Firefox's about:config | Reviews/Tutorials | Forums

karen said:

For those who don't know, Firefox has a feature that is sort of like Window's registry.  Although less dangerous to mess with.  The most that you can screw up is the browser itself.  It has lots and lots of options that you can change to further customize FF.  Some of these are exposed through the FF Options menu and some are manipulated by various plug-ins.  But you can also go in and change them directly yourself.

Open up a new tab and type "about:config".  You will get a very long list with 4 columns "Preference Name", "Status", "Type", "Value".

For preferences that have a "Type" of "boolean", double-clicking will change the value.  For "Type" of "String", you can type in the new value. 

Here are some that I think are interesting to change (and safe).  FYI, I'm running FF

3.6.

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app.update.auto – whether FF automatically downloads and updates itself

 

browser.allTabs.previews – adds a button to the right of all the tabs, that when clicked will bring up a popup window showing thumbnails of all your open tabs.  Click a thumbnail to go to that tab.

browser.ctrlTab.previews – if true, then holding Ctrl and pressing Tab will bring up the same preview window as the the above browser.allTabs.previews except that it will show a configurable number of thumbnails, not all of them.  Then a link at the bottom of the popup allows you to show all open tabs which looks like the above option.  Enabling this option will also change FF default ctrl-tab behavior.  Instead of cycling thru all open tabs, a quick Ctrl-Tab will switch to the most recently visited tab.

browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed – if you don't want the previews in the option above, but you do want ctrl-tab to go to the most recent tab rather than cycling thru them, then enabled this option

browser.blink_allowed – turns off annoying blinking links

browser.cache.* – various options for how your cache is handled, how much disk space it uses, etc.

browser.download.dir – where your downloads go by default (this can be set in the interface)

browser.download.manager.addToRecentDocs – whether a downloaded file gets added to your recent files list

browser.tabs.autohide – this option hides the tab bar when there is only one tab open

broswer.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent – if true, then new tabs open next to the "parent" tab.  if false, new tabs always open at the end

browser.taskbar.preview.enable – if you are on Win7, then if you have multiple tabs open, the hovering over the icon in the taskbar will show thumbnails of the open tabs (IE8 also does this by default).

browser.triple_click_selects_paragraph – just like it sounds. useful if you copy a lot of stuff from the web.

dom.max_script_run_time – how long javascript is allowed to run before FF pops up a warning (long running scripts are usually in error or something is wrong)

extensions.* – options related to any add-ons you have installed.  Some extensions may have options in other locations.  Also, FF doesn't appear to be very good about cleaning about:config up when you uninstall add-ons.

 

More to come …

Karen share even more FF tips with all of us. This is very useful stuff.

The nice thing about FF is that when you type in "about:config" into the address bar FF drops down an entire list of "tweakable/chooseable goodies". Not just that but the goodies list is presented in a manner which is "plainspeak" so that even non-geeks can understand it.

The one you mentioned about turning off blinking is useful for those who are visually challenged!

The good thing is this syntax "about:config" also works for Opera 10.10. As of now I don't know if this syntax works for all browsers………at least the important ones.

Locutus – I guess you are a savvy Chrome user why don't you give us a "Karen Act" relating to Chrome?

Others could do it for other browsers too

Ramesh

This thread has a potential for delivering enormous benefits to dottechies within the next 4 to 8 weeks because:-

1. It can improve FF experience for all dottechies
2. It can improve member experience inside dottech even further
3. It could help members with vision problems & maybe colour blindness as well

For us to draw full synergy out of this subject, it must however be a closed loop. I request that user feedback keeps coming back to this thread so that it helps our beloved webmaster too.

Since dottechies are across multiple platforms…….Windows, Macintosh & various Linux distros if our administrators monitor & bump this thread nicely it would deliver higher membership & better usership experience for our beloved blogsite.

The same recommendation holds true for browsers which are big boys in different countries………as we are rapidly getting members from newer countries too. On the Colour blindness thread I've provided a list of browsers, their userships & strengths worldwide.

I am requesting Ashraf, administrators & my dear dottech family to provide a knowledge pool across important web browsers – IE, FF, Opera, Safari.

Ramesh

Shhhh! Locutus & Karen! Shhhh!

Both of you smart people remind me of this mythological figure.

In this epic tale, this mythological figure never knew its own power till someone else told it. :)

Due to Netiquette I am unable to name the figure……….we obviously have a wide cross section of dottechies………atheists, theists, agnostics & followers of different religious & other practices across the world.

So Shhhh both of you!

Just pick up your pens & write. I intuit we can do a power of good if you guys write. Good "young" Wheezer is there to wield the baton to see that everyone is on track & on thread. With a little help from big 4 (where is Ashraf btw) there can be quantum improvement over the coming 4 to 6 weeks.

So just pick up your pens Karen & Locutus…………..and write

Ramesh