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Firefox Undocumented Settings Compilation
aceh0 writes "TweakFactor has a Firefox Tweak Guide up that that summarizes some undocumented settings in Firefox and recommended configurations (depending on the computer type and connection speed) for those that don't want to dig through a 17-page thread"
> Originally called Thunderbird, Firefox ran into
> some name problems and was renamed Firebird.
> Running into further name problems, Firebird was
> renamed to Firefox.
Someone didn't do his homework right. Actually, Thunderbird is mozilla.org's standalone mailer.
Browse Slashdot at Funny+5, everything else -5. The only way to sustain it.
(Haven't R'ed TFA)
I'm a student working in my University's Computing Services department (only Unix geek there -- and almost the only Comp Sci major, too), where we're looking at deploying Linux workstations and whatnot. My boss recently asked me to replace the Win2k image on the Union's email kiosks.
I was using KDE (wanted Blackbox, but that's a long story), so I figured I'd use Konqueror's kiosk mode lockdown (see here). But after googling around and finding this one for Firefox, I was sold. XUL makes it so easy to modify the interface and ban commands (like bookmarking or opening local files). And my boss was even impressed. (( Dorky '50s ad grin )) Thanks, Mozilla!
It'll never get me laid though...
i just get a blank page (empty space where presumably article should be) in Opera, and in IE. Do you need Firefox to view this page? No wait, what am i doing. On to the next story!
This is my Sig, this is my Gun. One is for Slashdot and one is for Fun.
This is a poorly written article.
r ", 16);
The changes to, in particular:
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 48);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-serve
Is extremely rude and bad practice.
First was the whole Firefox used to be called Thunderbird gem...
The keyboard shortcuts were sorta useful (but I knew most of them anyway and probably won't need to remember more)
But the "Advanced Configuration Options" consisted of two changes that I consider fluff at best as both are not required at all..
Then the performance settings seemed to be the same tip rehashed for some reason without actually explaining what each config setting does.. Most unprofessional imho.
Then the Themes, Extensions and Conclusion was nothing but fluff...
All in all I rate the article as an underesearched peice of fluff, possible suitable for someone who probably hasn't heard of firefox and hence isn't going to bother with anyone more than the keyboard shortcuts... Why can't people who do these things figure out what their audience is and write to that?
groklaw, wired and slashdot. The holy trinity of work based time wasting.
The article didn't mention it, but maybe someone here knows:
Is there a way to set control-U in the MS Windows to work like it does on X? (clearout the URL line, instead of opening up the source view)
Browser tweaks are all fine and good, but I find the real leverage in managing data via "tweaks" is within email. Thunderbird has gobs of extensions and what not - but what about Mozilla Mail? Due to Mozilla Mail handling imap a bit better than Thunderbird, I have my company using Mozilla. Now when it comes to extending Mozilla Mail, you're kinda limited to what you can do. Doing a search for "Mozilla Mail extensions" will turn up tons of results, but invariably seem more directed to Thunderbird. Thunderbird extensions don't always work well within Mozilla Mail. Am I missing something? Is there some hidden repository of Mozilla Mail extensions, or minor tweak you can do to Thunderbird extensions to make them useful within Mozilla Mail?
ymmv
He can't even tell the difference between left and right. Why should we trust him telling us how to mess with config files?
How do you keep Firefox from going to search.netscape.com when you type a word into the location bar? (e.g. type "tired" in the location bar doesn't go to "www.tired.com")
BTW, did you know if you type "a " in the location bar it will do a "I'm feeling lucky" google search?
I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing. -- Thomas Jefferson
How about explanations of what and why you would want to tweak these things? It's all nice to say "Do this," but I want to know what and why these changes are good for.
I get some of them like the pipelining and max connections (though the settings are not nice), but what do some of the less obvious ones do?
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 3000000);
I think that's a problem with all of these "tweak your browser" things I've read. Nobody ever says why you should tweak something, just that you should.
type about:config into your address bar.
type about:config in the address-bar
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);
A couple settings of note - Firefox is allocated 4096 KB of memory by default and in this configuration we give it roughly 65MB as denoted by the last line. This can be changed according to what is used.
I wouldn't trust somebody who thinks 65536 bytes is "roughly 65MB" with Firefox advanced settings. Also pipelining is activated without even mentioning that this can lead to problems with old web servers.
In IE, I'm able to download up to 15 simultaneous files (either directly via Registry tweaks or through utilities such as IEtweak 2). How can I accomplis the same thing in Firefox 0.92? Thanks in advance for any assistance
Power users (lazy people) love keyboard shortcuts and we have a semi exhaustive list of the common ones here
I don't know if it ever occurs to people that the keyboard is a much better way of doing some things than using the mouse. Really, when you use the mouse, you're just pushing buttons on a virtual keyboard, instead of doing it with your hands on the real keyboard.
The article has a good list of the keyboard shortcuts, but doesn't list all of the "special" URLs that moz uses. The three I know about are:
about:config Mozilla configuration variables
about:plugins Installed plugins
about:mozilla Mozilla whatever
Are there any others?
Type this on your mozilla firefox!
about:mozilla
I think you can download more than two at once; the limit is two per server, I think. So if I wanted to download three things from www.download.com for instance, it would only do two at once. But it would do them all if two were from www.download.com and the third were from somewhere else.
- server ", xx);
These are the settings which you should change in about:config to change that behavior:
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", xx);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per
You'd want to increase max connections per server, that should let you download more at once from a single server/site. The top one is the total maximum of connections you can have, which should also be higher than simply per server. (Both loading a page and downloading a file counts as a connection, so having it high enough is nice to have everything go smoothly. I have those set as 24 and 8 myself.)