# Mozilla, Firefox and Thunderbird tips and tricks

## transient

Hi.

Im hoping this thread will become a nice big repository of useful little hacks and so on that people have found for getting the most out of the mozilla project's various apps. 

Sorta things that Id like to see here are lesser-known extensions for the apps, or extensions you think are really useful/cool, font help (this seems to be a recurring issue), tweaks of the preference settings through 

```
about:config
```

 or elsewhere, people's individual userContent.css and userChrome.css settings, if youve got something particularly nice in them etc....

Try to keep it clear of "Help me, firefox doesnt work" posts, if you have an issue, start a new thread. Its fine to ask about more info on any of the tips that are posted and that sort of thing. 

This will also, if it takes off, serve as a basis for either a HOWTO in the documentation section of the forums, or a big wiki article.Last edited by transient on Fri Mar 04, 2005 4:15 am; edited 1 time in total

----------

## transient

And so, to get things started, heres some basic info on what exactly the userContent.css and userChrome.css files do.

Within each application's directory (By default, ~/.mozilla/appname), you will find a directory for each profile youve created. Go into the dir for the profile you use, which will be somerandomstring.default by default, and you will find a directory called "chrome".

Within here, you can create two files called userContent.css and userChrome.css. These files allow you to customize the appearance of not only websites, but the actual mozilla UI (User Interface). With them, you can set fonts for your tabs, allow particular menu options to appear when you rightclick on a webpage, force websites to not be able to use the horribly annoying 

```
<blink>
```

 and 

```
<marquee>
```

 tags, and even block particular types of elements from loading at all.

To know how these files work, its neccesary to learn a bit about how mozilla actually creates it's UI and webpage displays.

Mozilla (And its derivates, firefox and thunderbird) uses a language called XUL to define how everything within the mozilla window is layed out. XUL allows for creating scrollbars, menus, popups, buttons and so on. The window youre staring at when you read this has been created out of nothing more than a few text files.

XUL however, only specifes what a particular thing does, not how it looks. XUL might say that a scrollbar will move a page down when you click on it and move your mouse down, but it doesnt describe how that scrollbar should look. 

This is done through CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), a web technology used in webpages to provide style and appearance information.

CSS can specify almost everything about the appearance of a particular element. From the colour, to the font size, visibility, margins, positioning on the screen, right down to how text is aligned within an element and whether or not the first letter of a line is made

Bigger.

Using CSS and the two files I mentioned above, you can control the appearance of webpages and the browser yourself, even over what your theme or the webpage's author wants.

Heres some simple examples to show you how the files work. Im not going to go over how CSS works here in any great depth as its a big subject. Needless to say, theres many tutorials on the web about it.

userContent.css is used to control the appearance of webpages, while userChrome.css is used to control the appearance of the actual browser.

Within userContent.css, add the following:

```
a[href^="mailto:"] {

color: blue !important;

text-decoration: non !important;

}

a[href^="mailto:"]:before {

content: "\2709 " !important;

}

```

This will have the effect of making all "mailto:" URLs (IE all email links) have a blue colour, and never be underlined.

It will also draw a small envelope character in front of them, to make it more clear what they are.

Say you wanted to make all Javascript URLs green, for whatever reason, you can do this:

```
a[href^="javascript:"] {

color: green !important;

text-decoration: line-through !important;

}

```

That will also draw a line through javascript links.

Within userChrome.css, you can use CSS rules to control the appearance of the browser itself. For example, if you wanted to change the background image used on the throbber (That little spinning thing in the topright of the browser), you can do the following:

```
#throbber-box {

background-image: url("/path/to/your/image") !important;

}

```

Thatll do for now. If you want to look into userChrome.css more deeply, the DOM inspector is your best friend. Just tell it to open the chrome URL, chrome://browser/content/browser.xul and you can check the IDs and classes for each element.

----------

## Deathwing00

Moved from Desktop Environments.

----------

## transient

And for some more examples of the user*.css files, heres my complete ones for firefox and thunderbird:

commented so people know what each rule actually does

Firefox userContent.css

```

/* Change javascript URLs to be green in colour, for easier identification */

a[href^="javascript:"] {

        color: green !important;

}

/* All mailto URLs are blue, and have a little envelope in front of them */

a[href^="mailto:"] {

        color: blue !important;

        text-decoration: none !important;

}

a[href^="mailto:"]:before {

        content: "\2709 " !important;

}

/* Disable blinking and moving text, cuz its just annoying */

blink {

        text-decoration: none ! important;

}

marquee {

        -moz-binding: none ! important;

}

/* This one will display the accesskey after any element its set for. You can change it to only apply to links by changing 

the * to a 'a' */

*[accesskey]:after {

        content: " {" attr(accesskey) "}";

}

/* This will change the cursor to a crosshair when it moves over a link that opens in a new window */

:link[target="_blank"], :visited[target="_blank"],

:link[target="_new"],   :visited[target="_new"] {

        cursor:  crosshair !important;

}

/* These are settings that make it more obvious which element has the focus */

a:focus { 

        -moz-outline: 2px dotted ! important; 

}

button:-moz-focus-inner,

input[type="reset"]::-moz-focus-inner,

input[type="button"]::-moz-focus-inner,

input[type="submit"]::-moz-focus-inner {

        border: 2px dotted transparent;

}

button:focus::-moz-focus-inner,

input[type="reset"]:focus::-moz-focus-inner,

input[type="button"]:focus::-moz-focus-inner,

input[type="submit"]:focus::-moz-focus-inner {

        border-color: ButtonText;

}

/* This will give form buttons nice rounded corners. It can look kinda ugly though, so tweak the background colours 

accordingly */

input[type="button"], input[type="submit"] {

        -moz-border-radius: 18px !important;

        background: #eee !important;

}

