Tweaks and Customisation (For those who dare…)
Firefox is perhaps the only browser that will allow you to control everything you can imagine in very simple ways without any external programs. There are two methods to customise and tweak Firefox. One is using external programs, easy, clean and no mess. The other is a direct editing of Firefox Internals using the tweaking files. Its messy, bit advanced (yeah you need to know how to type 0 and 1
) and can results in some bugs if not done probably
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Using Softwares to tweak (Let ‘em do the work)
FireTune is an excellent and free software you can use to do common tweaking like increasing pipeline limit and such. Simple program it is. Just enter what type of computer you have (Fast, Medium or Slow) and what type of connection you have. Fortunately they have described clearly what they mean by slow, medium and fast. Then just press the button and ZAP heres a Fine Tuned Fox at your service. If anything goes wrong you can revert it to original settings.
FireTune Site
Faster Fox is actually an add-on which increases your browsing speed and installs a timer counting how much seconds it takes for the site to load and other useful thing also.
Faster Fox Site
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Editing Browser Internals (The Brave man’s choice…)
Most of the browser settings can be accessed through about:config and other hacks are to done by editing some files . Just type about:config in the address bar and a page with thousands of lines will be thrown to you. If you have patience browse through it and edit and maybe mess the whole thing up
. I will here provide some of the most common hacks you can perform.
Code:
Change the value of network.http.pipelining to “true“.
Change the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to “100“.
Change the value of network.http.proxy.pipelining to “true“
The rest of the hacks are to be done in these files.
user.js: Contains various preferences.
userChrome.css: Contains the attributes for appearance of the browser.
userContent.css: Contains the attributes of appearance of web pages.
In Windows Xp these files are in
C:\Documents and Settings\[User Name]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxxxxxx.default\ where xxxxxxxx is a string of random characters and assuming C:\ is your default main drive (where the OS has been installed)
In Linux the path is
~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/
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:
Code:
/* 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.
Make the active tab easier to distinguish
In order to make the active tab easier to distinguish among the currently opened tabs, you can also change the colors for the tabs. Add the following code to your
userChrome.css file:
Code:
/* Change color of active tab */
tab{
-moz-appearance: none !important;
}
tab[selected=”true”] {
background-color: rgb(222,218,210) !important;
color: black !important;
}
/* Change color of normal tabs */
tab:not([selected=”true”]) {
background-color: rgb(200,196,188) !important;
color: gray !important;
}
Remove extra padding from the Navigation Toolbar
This tip will make the toolbars use less space around the buttons, allowing Firefox to use more space for the actual webpages. This also affects additional toolbars such as the Googlebar. Add the following code to your
userChrome.css file:
Code:
/* Remove extra padding from the Navigation Bar */
.toolbarbutton-1, .toolbarbutton-menubutton-button {
padding: 2px 3px !important;
}
.toolbarbutton-1[checked=”true”], .toolbarbutton-1[open=”true”],
.toolbarbutton-menubutton-button[checked=”true”],
.toolbarbutton-menubutton-button[open=”true”] {
padding: 4px 1px 1px 4px !important;
}
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:
Code:
/* Place the sidebar on the right edge of the window */
window > hbox {
direction:rtl;
}
window > hbox > * {
direction:ltr;
}
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:
Code:
/* Make the Search box flex wider
(in this case 400 pixels wide) */
#search-container, #searchbar {
-moz-box-flex: 400 !important;
}
Change the Activity Indicator URL
When you click on the Activity Indicator (the dots in round), you are directed to the Firefox Start Page. This can be changed to any URL by adding the following code to your
user.js file:
Code:
// Click on throbber to go to Mozilla.org:
user_pref(”browser.throbber.url”, “*www.mozilla.org/”);
Disable blinking elements
You probably just find the blinking above annoying. To stop it, add the following code to your
user.js file:
Code:
// Put an end to blinking text!
user_pref(”browser.blink_allowed”, false);
Disable < marquee > tags
Some sites using scrolling marquee tags. Marquee tags are responsible for those boring effect showing text scrolling from left to right (or vice-versa). If you don’t find them useful, add the following code to your userContent.css file:
Code:
/* Stop those tags! */ marquee { -moz-binding : none !important; display : block; height : auto !important; }
Force frames to be resizable
Many sites use frames to display their contents, and sometimes the frames are too small. To force all frames to be resizable, add the following code to your
user.js file:
Code:
// Force frames to be resizable
user_pref(”layout.frames.force_resizability”, true);
Note that this will also make the frames appear with a fixed-width border and thus, may make the pages look funny.
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:
Code:
/* Change cursor for links that open in new window */
:link[target=”_blank”], :visited[target=”_blank”],
:link[target=”_new”], :visited[target=”_new”] {
cursor: crosshair;
}
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:
Code:
/* Change cursor for JavaScript links */
a[href^=”javascript:”] {
cursor: move;
}
DISCLAIMER:Most of the Hackings (99%) listed above has been directly ‘lifted’ from
*www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips to ensure validity of the information and such stuffs
