Firefox 147 Will Support The XDG Base Directory Specification The XDG Base Directory specification lays out where application data files, configuration files, cached assets, and other files and file formats should be positioned within a user's home directory and the XDG environment variables for accessing those locations
Firefox is fixing a 21-year old problem on Linux You can see Mozilla's directory listed right alongside XDG's standard ~ config directory already being used by other applications that do follow XDG Base Directory specifications This lack of standardization means finding and editing Firefox files is its own skill In contrast, exploring the files for the multitude of other applications that use the XDG standard takes just one lesson in
Firefox 147 Will Support the XDG Base Directory Specification | Hacker News This is a meaningful step! For years, XDG Base Directory compliance has been spotty across major applications Firefox's adoption matters because it's widely used and its implementation may encourage others to follow suit The Arch Wiki documentation will likely need updates [1], but sadly the list of non-compliant software is far
Cleaning up my $HOME with XDG Base Directory Specification According to Freedesktop org, these specifications mostly cover low-level desktop issues, such as identifying file types, launching applications, and exchanging data between applications and desktops All of the XDG variables that I have encountered before come from XDG Base Directory Specification
XDG Base Directory Specification 1 Introduction # Various specifications specify files and file formats This specification defines where these files should be looked for by defining one or more base directories relative to which files should be located 2 Basics # The XDG Base Directory Specification is based on the following conc…