```

Firefox userChrome.css:

```

/* This line must be present here! */

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

/* This gives the URL bar a monospace font, which I like */

#urlbar {

        font-family: monospace !important;

}

/* This hides the "Help" and "Go" menus from appearing, to save space */

menu[label="Go"], menu[label="Help"] {

        display: none !important;

}

/* This causes all non-read tabs to have italicised text and be coloured blue */

#content tab:not([selected]) {

        font-style: italic !important;

        color: blue !important;

}

/* This increases the size of the searchbar (The bar next to the URL bar, that you can search in Google and so on */

#search-container, #searchbar {

        -moz-box-flex: 200 !important;

}

/* These settings remove some of the space around the menu items in mozilla, making it take less space */

.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;

}
```

Thunderbird userContent.css:

```

/* This just has the effect of colouring each quote in an email. It colours each one differently, so you can easily 

tell them apart */

blockquote[type=cite] {

        color: navy !important; 

        background-color: RGB(245,245,245) !important; 

}

blockquote[type=cite] blockquote {

        color: maroon !important; 

        background-color: RGB(235,235,235) !important;

}

blockquote[type=cite] blockquote blockquote {

        color: green !important; 

        background-color: RGB(225,225,225) !important;

}

blockquote[type=cite] blockquote blockquote blockquote {

        color: purple !important; 

        background-color: RGB(215,215,215) !important;

}

blockquote[type=cite] blockquote blockquote blockquote blockquote {

        color: teal !important; 

        background-color: RGB(205,205,205) !important;

}
```

Last edited by transient on Fri Mar 04, 2005 2:22 am; edited 2 times in total

----------

## transient

The Adblock extension

The adblock is one of the most useful and powerful extensions for Firefox around. It allows you to block not only advertisments, but also any element on a webpage you care to. Iframes, frames, images, javascript, java applets, you name it. It also collapses the removed element, so you dont even notice anythings missing.

If you install it, download this file. It contains a large amount of regular expressions that block all known ads so far, which saves a lotta time  :Razz: 

Once youve saved the file, open up the adblock preferences, Tools->Adblock->Preferences->Adblock Options and click Import filters. Then just point it to the downloaded file, and say goodbye to everything from doubleclick.net, etc...  :Smile: 

----------

## Fly3D

Speed that sucker up! Like it isn't already fast enough.  :Laughing: 

 1.Type "about:config" into the address bar. Scroll down and look for the following:

```
network.http.pipelining

network.http.proxy.pipelining

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
```

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once.

2. Change the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to the number of requests you want the browser to make at once. 5 or 6 is perfectly adequate and shouldn't cause unecesary strain on the webserver. (please play nice!)  :Smile: 

3. Right-click anywhere and select New --> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits to start rendering the page.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages much faster.

Enjoy...

----------

## gnac

I found this on a number of other threads (some of which you [transient] participated in) and thought it made sense to repeat it here since this thread's goal is to be a common repository of tips and tricks.  I apologize to the original posters for not quoting them here.

Tip:

If you want thunderbird to open links in email in firefox add the following lines to the ~/.thunderbird/default.???/user.js file.   if the user.js file doesn't exist, create it. 

You should probably do this when thunderbird isn't open because I think it will overwrite your settings when you close it.  You should also be able to use any other browser at your discretion.  I recommend Internet Explorer  :Twisted Evil: 

```
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/usr/bin/firefox");

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https", "/usr/bin/firefox");

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.ftp", "/usr/bin/firefox");
```

Also if you want to be able to have mailto links open thunderbird add this: 

```
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.mailto", "/usr/bin/thunderbird"); 
```

----------

## transient

Awesome, thanks for that  :Smile: 

Lets get some more people posting too  :Razz: 

Next up, with a little bit of elaboration on gnac's post, 

Registering other protocols in Firefox and Mozilla. Thunderbird too.

Theres a large number of other protocols that get used in webpages on occasions. You have the irc:// protocol, mms://, telnet:// and more.

