TL;DR: I am dumb, but not an idiosyncratic web browser user, and it was too easy for me to accidentally permanently delete all of my browser data. Deleted profiles should… (read more)
TL;DR: I am dumb, but not an idiosyncratic web browser user, and it was too easy for me to accidentally permanently delete all of my browser data. Deleted profiles should be moved into system trash when deleted, not rm'd entirely.
I have never used "profiles" and somehow, after updating firefox, seemed to have created one. I have no interest in using the feature, and therefore went to delete the new profile and disable the feature. Somehow, I instead deleted the profile I had implicitly been using all along. I clicked too hastily through the warning about deleting files, because it simply did not occur to me that deleting something related to this net-new feature should clear all of my *old* data. My goal was to restore the experience I've had in firefox for years (without profiles), but because I failed to adapt to the new feature, I lost everything instead.
I apologize for maybe shouting into the void about this, but I am posting on the off chance that this will reach someone who's involved in the implementation of these features and can save some other dumb person like me from making the same dumb mistake. It's quite painful to suddenly lose years of accumulated bookmarks, extensions, history, etc. The easiest and least intrusive solution would be to always move profiles into system trash when they are deleted, and never permanently delete them.
