> updates have been known to re-enable it if you turn it off ... But it doesn’t matter - you’re going to re-enable it on the next update.
It's surprising how ... trustworthy Chrome is in this regard. My default search engine is set to DDG and through countless updates Chrome has never once attempted to reset it to Google.
My default search engine is set to DDG on Firefox and through countless updates Firefox has never once attempted to reset it to whatever Mozilla are taking money to promote now.
I know it’s kind of the opposite action, but I lost trust in Chrome over it persistently and repeatedly deleting my extensions. Searching for help reveals I have to “sign in” to keep my extensions. When a browser built by an advertising company wants me to sign in, the only conclusion I can make is they want to track my browsing behavior. I probably consented to that through the click wrap agreement, or maybe not. Who knows? I’m not about to spend a whole day reading 10 miles of legalese to find out.
Try
Firefox 24 in a VM
It's insecure, slow, but it's the last good version of Firefox.
Anything after 24, has Australis, which is the beginning of the end of Mozilla IMHO.
Or go Pale Moon, as it forked off from around that point but has gotten security fixes etc.
You'll have to deal with warnings from websites that you're using an "insecure" browser. And eventually it will stop working at all because it lacks features that web developers assume everyone has.
You can disable most of Australis with a bit of css, so using firefox 24 for that reason is pretty heavy on the cutting off your nose to spite your face.
"Sign in" as in into Chrome Sync?