You may have installed countless add-on in Firefox to enhance the user experience, but if you want to get the most out of Firefox, you really have to hack your way into the about:config. The about:config page contains most of Firefox configuration options. It is the most effective, and the most powerful way to tweak and enhance your Firefox performance. Here are 5 the most useful tweaks you should know about.
How To Access Your About:Config Page
In your Firefox, type about:config in the address bar.
You will be shown a warning page. Click the I’ll be careful, I promise! button to proceed.
Now you’ll see a page with a filter box and different entries that you can modify by double clicking on them.
Now we are ready to apply tweaks and hacks. Here are some of the useful ones.
How To Backup About:Config File
Before you begin editing the about:config file in Firefox, you should back up the file in case you make a change that you need to revert back to default one.
In Windows Xp
Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile ID>.default\
In Windows Vista
Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<profile ID>.default\
Show/Hide Close Button On Tabs
Some people love to see the Close (the red X) button on every tabs, but some hate it. Whatever is it, you can configure it to your preferences via the browser.tabs.closeButtons setting.
Default: 1
Modified values:
- 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
Autofill Address in URL Bar
Other than the smart location feature, you can also get your URL bar to autofill the address as you type the URL. Type in the filter box with browser.urlbar.autofill, double click it to change the default Boolean from false to true.
Adjust Number Of Suggestions
When you start typing in the location bar, a drop-down list of suggestion URLs will be shown. If you want it to show more than 12 suggestions (12 is the default), you can adjust the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults keys and get it to show the number you want.
The Scrolling Tabs
When you opened many tabs, Firefox will not keep on reducing the tab width. Instead, it shows a scrolling bar so that the minimum width (100px) is conserved and you can scroll to find your tabs. If you are one of those who don’t like the scrolling tab function and prefer Firefox to show all the tabs, regardless how small it is, here’s what you should do.
Set the value of browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 0 to disable it. Similarly, if you want Firefox to display more tabs before showing the scrolling button, you can reduce the default value to a lower value, say 75 pixels.
Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-on
Every time you wanted to install a Firefox add-on, you will have to wait for several seconds before the actual installation starts. If you are tired of waiting, you can turn the functionsecurity.dialog_enable_delay off so that the installation will start immediately upon clicking.
Now since you are done, let us know what you think about these tweaks. If you think we have missed any important tweak, let us know in the comments. 
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9 Comments
should be called 5 firefox hacks for GEEKS !
STUMBLED!
Sweet list, good post.
SupaW – it ain’t “for Geeks”, it’s for those that are smart enough to do some simple modifications to make their browsing experience better – i.e., for those people that have a small level of intelligence. Obviously, you lack the ability to see a good improvement when you see one.
Definately Stumbled!
Great Info! Thanx for the tips.
Simple but good list…..STUMBLED!!
Thanx for tricks on Autofill and Scrolling Tabs; I’ve been searching for this !!
GR8 Buddy.
Stumbled
@phoenix910: [Comment Moderated Due To Foul Language] GEEK!
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