My Firefox Setup

As a web developer, I spend a great deal of my time in my browser, firefox. Firefox has issues, i.e. speed and memory leaking when many tabs are open, but it is extremely extensible, customizable and fairly standards compliance. This is my setup for firefox focusing on secure browsing and quick access to firefox’s dev tools.

This is written as a cheatsheet with either a quick explanation of the desired feature or the feature name and then how to do it.

Updated: Thurs, 2018-01-25 My procedure below has been deprecated because I found 'How To Guide: Hardening Mozilla Firefox Quantum For Privacy & Security 2018 Edition,' https://vikingvpn.com/cybersecurity-wiki/browser-security/guide-hardening-mozilla-firefox-for-privacy-and-security.

Adding to that:

Navigation

'The Always Up-to-Date Power User’s Guide to Firefox,' http://lifehacker.com/5867444/the-always-up+to+date-power-users-guide-to-firefox, is a comprehensive guide that is well worth reading not just for navigation. I will summarize and liberally lift most of this section from their excellent article. Direct quotes will be single or double quoted.

'Note: If you’re a Mac user, just substitute the ["Command"] key for the ["Control"] key (and know that the "Alt" and "Option" keys are the same) when performing these shortcuts, unless a specific alternative is noted.'

Navigate Back and Forward:

  • Alt+Left Arrow or Alt+Right Arrow to move back and forward

  • or Backspace to move back and Shift+Backspace to move forward

Reload a Page:

  • Ctrl+R or F5

  • 'Ctrl+Shift+R or Ctrl+F5 to do a "hard" refresh, where your browser ignores the cache when it reloads the entire page'

Jump to the Top and Bottom of a Page:

  • Home button or Shift+Spacebar to Top

  • End button or Spacebar to Bottom

Find Text on a Page:

  • 'Ctrl+F on your keyboard, typing in the phrase you want to find, and hitting Enter'

Open a New Tab or Window:

  • Ctrl-T or Ctrl-N

Close a Tab or Window:

  • 'current tab, press Ctrl+W or Ctrl+F4'

  • 'entire window (all tabs in tow), press Ctrl+Shift+W or Ctrl+Shift+F4'

Undo Closing a Tab or Window:

  • 'Ctrl+Shift+T, which opens your last closed tab, or Ctrl+Shift+N, which opens your last closed window'

  • 'You can keep hitting this shortcut to bring back even older tabs, too'

Open a Link in a New Tab automatically:

  • 'hold Ctrl and click the link' or 'click the link using your middle mouse button'

Bookmark the Current Page:

  • Ctrl-D

Bookmark the all open Pages:

  • 'Ctrl+Shift+D'

Complete a URL with .com, .net or .org:

  • append '.com to the end of the address with Ctrl+Enter. This will add .com and go straight to the page'

  • 'append .net with Shift+Enter'

  • append '.org with Ctrl+Shift+Enter'

Jump to the Address Bar:

  • 'Ctrl+L'

Jump to the Search Bar:

  • 'Ctrl+K'

Adjusting Preferences/Settings

General:

  • Startup > When Firefox starts: Show a blank page

  • Downloads > ensure that it goes to the folder that you want, normally Downloads

Tabs:

  • select everything but 'When I open a link in a new tab; switch to it immediately'

Content:

  • 'Block pop-up windows' checked

Privacy:

  • Tracking > select 'Do not tell sites anything about my tracking preferences'

History:

  • Firefox will: 'Use custom settings for history'

  • Accept third-party cookies: 'From visit'

    • this may BLOCK some ads and possibly video sources

  • Keep until: 'I close firefox'

  • 'clear history when Firefox closes' checked

  • clear history when Firefox closes > 'Settings…​' > ensure all History and Data options are checked

Security:

  • 'Warn me when sites try to install add-ons' checked

  • 'Block reported attack sites' checked

  • 'Block reported web forgeries' checked

  • uncheck all the passwords options

Advanced > General:

  • 'Use smooth scrolling' checked (I think this is the default)

  • 'Use hardware acceleration when available' checked

  • 'Check my spelling as I type' checked

Advanced > Data Choices:

  • 'Enable Firefox Health Report' unchecked

  • 'Enable Crash Reporter' checked

Advanced > Network:

  • Offline Web Content and User Data > 'Tell me when a website asks to store data for offline use' checked

Advanced > Update:

  • deselect all automatic updates

Advanced > Certificates:

  • When a server requests my pesonal certificate: 'Ask me everytime' selected

Adjusting Hidden Preferences/Settings with about:config

Tell me how good the ssl is on a page and provide a gui for useful about:config options:

  • Calomel SSL Validation, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/calomel-ssl-validation/

  • options >

    • Security > 'disable short URL keyword guessing' checked

  • Optimization >

    • 'disable prefetch of unvisited links' checked, if you don’t use noscript

    • 'enable caching only to ram (128meg); not to the hard drive' checked

  • Privacy >

    • Finally, a way to turn off firefox checking google for safe-browsing!