There is an extension that allows for easy registering of telnet, ftp, and downloading to external applications, but it doesnt handle arbitrary protocols. This plugin is called Mozex and its located on www.mozdev.org if youre interesed in looking at it. 

There are two ways to let mozilla handle a particular protocol. You can either register the protocol handler with mozilla itself, so that mozilla can display and get information itself. Many plugins do this, the realplayer plugin for example. This however, requires you to create a mozilla component, which is beyond the capabilities of most people.

The second way is to tell mozilla to open an external application to handle anything from that protocol. 

Say you clicked on a link in a webpage that says irc://irc.freenode.org/gentoo (The #gentoo channel on Freenode  :Razz: ), and you wanted it to open in xchat.

To do this, open up your user.js file. It is located in your profile directory, which for Firefox, is located in 

```
~/.mozilla/firefox/xxxxxxxx.default/user.js
```

 For Mozilla, its in a similar place.

To this file, add the following lines:

```

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.external.irc", true);

user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.irc", "/usr/bin/xchat-2");

```

What these two lines do is to tell mozilla that you want any URLs of type irc:// to be handled externally, and to use the /usr/bin/xchat-2 application to do that handling.

The first preference, network.protocol-handler.external.xxx is a boolean value that says whether or not mozilla should handle a particular protocol itself. Replace "xxx" with the protocol you want to handle. For irc://, you would set "xxx" to "irc". For mms:// you would set "xxx" to "mms".

The second preference specifies the full path to the application (or anything for that matter. It can be a shellscript if you want) that you want to handle that protocol.

It takes the form network.protocol-handler.app.xxx, where "xxx" is whatever protocol you added in the first preference. 

Complex note follows....

Mozilla will invoke whatever is specified here, passing it the full URL as a commandline argument. So in the case of xchat, mozilla will execute the following command: 

```
/usr/bin/xchat-2 irc://irc.freenode.org/gentoo
```

 Now, if the application you specified doesnt know how to handle a URL as an argument, you will need to write a shellscript to take that argument, and split it up into something the application can handle.

Now, you can open all irc:// links in xchat, from firefox  :Smile: 

Heres one to test it out  :Razz: 

Join #gentoo through a URL

----------

## bravecobra

Nice one transient, what command to use when xchat-2 is already open and connected? Now it starts up a new instance.

----------

## truekaiser

 *Fly3D wrote:*   

> Speed that sucker up! Like it isn't already fast enough. 
> 
>  1.Type "about:config" into the address bar. Scroll down and look for the following:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

 Warning! 

you will mini-dos what ever server you connect to. you can and will be black listed by web servers that monitor # of connections per uniqe ip.

----------

## transient

 *bravecobra wrote:*   

> Nice one transient, what command to use when xchat-2 is already open and connected? Now it starts up a new instance.

 

You cant using xchat unfortunately. To do what youre asking is something that the actual application must support itself. If you can find an IRC client that allows you to interact with an already-running session, you could make the irc:// URLs open in that session. 

Kinda like the 

```
firefox -remote
```

 commands.Last edited by transient on Fri Mar 04, 2005 6:46 am; edited 1 time in total

----------

## transient

 *truekaiser wrote:*   

>  *Fly3D wrote:*   Speed that sucker up! Like it isn't already fast enough. 
> 
>  1.Type "about:config" into the address bar. Scroll down and look for the following:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

Not with pipelining.

What youre thinking of is persistent connections, which is where the browser makes multiple connections to a server, in order to download in parallel.

What pipelining is, is something slightly different. Nontechnically, its when you squeeze more HTTP requests into one packet. Instead of sending one GET /somefile.html per packet, the browser will send more, up to the max specified.

Note though that this requires support from all proxies you go through, and the endserver itself. Not many servers actually support pipelining yet unfortunately  :Sad: 

----------

## spife

Well, I use all these Firefox extenions:

Basics - Puts a New Tab button on the left side of the tab bar, like in the Mozilla Suite.

Bookmark Backup - Bakcs up your bookmarks and many other things (you have to set it to back them up) whenver Firefox closes. Useful for when Firefox gets mad at you and eats something.

ChromEdit - Allows you to edit userChrome.css and userContent.css just by going to Tools -> Edit User Files.

ColorZilla - It sits in the bottom-left corner of the status bar, and can allow you to zoom everything on a page, including images and whatnot (though I doubt Flash and Java applets), and has a color picker so you can see, well, the color of a pixel on the page, and can do a couple other things, I think.

DictionarySearch - Allows you to, uh, search dictionaries for a highlighted word via the context menu.

Focus Last Selected Tab - With this, when you close a tab, Firefox automatically focuses on the one you were last using.

Googlebar - An improved version of the Google Toolbar.  :Very Happy: 

Habari Xenu - A "news aggregator". I like it a lot better than just using Live Bookmarks. I've tried a couple other, not-Firefox-extension aggregators, but I like Habari Xenu the best.

