https://phabricator.services.mozilla.com/rMOZILLACENTRAL8ae3...

If you see the five line fix for the bug and think "I could have done this!" You could!

The actual answer is "why didn't't I?"

So to answer that question for myself : How easy is it to compile Firefox and run the test suite?

The long bug hunting bit after that is the fun part.

I regularly contribute to the software I use and I tried doing something for Firefox. It was so hard for an outsider that I just stopped trying it. The entire system involving hg, various repositories, outdated wikis, very complex building, bugzilla etc is just so... hard to get into.

If Firefox was on GitHub (or even a self-hosted GitLab) where I can just fork it, play around and have the exact same CI, that would be an entire different story. I whish it was as easy as that.

Firefox has way too many components to be "just one repo you can fork".

The repo is also mirrored on GitHub for convenience, though PRs are not accepted through GitHub: https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev

The build instructions start with a script (“mach bootstrap”) that will download and install all the blessed tools and SDKs needed to build: https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/setup/index.html

Depending on your network and computer, it can be possible to download the source and compile and run your own Firefox build in less than 20 minutes.