      • 'disable safe browsing for privacy and speed' checked

    • 'disable geo location reporting to webpages' checked

    • 'disable dns prefetch of unvisited sites' unchecked, if you also use noscript

    • 'do not send any referer information to remote servers' unchecked, if you also use noscript

    • 'anonymize user agent' checked (warning: this could affect how what some sites allow you to access)

  • Annoyances >

    • 'enable spell check on all text boxes' checked

Load images from main server:

  • permissions.default.image to 3 (return it to 1 to load all images from any source)

Open Search Box Results In New Tab:

  • browser.search.openintab to True [1]

Speed up your Firefox [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=IFxrH0bhKmE#t=229 and 1]:

  • network.http.pipelining to true

  • network.http.pipelining.ssl to true

  • network.http.proxy.pipelining to true

  • network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8

  • network.dns.disableIPv6 to true

Disable Extension Compatibility Checks

  • Right click and select New→Boolean. Enter extensions.checkCompatibility in the field. Enter False in the next field [1]

Disable Delay Time When Installing Add-on

  • security.dialog_enable_delay to 0 – start installation immediately or any other value (in msec) [1]

View Source in Your Favorite Editor

  • view_source.editor.external to true

  • view_source.editor.path and insert the file path to your editor here

Increase Add-On search result:

  • extensions.getAddons.maxResults to at least 10 [1]

Enable Spell Checking In All Text Fields:

  • layout.spellcheckDefault to 2 - enable spell checker for all text boxes

    • 0 - disable spell checker, 1 - spell check multi-line text boxes only

  • the Calomel SSL addon has a gui option to toggle this

Open new Tabs as Blank:

  • as of FF 48, open a new tab to see the default tiled format:

    • on the wheel at the upper right side, select 'Show blank page'

  • browser.newtab.url to about:blank [1]

  • browser.newtabpage.enabled to false (by double clicking value)

Manually enable TLS 1.2:

  • the Calomel SSL addon has a gui option to toggle this

  • Firefox 23 and up

  • security.tls.version.max to 3

  • reference is no longer at http://www.h-online.com

Preview Tabs in the Ctrl+Tab Switcher:

Refs

They had lots of other suggestions but I did not use those.

  1. http://www.maketecheasier.com/28-coolest-firefox-aboutconfig-tricks/

  2. http://wiki.manjaro.org/index.php/Firefox_about:config_edits

Firefox Extensions

In the extensions' and firefox’s addon preferences, turn off automatic update. Addons are installable extensions that add new behaviour to firefox.

Provide a better download manager:

Secure the browser against various web attacks by building up a whitelist of sites that you trust:

  • Noscript, http://noscript.net/

  • General > Automatically reload affected pages when permissions change > 'Reload the current tab only' checked

    • OR noscript.autoReload.allTabs to false

  • Appearance > 'Allow Scripts Globally (dangerous)' unchecked

  • Notifications >

    • 'Show message about blocked scripts' unchecked

    • 'Display the release notes on updates' unchecked

  • to disable NoScript’s "Security and Privacy Info" Feature - basically it from phoning home:

    • noscript.siteInfoProvider preference to blank

  • Advanced > HTTPS > Cookies, 'Enable Automatic Secure Cookies Management' checked

Blocking Trackers:

Blocking ads:

Refs

'10 must-have Firefox extensions,' http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/firefox-must-have-extensions.html.

'6 Must-Have Firefox Extensions,' http://ostatic.com/blog/6-must-have-firefox-extensions.

'Lifehacker Pack for Firefox: Our List of the Essential Extensions,' http://lifehacker.com/lifehacker-pack-for-firefox-our-list-of-the-essential-896766794.

Troubleshooting

'Use Reset Firefox Feature to Fix Most Problems,' http://www.technobuzz.net/use-reset-firefox-feature-to-fix-most-problems/

Plugins are the libraries from external programs that firefox uses to play content, i.e. video:

To try

Referencing

'Take The Stress Out Of Referencing With Zotero,' http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/take-stress-referencing-zotero/.

Save as EPUB:

DownThemAll:

EPUBReader:

Edit of the web page content while in Print Preview mode:

Web Development

Automated functional webpage browser testing:

In browser web development tool:

Accessibility Evaluation tool:

An interactive editor for XPath expressions:

Retired

Automatically use the secure version of the webpage:

Do Not Track Me, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/:

  • kept default

See the first- and third-party entities that may be tracking your movements online:

downloadhelper, https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloadhelper/:

  • Preferences > Services >

    • Download > Storage directory, select the folder that you want using the 'Change directory' button

    • Social Share > uncheck 'Enable Social Share'

  • Preferences > Conversion has lots of potential (needs exploring)

    • requires the ffmpeg codec library

Blocking ads:

Backing up your profile:

 — MarlonAGriffith - 06 Feb 2014