Firefox Tips

FireFox is now the leading browser in the world.NO DENIAL! But have you fully juiced out its potential ? If no .. then here is your chance to put firefox into performance mode. Many tricks given here may require latest version of Firefox WITH GOOLGLE TOOLBAR, which you can download from the right hand side column 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 SettingsUSER_NAMEApplication DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles... 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 . <---- Begin copy selection Below this line ----> // 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.startlinkso nly", 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 aboutlugins 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); <---- End copy selection Above this line ---- > 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.

Many tricks given here may require latest version of Firefox WITH GOOLGLE TOOLBAR, which you can download from the right hand side column 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%MozillaFirefoxProfilesxxxxxxxx.defaul t, where xxxxxxxx is a random string of 3 characters. Just browse to C:Documents and Settings[User Name]Application DataMozillaFirefoxProfiles and the rest should be obvious. On Windows 95/98/Me, the path is usually C:WINDOWSApplication DataMozillaFirefoxProfilesxxxxxxxx.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. Mozilla Firefox Optimizer To avoid getting timeout when viewing any web site in firefox: Get this Mozilla Optimizer, it keeps the connection alive.... http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/B...ptimizer.shtml Mozilla Optimizer improves the browsing speed in all browsers based on the Gecko Rendering Engine (GRE) like Mozilla, Phoenix, Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Firefox as well as Netscape 6 and Netscape 7. All optimizations can be applied manually, this tool simply automates this procedure! You can also do the same manually, by adding following lines (replace if they already exist) in prefs.js file: user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 100); user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true); user_pref("content.notify.interval", 100000); user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5); user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true); user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true); user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8); user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 32); user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 8); user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 4); user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 2); Firefox Tabbed Browsing Tips and Tricks 1. Trick to Reveal More Tab/Window Options : There are some hidden options for the Tabbed Browsing that will allow you to force links that open new windows to open in the current or a new tab. First, add the following code to your user.js file: // Reveal more tab/window options: user_pref("browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs" , true); Restart Firefox and go to Tools > Options... (Edit > Preferences... under Linux and

MacOS X), select Advanced and click on Tabbed Browsing. 2. Remove the close button from the tab bar : You can remove the close button from the tab bar by adding the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Remove the close button on the tab bar */ .tabs-closebutton { display: none !important; } You can still close tabs by right clicking on them and select Close Tab, or by pressing Ctrl+W 3. Remove items from the main menu : Some people like to place all their toolbar items on the same row as the menu. In order to save horizontal space, you can remove top menu items that you don't use. Add the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Remove the Go and Help menus (These are just examples. Try changing "Go" to "Edit" or "Bookmarks") */ menu[label="Go"], menu[label="Help"] { display: none !important; } Firefox Change Cursor Tips and Tricks 1. Change the cursor for links that open in new window : This neat trick will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will open a new window. Add the following code to your userContent.css file: /* Change cursor for links that open in new window */ :link[target="_blank"], :visited[target="_blank"], :link[target="_new"], :visited[target="_new"] { cursor: crosshair; } 2. Change the cursor for JavaScript links : This tip will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will perform a JavaScript command. Add the following code to your userContent.css file: /* Change cursor for JavaScript links */ a[href^="javascript:"] { cursor: move; }

Firefox Some Advanced Tips for Tabbed Browsing Home Page as tabs : Instead of just one web page as your homepage, you can make your home page several pages. Select your favorite web sites and open them in a set of tabbed windows. Go to Tools -> Options and select 'General'. Under 'Home Page', press the 'Use Current Pages' button. Now when you hit the Home button on the Navigation toolbar, your favorite web sites will load with just one click. Bookmarking a set of tabs : You can bookmark a set of tabs when selecting 'Bookmark This Page' or Ctrl+D Check the 'Bookmark all tabs in a folder' checkbox to store all the tabs in the current window into a Bookmark Folder. More shortcuts : While it's easy to select tabs with a mouse, you can also cycle through tabs using the keyboard: use Ctrl+PgUp (or Ctrl+Tab) and Ctrl+PgDn (or Shift+Ctrl+Tab). You can also select the first tab by pressing Ctrl+1, and so on up to the 9th tab with Ctrl+9. If you have a middle mouse button, click it on a tab to close the tab. Firefox About URLs Tips Guys! There are a few special URLs, which begin with about:, that you can type into the Location Bar of Firefox. * about: — The same page as "Help -> About". * about:about — Lists all these about: URLs (Mozilla Suite only). * about:blank — A blank page. Useful for setting as your homepage. * about:buildconfig — Reveals details about your Mozilla build options. * about:cache — Displays cache statistics. * about:cache?device=memory — Lists memory cache entries. * about:cache?device=disk — Lists disk cache entries. * about:cache-entry — Shows information about a cache entry. Used in about:cache links. Requires parameters. * about:config — GUI for modifying user preferences (prefs.js). * about:credits — The list of contributors to the Mozilla projects. * about:logo — Displays the Mozilla logo (Mozilla Suite only). * about:license — shows the Mozilla Public License and the Netscape Public License for the piece of software. ( Only in products based on Gecko 1.8 ). * about:mozilla — The famous Book of Mozilla. * aboutlugins — Lists all your plugins as well as other useful information.

