Comment 57 for bug 402767

Mostly I would like to reiterate everything above, especially by Jared Biel and Lenar.
I am also reiterating my comment on this:http://www.asoftsite.org/s9y/archives/162-What-is-this-Multisearch-thing-in-my-Firefox-about.html which has not yet been approved and might not be, but doesn't contain any new content from what was posted above. The only thing I would add is this:
Linux distributions often reach a certain level of popularity and then start to suffer delusions of grandeur with regard to changing people's experiences. This was relevant when Redhat included a custom GCC (god what was that, redhat 8?) because it screwed with people who didn't Only Use Redhat, or distributed things to/supported people who didn't use Only Redhat.
Most people don't Only Use Ubuntu. Most people who use Ubuntu, even as their primary system, also use windows, or mac os, or sometimes some other flavour of *n*x. In my case, I have a mac, windows, and ubuntu desktop, several centos servers, and enterprise users (ie, people who need their computers to behave as expected), on macs, windows desktops, ubuntu, fedora, and centos. A linux distribution can choose which packages come included by default, and which package manager is used to install and remove packages. If it chooses to fundamentally alter how a package (especially one of such importance as Firefox, or GCC), it will run into problems.
All of these people use firefox. Sure there's a couple of people who have to use webapps that require IE, and some of the diehard macheads use safari, but everyone has firefox installed and most people use it primarily. The reason for this is that firefox behaves EXACTLY the same way, no matter where you are. If it behaves any differently, it's because you chose to install an addon, and it's your fault and you know what it's default behaviour ought to be and you expect it.
Changing firefox's default behaviour is catastrophic. It's obnoxious and stupid. And if this addon stays in Karmic stable, I will be reimaging all of our ubuntu laptops, desktops, and virtual machines with Some Other Distribution that works Right. Even though it would take longer than upgrading to Karmic, it would take less time and effort and frustration than dealing with every user who complains that their firefox doesn't behave correctly.