel with flags turned on/off to enable all the "only powerusers need these things" functionality out of the box.
Like installing whatever extension you want directly from file.
I think you're wrong about that. My Firefox Developer Edition install has upgraded itself to 71.0b6. My Firefox install is at 70.0.1. Both claim to be up to date...
Real Firefox power users should know that if they want to hack a website, they can
1) write an user script and load it into Violentmonkey, or CSS and load into Stylus. You can easily distribute some Javascript/CSS text via email or IM.
2) If user script or CSS not enough, you can write an addon, create a free Firefox account, submit the addon to your own account at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/addon/submit/agr... and download the signed addon XPI file. Then you can distribute the file in whatever way you want, provided you are not violating any license agreement.
That's a strange thing to ask. IF you're a real poweruser, you're not using the standard release version of firefox, you're using the dev, beta, or nightly version. In which case you have all the power you want and you can install literally anything --no matter how insecure or horrible it is-- by opening the add-ons settings, clicking the gear, and selecting "Install Add-on from File".
