Search

Archives

March 15, 2007

about:config

I love Firefox, but hate some of the new UI features in version 2.0. Specifically, I hate per-tab close buttons and limits on tab width that force scrolling when you exceed the number of tabs you can fit in your browser. I tried using it for a few weeks and was convinced I could get used to it, but I failed to adjust and sought remedy without having to go back to an older version. If you're like me, or have some other beef with Firefox, you should play with the advanced configuration options that you can't get your fingers on from the UI.

To access these, just type about:config into your browser address bar. A long list of key:value pairs will display that describe your current configuration.




about:config



To fix the per-tab close button issue and revert back to having one global button that closes the active tab, set browser.tabs.closeButtons to 3. To get rid of the tab scrolling, set browser.tabs.tabMinWidth to 0. You can also speed up your browsing by enabling browser pipelining. Set network.http.proxy.pipelining and network.http.pipeline to true. You can also increase network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to speed up web page loading, but remember to be nice to those servers!