Some more Tips about Firefox 1. We always backup our Favorites in Firefox, so that whenever we reinstall the browser we can safely restore them without ne problem. (If u don't know how to backup favorites? Goto: Bookmarks -> Manage Bookmarks..., It'll open Bookmarks Manager. Then goto: File -> Export... & save them.) Now come to the point. The thing is that whenever we reinstall firefox we have to restore them by applying same process as we do 4 backing up them (use Import instead of Export). And one more thing we HIV to also backup our current bookmarks when we r planning to reinstall the browser. So the trick is that we can define our custom Bookmark path in firefox , so that we don't need to import or export them. Type about:config in address bar of browser, right-click & create a new String value, named browser.bookmarks.file and set its value to the path where u have backed up your favorites. Now firefox always update it automatically whenever u add or delete your bookmarks, so no need to continuously take backup. 2. Second trick is very useful. Many times u have noticed that when u minimize the firefox windows & again restore it, it takes some time to restore. This trick reduces this delay. Same thing, type about:config in the address bar of firefox, right-click & create a new Boolean value, named config.trim_on_minimize & set its value to false. It'll prevent delays when restoring the window.

ollowing are 15 selected tips for Firefox which are my favorite and very useful. I have collected them from Mozilla website: 1. Use Windows Classic (9x/Me/2000) styled menus If you want the menus to appear native to the Windows Classic appearance, add the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Windows Classic (9x/Me/2000) style Menus */ menupopup, popup { border: 2px solid !important; -moz-border-top-colors: ThreeDLightShadow ThreeDHighlight; -moz-border-right-colors: ThreeDDarkShadow ThreeDShadow; -moz-border-bottom-colors: ThreeDDarkShadow ThreeDShadow; -moz-border-left-colors: ThreeDLightShadow ThreeDHighlight; padding: 1px !important; } menubar > menu[disabled="true"] { border: 1px solid transparent !important; } menubar > menu[_moz-menuactive="true"] { border-top: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important; border-right: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important; border-bottom: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important; border-left: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important; background-color: transparent !important; color: MenuText !important; } menubar > menu[_moz-menuactive="true"][open="true"] { border-top: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important; border-right: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important; border-bottom: 1px solid ThreeDHighlight !important; border-left: 1px solid ThreeDShadow !important; } 2. Use your own background image for the toolbars In addition to changing themes, you can personalize Firefox even more by using your own toolbar background image. Add the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Use a background image for the toolbars: (Substitute your image file for background.gif) */ menubar, toolbox, toolbar, .tabbrowser-tabs { background-image: url(”background.gif”) !important;

background-color: none !important; } It’s easiest to place the image file in the same location as the userChrome.css file. The image can be of any image format supported by Firefox. 3. Don’t use bold text on the active tab If you don’t want the title of the active tab to be bold, add the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Make the active tab not bold */ tab[selected="true"] { font-weight: normal !important; } 4. Customize the display and location of the close tab button in the tab bar You can customize the display and location of the close tab button in the tab bar by using about:config to edit the preference browser.tabs.closeButtons. Values: 0 - Display a close button on the active tab only 1 - (Default) 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 bar (Firefox 1.x behavior) 5. Remove items from the main menu Some people like to place all their toolbar items on the same row as the menu. In order to save horizontal space, you can remove top menu items that you don’t use. Add the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Remove the Go and Help menus Id’s for all toplevel menus: file-menu, edit-menu, view-menu, go-menu, bookmarks-menu, tools-menu, helpMenu */ #go-menu, #helpMenu { display: none !important; } 6. Display Sidebar on the right To display the Sidebar on the right side of the window instead of the left, add the following code to your userChrome.css file:

/* Place the sidebar on the right edge of the window */ hbox#browser { direction: rtl; } hbox#browser > vbox { direction: ltr; } 7. Change the width of the Search Bar By default, the Search bar on the toolbar is relatively small. To specify your own width in pixels, add the following code to your userChrome.css file: /* Make the Search box flex wider (in this case 400 pixels wide) */ #search-container, #searchbar { max-width: 400px !important; width: 400px !important; } 8. Change the cursor for links that open in new window This neat trick will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will open a new window. Add the following code to your userContent.css file: /* Change cursor for links that open in new window */ :link[target="_blank"], :visited[target="_blank"], :link[target="_new"], :visited[target="_new"] { cursor: crosshair; } 9. Change the cursor for JavaScript links This tip will change the mouse pointer when you hover it over links that will perform a JavaScript command. Add the following code to your userContent.css file: /* Change cursor for JavaScript links */ a[href^="javascript:"] { cursor: move; } 10. Run Firefox from removable media This advanced tip makes it possible to run Firefox from removable media, such as a USB memory stick. This will allow you to run Firefox with your personal settings from any computer, even those that don’t have Firefox installed. It has only been tested on Windows XP/2000. The basic instructions are as follows:

A. Copy the Firefox application folder and your profile folder to the removable medium. In this example we will use R:Firefox for the application folder and R:FFProfile as the profile folder, assuming the drive letter for the removable media is R:. B. Create a simple batch file called R:Firefox.bat with the following line: start Firefoxfirefox.exe -profile FFProfile C. Optionally, disable the disk cache to reduce the amounts of file writes to the removable storage by using about:config to set browser.cache.disk.enable to false. The reason why a batch file is needed instead of a simple shortcut is that a shortcut uses absolute paths, and since the actual drive letter for the removable media may change depending on which computer it is plugged into, the relative path used in the batch file is guaranteed to work anywhere. 11. Speed up page rendering By default, Firefox doesn’t try to render a web page for 250 milliseconds while it’s waiting for data. If you use about:config to add the Integer preference nglayout.initialpaint.delay, and set the value to 0, Firefox immediately starts to display the page, even without complete data. The drawback, especially on slower machines, is that the total time to display the page will be longer. 12. Enable Pipelining Pipelining is an experimental feature, designed to improve page-load performance, that is unfortunately not well supported by some web servers and proxies. To try it out, by using about:config to set the following preferences: network.http.pipelining (Set this to true, to enable pipelining.) network.http.proxy.pipelining (Set this to true, to enable pipelining to the proxy server.) network.http.pipelining.maxrequests (Set this to 8, to have a maximum of 8 pipelining requests at once. Possible values are from 1 to 8.) 13. Specify where to store the cache To specify in which folder the cache is stored, use about:config to add the String preference browser.cache.disk.parent_directory, and set the value to C:Path To Cache. Replace Path To Cache with the actual path to your cache folder.

14. Specify the memory cache usage Normally, Firefox determines the memory cache usage dynamically based on the amount of available memory. To specify a specific amount of memory cache, use about:config to add the Intefer preference browser.cache.memory.capacity, and set the value: -1 - (default) Determine the amount of memory cache dynamically. 0 - None. n - Memory capacity in kilobytes. For example: 4096. To disable the memory cache completely, use about:config to set the preference browser.cache.memory.enable to false. 15. View page source using an external program If you want to view the HTML source of a web page using an external text editor instead of the built-in source viewer in Firefox, use about:config to set view_source.editor.external to true, and then set view_source.editor.path to e.g. C:WindowsNotepad.exe or whatever is your preferred text editor. NOTE: Both files “userChrome.css” and “userContent.css” are found in Firefox Profile folder. To know more about please visit following link:

Firefox is too fast than IE6 still then we can make it more fast. How? It’s open source and easily hackable to get maximum benefits! That’s power of being open. We use some of following hacks with in Firefox Browser and after applying them you would see sites open more fast and download becomes much quicker. Hackz@Firefox In Firefox address bar i.e. box where we type URL of a site to open that site type about:config and hit enter. Now a page with many settings open. It consists of list of preferences and their current values. In left it’s the preference name which looks like accessibility.typeaheadfind. casesensitive , to it’s right are 3 columns with status,type and value of the corresponding preference. We need to change value of some preference or add some new preference to fast up browsing. I n the left most column search for the preference name network.http.pipelining and in it’s value column you would find it set to false make it true by double clinking entire row. We change the value of this preference name from false to true. Now look for preference name network.http.pipelining.maxrequests in left most column and change it’s value to 12 or more. (generally it’s 4 by default) To change the old value to new one double click on the entire row and enter new value in a prompt that appears and hit enter. In the same way(by finding the row and double clicking on entire row) change the value of preference network.http.proxy.pipelining to true if it’s false. Now in same page right click on blank space and from right click menu click New- >Boolean and a prompt opens asking for preference name. There enter network.http.pipelining.firstrequest and after you hit enter it asks for value. Set the value to be true. So we created a new boolean preference (preference name) network.http.pipelining.firstrequest and set it’s value to be true. Exactly in the same way create a new Integer preference name nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set it’s value to 0 (zero). To do it right click on any blank space in that about:config page and select New->Integer. When asked in a box to enter preference name enter nglayout.initialpaint.delay and click OK. Now when it asks for value for this preference enter 0 and press ok button. You are done with. DONE! Now close that page and restart Firefox. If you have broadband internet then you see how fast page loads now. browse more faster, more downloads at a time, more pages can open at a time.

In summary we changed values of following preferences network.http.pipelining -”true” network.http.pipelining.maxrequests -”12″ (or higher) network.http.proxy.pipelining -”true” and created following 2 new preferences- network.http.pipelining.firstrequest -”true” Boolean Type nglayout.initialpaint.delay -”0″ Integer Type

Firefox Tips

by Destiny Astro Centre on Sep 05, 2010

Accessibility

Categories

Tags

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

Firefox Tips — Document Transcript