I must not fear! - There for you in the Tools menu, whenever you need it.  :Smile: 

miniT - Does a bunch of nifty things, which are listed on the linked page. Also improves undoclosetab.

Plain Text Links - Allows you to highlight an URL on a page that is not in an <a> tag and open it in either the current or a new tab via the right-click menu.

Popup Count - When a popup is blocked, it shows the total number of popups blocked since as long as you installed it along with the number of popups blocked on that page in the status bar. (It can be configured to either always show or only show when a popup is blocked, and you can set it to display just the number of popups from that page, just the all-time total count, or both, with either one of them in parenthesis.)

Open link in... - Err, go read about it on the page I linked.  :Razz: 

OpenBook - Allows you to customize the Add Bookmark dialog. I've noticed it breaks Live Bookmarks, though, but I prefer using Hibari Xenu for RSS feeds, anyway.

SessionSaver - Automatically restores your last tab session, even after Firefox crashes.

Tabbrowser Preferences - "This extension provides a comprehensive UI for changing a number of the hidden tabbed browsing preferences in Firefox. It also provides the ability to control how internal and external links are opened in the browser and how the browser will react when links are sent to it." It can also add a New Tab button to the left side of the tab bar, so you don't need Basics if you have this. (I used to use Tabbrowser Extensions, but it really slowed down Firefox, and caused it to crash some, I think. I was amazed at the speed increase when I started using Tabbrowser Preferences and some other extensions. I miss the nice way TBE could re-open closed tabs, though.)

undoclosetab - Allows you to re-open the tab you most recently closed. Also, undoclosetab is apparently improved if you install miniT.

View Cookies - Shows the cookies a page has set in the Page Info thing.

Web Developer - A toolbar that does lots of cool stuff.

Whew, I'm surprised Firefox still runs quickly for me.  :Laughing: 

Also, in Thunderbird, I use AboutConfig, which allows you to access something like about:config by going to Tools -> about:config.  :Smile: 

(Sorry if any of these were already mentioned....)

Also also, Mozilla Custom Keywords are useful.

----------

## transient

Indeed, the keywords are very useful. Not just to save typing, but because you can substitute strings into them.

I use a couple for bug searching here and on the mozilla bugsite, namely each with the keyword 

```
http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=%s
```

 for gentoo bugs, and 

```
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=%s
```

 for mozilla bugs.

----------

## transient

Just a quick tip for now. 

Many sites are starting to use plugins to launch popup windows. Through either Flash scripting, or through Java applets.

By default, mozilla and firefox will allow these popups, which can be rather annoying on some of the lame scriptkiddy sites whose sole aim is to crash your browser.

So... if you set the preference 

```
privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins
```

 to 2, all popups launched from a plugin will be disabled.

Setting it to 1 will cause Firefox to treat the popups just like any other type, ie theyre limited to whatever 

```
dom.popup_maximum
```

 is set to.

And setting it to 3 is the same as not having it set at all, IE, all popups are allowed from plugins no matter what your browser popup settings are.

Add this preference to your user.js file (Directions for making and finding this file are found here).

The format is simple, its 

```

user_pref("preference.name.here", "preference.value.here");

```

In this case, replace the preference.name.here with "privacy.popups.disable_from_plugins", and replace the preference.value.here with a plain 2. Dont put "" characters around the number.

----------

## metalifloyd

Thank you all for these great tips. FireFox has never run better for me  :Very Happy: 

I might starting using FireFox all the time now. (Opera still wins for their excellent mouse gestures)

----------

## growse

Pipelining (and maybe persistant connections I think) are part of the HTTP standard afaik and therefore are required to be supported by HTTP complient servers.

DISCLAIMER!

As far as I know...

----------

## truekaiser

 *transient wrote:*   

>  *truekaiser wrote:*    *Fly3D wrote:*   Speed that sucker up! Like it isn't already fast enough. 
> 
>  1.Type "about:config" into the address bar. Scroll down and look for the following:
> 
> ```
> ...

 

no you will get baned, and you give the exact reason why. unless the site is pure text you will have to download at the very least images.(which are the major bandwidth killers) which makes these settings do  *Quote:*   

> persistent connections, which is where the browser makes multiple connections to a server, in order to download in parallel.

  just so you can load a page a tenth of a second faster. anyway all i am doing is providing a warning so other people don't go and blame you because they get baned from their favorite sites after using that tip.

----------

## Fly3D

NO! The browser typically makes multiple http requests anyway. All pipelining does is pack them together into the same packet rather than waiting for each to be responded to before sending the next. This cuts down on the number of overall packets being sent. This is actually a good thing in the grand scheme of things. It cuts down on traffic!  Worst thing that'll possible happen is the odd screwed up page because the browser didn't wait for a valid response to each http request seperately. Pipelining is now part of the http/1.1 spec and for a reason.

