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Changes to mozilla that are hurting elders and disabled people

green45
Making moves

Hello,

There have been changes to the way Mozilla interacts with the user that is making it difficult for some people who have cognitive disabilities.

I work with some individuals who need the computer to do the same thing every time they use the device.

These individuals literally cannot use their pc when it changes each time they use the device.

The folks who are using a piece of paper to follow step by step instructions are usually those who are elderly, new to using computers, those who are using screen readers and cannot actually see the computer with their eyes, and senior citizens.

When individuals need step by step instructions to use their pc they need the device to do the same thing on the screen every time they use the device to get to a certain menu or website. Every time mozilla says to the people I work with, "here's what's new" or "we have you covered" or "we've updated your browser!" it sends a lot of the people I work with into a panic. Or some people just want to throw the whole pc away.

Every time mozilla automatically updates it sends the user to a page saying how mozilla is a great browser, or here's what we did today or let's give you more info.

I am desperately trying to find a way to stop these notices so that I can assist the people I work with in being fully independent.

When I have a client that works on a linux I can very easily reprogram the pc to do the same exact steps to get to what the client needs. When the client has a pc like mac os or android the device is more closed in and I have less control over what happens in the computer.

If you could find a way to stop mozilla from submitting advertisements of itself and it's updates it would make technology much more accessible to all kinds of people which would allow everyone to benefit from it not just those who are not disabled or who are not new to using the internet. If you added a setting to disable these notices it would help many many people.

Thank you

3 REPLIES 3

Anonymous
Not applicable

You can install Firefox Extended Support Release (ESR) on their devices and then use Policy Templates for Firefox to configure it automatically.

 

CanyonWren
Making moves

Not sure if this is the right place for this, but I found the video that came with the latest update - How Firefox Keeps YOU Safe and Organized, Dr. Nae - agitating and indecipherable for the following reasons: The background "music" is a deal breaker for anyone with a hearing deficit, hearing aids, tinnitus, brain injury, or slowing cognition - in other words, everyone over 60; The video itself appears to be targeting 10-year-olds and dumbing them down with jarring jargon such as "congrats" and "questioooone"; When it comes to new information, neurons need time to connect - these videos scream past with a thousand distractions that I guess are supposed to be...what...cute?; I tried slowing the video down to 3/4 speed and using closed-captions. That helped, but I still didn't make it past the first 1/4 as there very little actual information and very much eye-rolling distraction. I found another Firefox video via my search engine about picture-in-picture...it had a quiet video of lemurs with instructions in text beside that was visually pleasing, hearing friendly, and useful. More of that, please, and less Dr. Nae-style "entertainment".

BalloonPark
Making moves

I found the below to disable updates on Windows. Not sure about mac, linux and android.

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/jxowcd/disable_update_available_popups/gq1c44v/