Firefox is a popular open source free web browser. It gets updated
quickly. There are a lot of add ons to customize and adding
functionality to your Firefox. But you may hack into the
about:config to get the best of it. Too many unnecessary add ons may slow down your firefox. The
about:config page
contains Firefox configuration options. You can change these options
according to your needs. There are many features in Firefox that is
hidden. See here to
Enable Autofill in Mozilla FirefoxAddress Bar Like as in Google Chrome. You can also see here to
Make your Firefox Speedy & Faster. Here are some Coolest Firefox About:Config Tricks.
Now Open your browser and write about:config in address bar. New window will open. Click on “I’ll be careful, I promise” button. then follow the below tweak to customize firefox.
1. Open Search Box Results In New Tab:
When you search using the search box at the top right corner of the
browser, it will display the search results in the current tab. If you
don’t want the search to interfere with your current tab, you can make
it open in a new tab.
Write browser.search.openintab. By default it is False, Change it to True.
2. When Minimized Firefox Lower The Physical Memory Used:
When you minimize Firefox, it will send Firefox to your virtual
memory and free up your physical memory for other programs to use.
Firefox will reduce its physical memory usage, when minimized, to
approximately 10MB and when you open Firefox it will take back the memory that it needs. You need to create the tweak.
Right click on the background and select New->Boolean.
Enter the Preference name when prompted: config.trim_on_minimize
Select the values: True
3. Increase/Decrease the Amount of Disk Cache:
When you loaded a page, Firefox caches it into the hard disk so that
it doesn’t need to be download again for redisplaying. The bigger the
storage size you cater for Firefox, the more pages it can cache.
Before you increase the disk cache size, make sure that browser.cache.disk.enable is set to True.
Now write browser.cache.disk.capacity and change the value you need. Write 0 to disable disk caching. Greater value will increase disk cache.
4. Disable or Enable Selection of all text when click on the URL bar:
By default in Windows and Mac when you click on the URL bar it
selects all text. But it is not available in Linux. You can Disable or
Enable Selection of all text when click on the URL bar. In Linux it
places the cursor at the insertion point.
Write browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll and change the value to False – place cursor at insertion point and True – select all text on click.
5. Configure Backspace Button:
When you click on the Backspace button you will go back to previous page. You may configure it to go on page up or does nothing.
Write browser.backspace_action. Set the value to 0 – go back previous page or 1- page up or 2 to does nothing.
6. Increase Offline Cache:
To increase Offline Cache of Firefox write browser.cache.offline.capacity Set any value higher than default to increase the Offline cache limit.
7. Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-on:
Every time you install a New Firefox add-on, you will have to wait
for several secs before the installation starts. If you dont want to
wait, you can turn the function off so that the installation will start
immediately upon clicking or change the waiting time.
Write security.dialog_enable_delay and change the value to 0 to start installation immediately or any value in millisecond other than 2000 to increase and decrease the waiting time.
8. Disable Autohide Toolbar in Fullscreen mode:
In fullscreen mode of Firefox, the toolbar is set to autohide and
appear upon mouse hover. You can set it to show toolbar always even in
fullscreen mode. To get full screen simply press F11. Write browser.fullscreen.autohide. Set it to False to show toolbar always. By default it is hidden in fullscreen mode.
9. Increase the Session Restore Saving Frequency:
Firefox will automatically saves your session every 15 secs so that
whenever it crashes, it can restore all your tabs. While this is a
useful feature, some of you might find it boring. You may increase the
session restore saving frequency more. Write browser.sessionstore.interval and set the value as you need. It is in millisecond so that means 15000=15 seconds. Change it as you wish.
10. Disable Antivirus Scanning After Download:
Firefox automatically scan the downloaded file with the default
anti-virus. For a big file, it could take a long time for the whole
scanning process to complete. To increase the performance of the
browser, you might want to consider disabling the anti-virus scanning.
Write browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone and Set the value to false to disable Antivirus Scanning After Download.
11. Show/hide Close Button on Tabs:
many times you may accidentally click on the close button on tab. You can configure it to your preferences. Write browser.tabs.closeButtons and set the value:
- 0 – display a close button on the active tab only.
- 1- display close buttons on all tabs.
- 2- don’t display any close buttons.
- 3- display a single close button at the end of the tab strip.
12. Disable Javascript Popup:
Write browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction and set the value upto your needs: By default it set to 2
- 0 – open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows
- 1 – do not open any new windows
- 2- open all links as how you have Firefox handle new windows unless the Javascript specify how to display the window.