In addition, pipelining IS a form of persistent connection. It's extended from the 'keep-alive' persistence in http/1.0 This is NOT the same as a parallel connection. All persistent connections do is stay open if possible rather than opening new TCP connections for each request. This cut's down on both bandwidth and cpu time for both client and server.

More info:

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616-sec8.html#sec8.2.1

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/HTTP/Performance/Pipeline.html

Whole RFC 2616 on http/1.1 is here:

http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html

IIRC Firefox also will also disable it in some cases where it is not supported, for instance when connecting to an IIS server.

As noted in my original post, it can be pushed too far which can actually result in slowdowns. Keep  your max requests fairly low.

Read the FAQ http://www.mozilla.org/projects/netlib/http/pipelining-faq.html

FWIW, Opera has pipelining enabled by default. Anyone who has used it will generally agree that it's pretty quick and I've yet to hear of an Opera user being "banned" from a website.

----------

## truekaiser

 *Quote:*   

> FWIW, Opera has pipelining enabled by default. Anyone who has used it will generally agree that it's pretty quick and I've yet to hear of an Opera user being "banned" from a website.

 

thats probibly because they keep it at a sane level(less then 5) you on the other hand only say to be reasonable on the number. to many people the means put it as high as needed to get the speed you want. you do not need to change this setting in firefox, it's fast enough without incessesing this and puting undo strain on servers.

----------

## Fly3D

From my first post:

 *Quote:*   

> 5 or 6 is perfectly adequate

 

I have mine set at 2 FWIW. I understand 8 is still considered reasonable. Beyond that things slow down and the incidence of error goes up. There are people who set it at 30 or 100 or something stupid like that. They suffer. 

 *Quote:*   

> ...puting undo strain on servers.

 

I'm guessing you didn't take a look at any of the links I provided. It provides explaination of all the hows and whys but here's the short version. Pipelining has been implemented in the latest version of the http protocol spec as a result of extensive testing which shows that it greatly reduces overall network traffic, decreases cpu overhead on both server and client and increases overall network performance. The protocol spec has been designed to encourage it's use (on both client and server) for these reasons. It's not just some dirty hack... :Rolling Eyes: 

I'm done arguing...read the documentation.

----------

## truekaiser

 *Fly3D wrote:*   

> From my first post:
> 
>  *Quote:*   5 or 6 is perfectly adequate 
> 
> I have mine set at 2 FWIW. I understand 8 is still considered reasonable. Beyond that things slow down and the incidence of error goes up. There are people who set it at 30 or 100 or something stupid like that. They suffer. 
> ...

 

i said to keep it on the default setings. when i said undo stress i ment from the people you pointed out that put it at 30+, not from the default settings.

----------

## transient

Lets not start an argument here...

Its meant to be a tips thread, not a "Im right, youre wrong" thread.

----------

## transient

 *metalifloyd wrote:*   

> Thank you all for these great tips. FireFox has never run better for me 
> 
> I might starting using FireFox all the time now. (Opera still wins for their excellent mouse gestures)

 

Try these extensions:

All in one gestures and Easy gestures

----------

## COiN3D

I've another trick for you guys: 

How to fake your browser identification

Type "about:config" in your GoTo-line. Do a right click with your mouse, and select "New" -> "String"

Give the new string this name: 

```
general.useragent.override
```

Then, type in as what firefox should be identified, for example: 

```
Mozilla/5.0 compatible; MSIE5.5; Windows 98;
```

After a restart you should be identified as a IE 5.5 and Win98 as operating system  :Wink: 

You can check this here: http://cms.mh-webservices.de/mh.cms/p35/

And there's an another way to make your firefox more safety:

Normally, browsers transfer the internet-adress from which site you come from. If you don't want firefox to send the referer, follow the next step:

First, fire up about:config again. Then look for "network.http.sendRefererHeader", and set it to 0. The default-value is 2. Now webmasters don't know from which site you come from  :Wink: 

By the way, referers are not always bad. I know a program for Windows which uses these referers to get access to some pr0n sites.  :Very Happy:  It says IE it should say "I'm coming from www.xxx.com, please let me in." And for some sites this works. Unfortunately, there's no version out which works with firefox  :Sad: 

----------

## Pubare

User Agent Switcher allows you to change browser ID from the menu - link  .

And Preferential is a must have - link , especially in conjunction with http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_Entries , you can get into all kinda stuff.

Oh, and one I haven't seen posted here.  In about:config create a boolean name browser.urlbar.autoFill and set it to true - this duplicates IE's autocomplete function.  It can be annoying by itself, as it matches first entry in history, so I also set browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped to true - this completely mimics IEs autocomplete.

EDIT:  Added URL tags & link text. --pjp

----------

## transient

And for another URL-bar tweak, if you like IE/Windows "select all on click" behaviour, you can enable that in Firefox and Mozilla by changing the browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll preference to true.

----------

## Coenobite

There are some very cool (but a bit old) Firefox tips in this thread.

