This was requested on uservoice.com, I think this feature is worth to be considered and shouldn't be too hard to implement.

We're not giving WebExtensions direct access to preferences.

The bug 1230802 seems the place for discussion about this demand.

decided to disallow to access about:config preferences. So, It is impossible to convert Configuration Mania to a WebExtension. Not only this extensions such as QuickJ , GuI config , TMP etc cannot be ported as well. Since these are top extensions and have at some point been featured on mozilla, Mozilla should probably allow some leeway and implement the necessary apis and let the user decide if he/she wants the addon to edit the prefrence or face user backlash.

Shall we reconsider this bug ? The extion provided by Qwant is all based on the user ability to activate "tracking protection" and "do not track" with one click on a single button. This is the differentiator we are promoting to our users to use Firefox instead of Chrome.

I replied to your email, hope this helps

No, arbitrary access to preferences from extensions will not be re-considered. Specific use cases will be considered. Privacy and tracking protection is one of those areas, and the use case described is part of that consideration (bug 1359862). (In reply to david from comment #4) > Shall we reconsider this bug ? The extion provided by Qwant is all based on > the user ability to activate "tracking protection" and "do not track" with > one click on a single button. This is the differentiator we are promoting to > our users to use Firefox instead of Chrome.

To Comment 6, where was this discussed and decided? Sounds to me like making firefox radically less customizable which was my primary driving factor for using it. It is a heavy handed decision that appears to break more things than fixing. What is the point in enabling configuration settings one by one? If special control is needed to change preferences, then why not expose all preferences through such controls? What exactly is the benefit of just slowing down things by requiring manual preference exposure? It is obviously an area that would need a lot of effort fir future and existing extensions. Why not solve it for all and forget about it?