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The Secrets of Firefox about:config
jcatcw writes "While Firefox is very customizable, many of its settings aren't in the Options. Each setting is named and stored as a string, integer, or Boolean in a file called prefs.js and accessed via about:config from the nav bar. Computerworld provides instructions on 20 tweaks for speeding up page loads, making tabs behave, reducing memory drain, and generally making the interface act the way you want it to. Customization also comes through the must-have FF extensions (but be sure to skip these)."
In Soviet Russia, Firefox keeps tabs on YOU!
Set general.config.obscure_value to 42 for a special treat :D
The real path to male liberation
A long time ago, when computers remembered using little donuts made of rust, I worked on on a mainframe computer system (CP/V) that supported batch, timesharing, realtime, the works. It had performance monitoring tools, and a large basketload of parameters for sys admins to twiddle.
One of our favorite parameters was SL:BB, documented as batch bias, an input to the process scheduler. When someone called or wrote to us saying they were having problems with performance tuning, we usually suggested they redo their tests varying the setting of SL:BB and let us know what happened. Try different values, 0, 1, 5, 20, 50, 100, things like that. Try it and get back to us.
And lo, they would go off and redo performance runs, and report back.
And we would collect their results and go and muse over them, usually over beer.
SL:BB told us a lot about the user, because SL:BB was a knob that wasn't connected to anything. Oh, the value was range-checked by the parameter setting tool, and dutifully stored in memory, and displayed on performance displays, but it didn't change system performance in any way at all.
That's not what the documentation said, but who believes documentation? We had plans for SL:BB, we just hadn't gotten around to writing the code yet.
So if the user reported that setting SL:BB to 25, but not 24 or 26 gave them incredibly better (or worse) results, we definitely factored that into our analysis.
Those that reported back that the setting of SL:BB didn't make a damn bit of difference, and there were some, we honored as brothers, took into our confidences, and shared beer with at the soonest opportunity. Their bug reports and feature requests received far more attention, for they had passed an important test.
And how many of these Firefox parameters are like SL:BB?
set org.slashdot.dont_make_changes_on_the_live_server_ yes_im_talking_to_you_cmdrtaco=1
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Listen sonny, as a network admin I perform 'miracles' every day with a CLI and hidden options in config files. It impresses the PHBs, earns respect and keeps my salary up. And now you want to further trivialise my job with more GUI options. Oh for the good old days when all we had were ones and zeroes.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
you mean the wrong side of Dig?
I've found some secret hidden tweaks you can make to Slashdot articles, just by editing this thing called a URL. For instance, you can set the comment threshold HIGHER than 5 by editing the number after "threshold=", ensuring only the absolute best comments (apparently none in this story meet that standard yet). Why do they hide useful options like this from us?
"Slashdot - News and Chat Sites Deviant". (Click "homepage" link above for details).