----------

## transient

Never knew about that thread  :Smile:  Thanks for pointing it out

On the topic of bookmarks, theres a hell of a lot of stuff you can do with them besides just bookmarking a single page.

You can, as described in the other thread, add a %s to the bookmark URL, allowing you to substitute strings into the actual URL.

You can also bookmark other protocols besides the usual http:// protocol.

For example, you can bookmark an internet radio station, and use a bookmark to access it. Thats a very very simple example though.

Where it gets really interesting is when you realize you can bookmark javascript: protocol URLs too.

Say you wanted to remove redirects from a webpage. Redirects are those annoying things that result in you getting shoved off to another page you didnt really want to visit.

You can dump the following into a bookmark URL:

```

javascript:(function(){var k,x,t,i,j,p; for(k=0;x=document.links[k];k++){t=x.href.replace(/[%]3A/ig,':').replace(/[%]2f/ig,'/');i=t.lastIndexOf('http');if(i>0){ t=t.substring(i); j=t.indexOf('&'); if(j>0)t=t.substring(0,j); p=/https?\:\/\/[^\s]*[^.,;'%22>\s\)\]]/.exec(unescape(t)); if(p) x.href=p[0]; } else if (x.onmouseover&&x.onmouseout){x.onmouseover(); if (window.status && window.status.indexOf('://')!=-1)x.href=window.status; x.onmouseout(); } x.onmouseover=null; x.onmouseout=null; }})();
```

and whenever you want to disable redirects, just click that bookmark icon. Obviously, youd want to put it into your bookmarks tab for easy access.

http://www.squarefree.com has a lot of examples of these "bookmarklets"

----------

## Gogiel

Have somebody compiled Firefox with flags other than standard?

I tried

```
 -O3 -march=athlon-xp -pipe -fomit-frame-pointer -msse -ftracer -mfpmath=sse -ffast-math -s -mmmx -m3dnow
```

but it crashed.

Do you have any other experience with it?

----------

## transient

Those flags will give you evil evil errors.

Apart from the fact that a fair few are filtered out anyway, you really shouldnt enable -ffast-math globally, unless you understand what it actually does.

-msse and -mmmx and -m3dnow are implied by your -march flag, and shouldnt be forced on anyway.

----------

## mlybarger

i know most gentooers aren't on dialup, but it would be nice to have a quick/easy way to turn off all image loading other than searching through the options -> security (why security) -> images -> block all images.

i've heard opera has a simple button to turn on/off image loading.  how to have a button on top in moz to do the same?

----------

## COiN3D

 *transient wrote:*   

> Those flags will give you evil evil errors.
> 
> Apart from the fact that a fair few are filtered out anyway, you really shouldnt enable -ffast-math globally, unless you understand what it actually does.
> 
> -msse and -mmmx and -m3dnow are implied by your -march flag, and shouldnt be forced on anyway.

 

Can you give me the link where the gcc-manual says that -march implies -mmmx -m3dnow etc. ?

----------

## metalifloyd

Most of you have probably already seen this but for the sake of completeness, there is a link on mozilla's site to some FireFox tips and tricks.

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips

----------

## Coenobite

 *metalifloyd wrote:*   

> Most of you have probably already seen this but for the sake of completeness, there is a link on mozilla's site to some FireFox tips and tricks.
> 
> http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips

 

Strange, I've never seen that page before, it's great!! Needless to say, it's now bookmarked  :Wink: 

----------

## Sheepdogj15

a pointess but amusing trick:

type "about:mozilla" in the URL field, without the quote marks, and hit enter. it'll work in mozilla, firefox, netscape... pretty much any Gecko browser.

by the way, i noticed that if you have a ton of extensions, it significantly slows down firefox's startup. so obvious i didn't even think about it until i dumped a ton of extensions i don't use.

----------

## Sheepdogj15

 *transient wrote:*   

> 
> 
> There are two ways to let mozilla handle a particular protocol. You can either register the protocol handler with mozilla itself, so that mozilla can display and get information itself. Many plugins do this, the realplayer plugin for example. This however, requires you to create a mozilla component, which is beyond the capabilities of most people.

 

hmm. do you know if anyone has already done this with mms://? the reason why i ask is that i'd like to have mms:// feeds handled by mplayerplug-in, so i get the nice play and pause buttons. 

otherwise, i'll just use your second option and have it run in mplayer (since taht is the only player i have ATM that can handle mp3's using mms protocol).

----------

## transient

 *re-nice wrote:*   

>  *transient wrote:*   Those flags will give you evil evil errors.
> 
> Apart from the fact that a fair few are filtered out anyway, you really shouldnt enable -ffast-math globally, unless you understand what it actually does.
> 
> -msse and -mmmx and -m3dnow are implied by your -march flag, and shouldnt be forced on anyway. 
> ...

 

-march itself does not imply those flags.

-march=somearch implies the flags that that archtecture supports.

Take a look under i386 and x86_64 Options in the GCC manual.

