Comment 1 for bug 1399303

It seems to me, as a consumer of backups, that I would not feel very trusting of a backup that didn't always contain the same stuff. If sometimes some of it could be missing, how do I know that it's not just a bug? Also, if it seems like the usefulness of any particular file in a backup is binary - either it's useful enough to backup, or it's not. It shouldn't ever just be there "some of the time if it's handy and easy to get".

I'm also definitely against any kind of manifest. The backup file should be opaque to users. It should be a blob they never need to get into. IF they ever do, it should be the exception, not the rule. At best, this kind of information about optional files should simply be in the help for backups somewhere. ...but again, the idea of optional data in backups seems incredibly wrong to me.