Firefox Configuration Tips and Tricks

Use the Firefox browser :

If you type about:config in address bar of firefox, it will open its configuration page, that allows to change a lot of settings.

Here I'm presenting some settings, that can be configured. These tweaks have been tested on high speed networks and cable, they might need to be tweaked for slower connections.

You can follow any of these two steps to config your browser:

1. Use the about:config screen which lets you add, modify or reset values or
2. Manually add all of these hacks to the prefs.js.

Option 1:

Type about:config at the location/url bar, this will list all current references, and you can change the settings listed below.

Option 2:

• Exit out of the browser completely, because if you don't close the browser, it'll overwrite the settings to default.
• Find your prefs.js file (usually in Drive:\Documents and Settings\USER_NAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\... directory in Windows XP).
• Backup your prefs.js file.
• Ccopy and paste the hacks listed below at the BOTTOM of the file.
• Save the prefs.js file and restart your browser .

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// Performance
// This will allow Firefox to maintain it GUI memory so that the browser window
user_pref("config.trim_on_minimize", false);

// Specify the amount of memory cache:
// -1 = determine dynamically (default), 0 = none, n = memory capacity in kilobytes
// If you have the memory to spare, enabling this will run things a little smoother
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536); //<-- thus equal about 64 megs, drop down to less if you can't spare the RAM

// Remove painting delay when loading pages
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0); // Default is 250

user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true); // Turn on timer-based reflow management

user_pref("content.notify.interval", 100); // Sets the allowed time between reflows in microseconds

// Set the number of reflows to do before waiting for the rest of the page to arrive
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 200);

// Other Tweaks
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000);
user_pref("content.maxtextrun", 8191);

// Enable Improve pipelining:
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.firstrequest", true); // Default is false
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8); // Default is 4

// Increase Multi-Threaded Downloading performance
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 96); // Default is 24 <-- Use this for modems user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 32); // Default is 8 <-- Use this for modems user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 24); // Default is 4 <-- Use this for modems user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 12); // Default is 2 <-- Use this for modems

// Other Tweaks
user_pref("network.dnsCacheExpiration", 86400);
user_pref("network.dnsCacheEntries", 256);
user_pref("network.ftp.idleConnectionTimeout", 60);
user_pref("network.http.keep-alive.timeout", 30);

user_pref("ui.submenuDelay", 0);

user_pref("dom.disable_window_status_change", true);

// Shows an error page instead of an error popup dialog, have been using this for a long time now
// found this useful if you load multiple pages at the same the dialog box actually holds up the browser
// using this will allow the other pages/elements to load for the rest of the pages
user_pref("browser.xul.error_pages.enabled", true);

// Searching & Type Ahead
// Change to normal Google search:
user_pref("keyword.URL", "http://google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=");

// Find As You Type Configuration:
// Set this pref to false to disable Find As You Type:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind", true);

// If you set this pref to true, typing can automatically start Find As You Type.
// If false (default), you must hit / (find text) or ' (find links) before your search.
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart", true);

// Set this pref to false if you want Find As You Type to search normal text too:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly", false);

// Set this pref to true if you require that the link starts with the entered text:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly", false);

// This is the time in milliseconds for the Find As You Type to stop watching for keystrokes:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.timeout", 3000);

// User Interface
// Enable Bookmark Icons (I love this feature)
user_pref("browser.chrome.site_icons", true);
user_pref("browser.chrome.favicons", true);
user_pref("browser.chrome.load_toolbar_icons", 2);

// Do not Reuse Active Mozilla Browser, create a new one for email links etc.
user_pref("advanced.system.supportDDEExec", false);

// Disable Smooth Scrolling (found it faster to have this off)
user_pref("general.smoothScroll", false);

// Allows for faster mouse scrolling
user_pref("mousewheel.withnokey.numlines", 6); // Adjust this accordingly - Default = 1
user_pref("mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines", false); // This must be set to false in order to read previous line

user_pref("extensions.disabledObsolete", true);

user_pref("browser.display.show_image_placeholders", true);

// 1.0 Preview disables dynamic theme switching, this re-enables dynamic theme switching.
user_pref("extensions.dss.enabled", true);

// Mail & News
user_pref("mailnews.start_page.enabled", false);

// always send messages in MIME format (both plain- and HTML-formatted)
user_pref("mail.default_html_action", 3);

// The follow two are disabled for security reasons
user_pref("mailnews.message_display.allow.plugins", false);
user_pref("javascript.allow.mailnews"),

user_pref("alerts.totalOpenTime", 7000);

// Disable this for performance and security issues when reading emails
// Security issues? Yes especially with zlib, jpeg, png and all kinds of new attacks coming out,
// displaying images inline can no longer be taken for granted. This only affects attached graphics.
user_pref("mail.inline_attachments", false);

user_pref("mailnews.show_send_progress", false);

// Security
// Just to make sure, disable windows shell: protocol
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.shell", false);

// Show full path for plugin file on about:plugins page
// the full path was removed for security purposes, please keep that in mind
// Note: showing full paths can be a security risk only use when debugging.
user_pref("plugin.expose_full_path", false);

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There are Three files, that can be edited to configure Firefox!

user.js :-
Used to change various preferences.
userChrome.css :-
Used to change the appearance of the browser.
userContent.css :-
Used to change the appearance of web pages.

All these files are plain text files stored in your profile folder, and can be edited using a standard text editor, such as Notepad on Windows and gedit or kate on Linux.

The Profile Folder :

The profile folder is where Firefox saves all your settings and refers to a location on your hard drive.

On Windows XP/2000, the path is usually

%AppData%\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\, where xxxxxxxx is a random string of 3 characters. Just browse to C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ and the rest should be obvious.

On Windows 95/98/Me, the path is usually C:\WINDOWS\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\ .

On Linux, the path is usually ~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/ .

On MacOS X, the path is usually ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/ .

Firefox is capable of handling more than one user and thus, more than one profile. The path examples above refers to the default profile that is automatically created when you start Firefox for the first time. You can manage any number of profiles by using the Profile Manager.

%AppData% is a shorthand for the Application Data path on Windows 2000/XP. To use it, click Start > Run..., enter %AppData% and press Enter. You will be taken to the "real" folder, which is normally C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data.

user.js :-

This is the main preferences file for Firefox and is located in you profile folder. The file does not exist by default, so you need to create it before you can start adding your preferences.

userChrome.css :-

This file sets the display rules for various elements in the Firefox user interface and is located in the sub-folder called chrome in your profile folder. As with user.js, this file does not exist by default, so you need to create it before you can start adding your preferences. There's actually an example file that exists by default, called "userChrome-example.css". Basically, you can just rename that file by removing the "-example" part.

userContent.css :-

This file sets the display rules for web content and is located in the sub-folder called chrome in your profile folder. As with user.js, this file does not exist by default, so you need to create it before you can start adding your preferences. As with userChrome.css, there is an example file that exists by default, called "userContent-example.css". Basically, you can just rename that file by removing the "-example" part.

http://www.programmerworld.net/articles/software/firefox_tips.php