For example, -march=athlon-xp says  *GCC manual wrote:*   

> Improved AMD Athlon CPU with MMX, 3dNOW!, enhanced 3dNOW! and full SSE instruction set support.

 

In that case, the -mmmx flags and so on only have a purpose if they are set to -mnommx, -mnosse and so on.

----------

## transient

Small update:

It's possible to use the 

```
-remote
```

 option to control where externals open links. However, it's also possible to set a default for anything that calls 

```
firefox http://some.url.com
```

 without using the remote option.

By setting the MOZILLA_NEWTYPE envvar to "tab", you can force all apps to open URLs in a new tab, unless they use the remote option.

----------

## dswissmiss

Is there a mouse gesture extension which lets you do things like "right click & left klick" to go back? I remember opera having something like this.

----------

## transient

 *dswissmiss wrote:*   

> Is there a mouse gesture extension which lets you do things like "right click & left klick" to go back? I remember opera having something like this.

 

behold

----------

## pussi

Quick tip:

If you want to make links that would normally open in a new window to open in a new tab edit about:config :

```
browser.link.open_newwindow 3
```

I'm not sure if the "Open links from other applications in a new tab in the most recent window" option in preferences should do this, but it didn't work with me. :p

----------

## eniac

 *pussi wrote:*   

> Quick tip:
> 
> If you want to make links that would normally open in a new window to open in a new tab edit about:config :
> 
> ```
> ...

 

I don't have this option in my about:config I'm using mozilla 1.7.5

----------

## transient

 *eniac wrote:*   

>  *pussi wrote:*   Quick tip:
> 
> If you want to make links that would normally open in a new window to open in a new tab edit about:config :
> 
> ```
> ...

 

```
browser.tabs.opentabfor.windowopen
```

 is the pref you want.

Set it to true.

----------

## eniac

Maybe useful for other

```

browser.tabs.opentabfor. 

bookmarks

middleclick

urlbar

windowopen
```

----------

## dswissmiss

 *transient wrote:*   

>  *dswissmiss wrote:*   Is there a mouse gesture extension which lets you do things like "right click & left klick" to go back? I remember opera having something like this. 
> 
> behold

 

Thank you. I remember trying it once, but for some reason I didn't look at the options closely enough to see that I could configure it to only use rocker navigation

----------

## cybe

I highly recommend: 

Description:

This nifty hack greatly improves Firefox forms - inputs, buttons, radios and dropdowns making them more beautiful and usable. 

Winterfox - Clean Firefox Forms

http://gnome-look.org/content/show.php?content=21812

----------

## transient

Found this off another forum I post on, www.gpforums.co.nz

Itsa very powerful plugin that allows you to insert DHTML (javascript and so on) into a webpage. This leads to all sorts of neat things.

Found here.

Ill post some examples once I make some. Theres a lotta prebuilt ones too though, so take a look.

----------

## STEDevil

 *mark_lybarger wrote:*   

> i know most gentooers aren't on dialup, but it would be nice to have a quick/easy way to turn off all image loading other than searching through the options -> security (why security) -> images -> block all images.
> 
> i've heard opera has a simple button to turn on/off image loading.  how to have a button on top in moz to do the same?

 

The Toolbar Enhancments extension gives you a button for this and a bunch of other things as well as a possibility to put buttons almost anywhere in the browserwindow (eg statusbar or tabbar).

http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/tbx

Also for some reason Mozilla.org only lists a "few" select extensions (currently 221). You can find MANY more at other places eg

http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/ (currently 263)

http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php (currently 594)

Increadibly IMO mozilla.org is still missing some of the oldest and most usable extensions like eg

http://extensionroom.mozdev.org/more-info/compactmenu

which is perfect if you eg want to save place on the menubar to eg allow you to place the URL & searchfield there.

It's the first thing I install on a new installation in both FF & TB  :Smile: 

----------

## Gotterdammerung

including me on this topic

----------

## breakerfall

Hmmm, is it possible to have Firefox open typed URLs in a new tab when hitting Control and Return? In mozilla, I could set the option in preferences to do this, so that I wouldn't necessarily need to open a new tab first. 

I also preferred being able to do a google search directly through the URL address bar...

Thanks

[edit]

Got the google bar thing sorted heh.

----------

## c0mplex

Wow Wow Wow!

These tricks helped my a lot. Thanks!

----------

## transient

 *breakerfall wrote:*   

> Hmmm, is it possible to have Firefox open typed URLs in a new tab when hitting Control and Return? In mozilla, I could set the option in preferences to do this, so that I wouldn't necessarily need to open a new tab first. 
> 
> 

 

FF uses alt+enter to do that. God knows why they changed it from the Moz behaviour...

This bug is about it. You might be able to get the gentoo devs to include it  :Smile: 

----------

## breakerfall

 *transient wrote:*   

>  *breakerfall wrote:*   Hmmm, is it possible to have Firefox open typed URLs in a new tab when hitting Control and Return? In mozilla, I could set the option in preferences to do this, so that I wouldn't necessarily need to open a new tab first. 
> 
>  
> 
> FF uses alt+enter to do that. God knows why they changed it from the Moz behaviour...
> ...

 

Thanks for the headsup. I read that bugzilla thread and I have to agree with the couple of people advocating for Control+Enter. It simply makes more sense across the board. Either way, I'm sure I'll get used to Alt+enter without any problems.

---

Whilst I'm actually here, might aswell ask another question. Following the really useful tip on the first page to allow links in emails from thunderbird to open in firefox and mailto links in firefox to open in thunderbird... I was wondering if it's possible at all to get links from emails to open in a new tab? Would the entry to user.js be slightly different? Would it be a code thing? Is it possible at all? 

Cheers.  :Smile: 

----------

## transient

 *breakerfall wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Whilst I'm actually here, might aswell ask another question. Following the really useful tip on the first page to allow links in emails from thunderbird to open in firefox and mailto links in firefox to open in thunderbird... I was wondering if it's possible at all to get links from emails to open in a new tab? Would the entry to user.js be slightly different? Would it be a code thing? Is it possible at all? 
> 
> Cheers. 

 

If it's what I think you're asking, then yes you can.

Under Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Tabbed Browsing, change the 

```
Open links from other applications in
```

 option to A new tab in the most recent window

----------

## breakerfall

 *transient wrote:*   

>  *breakerfall wrote:*   
> 
> Whilst I'm actually here, might aswell ask another question. Following the really useful tip on the first page to allow links in emails from thunderbird to open in firefox and mailto links in firefox to open in thunderbird... I was wondering if it's possible at all to get links from emails to open in a new tab? Would the entry to user.js be slightly different? Would it be a code thing? Is it possible at all? 
> 
> Cheers.  
> ...

 

Yeah, it's kind of restricting though. With the mozilla suite, I was able to right click (or even middle click) to open a link in a tab if I wanted to. I don't want every link to be opened in a new tab, just the ones I want. Now it just sounds like I'm being pissy about it.  :Laughing: 

----------

## Beekster

Things like adblock etc may have made the following redundant...

These host entry additions will block access to all known add servers, trackers etc.

More info here.

----------

## rhill

If you're always getting a Profile Manager pop-up when you try to open a URL from an external app when FF is already running, it's because of mozilla-launcher.  There are two ways around this.  First, you can change the app settings to point directly to the FF executable instead of /usr/bin/firefox (which is just a symlink to mozilla-launcher).  For example, if you use the mozilla-firefox-bin ebuild, point your app to /opt/firefox/firefox.  The second way is to just symlink /usr/bin/firefox to the actual executable.

If you find yourself unable to install additional plugins for the search bar, it's probably a permissions problem.  Make sure your /pathto/firefox/searchplugins folder is globally writable.  This drives a lot of people nuts because Firefox just fails silently with no indication of why it's not working.

Speaking of the search bar, you can find every plugin imaginable at http://mycroft.mozdev.org/  Be sure to grab the Gentoo Forums, Bugzilla, and Packages engines.  Finally, combine this with Cusser's ContextSearch extension.  Now you can highlight any word or phrase on the web and throw it into any search engine out there with a simple right-click.

One tip for Thunderbird.  By default it abbreviates the names of newsgroups.  It can be a PITA to tell the difference between g.c.g.devel, g.l.g.devel, g.l.g.p.devel, and g.l.k.devel sometimes.  to have TB show full names of newsgroups, put the following in a file named ~/.thunderbird/<profiledir>/user.js

```
user_pref("mail.server.default.abbreviate", false);
```

----------

## hpestilence

These setting are what i use to make it easier for me to browse the web.

Edit: search for these in about:config

```
general.autoScroll true

middlemouse.contentLoadURL false
```

What the general.autoScroll option does is enable to middle click a huge page and then move your mouse away in the direction u want to go to scroll the page.

Disabling middlemouse.contentLoadURL makes it so that middle clicking on an open tab closes it instead of loading an URL.

----------

## transient

 *dirtyepic wrote:*   

> If you're always getting a Profile Manager pop-up when you try to open a URL from an external app when FF is already running, it's because of mozilla-launcher.  There are two ways around this.  First, you can change the app settings to point directly to the FF executable instead of /usr/bin/firefox (which is just a symlink to mozilla-launcher).  For example, if you use the mozilla-firefox-bin ebuild, point your app to /opt/firefox/firefox.  The second way is to just symlink /usr/bin/firefox to the actual executable.
> 
> 

 

MOZILLA_NEWTYPE gets around this.

----------

## _GeG_

good idea, this thread!

If you visit often forums where you do not want to register for a quick view, this extension is great: bugmenot -> http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=566

and here is a good source for extensions:

http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/

----------

## hayesty

 *hpestilence wrote:*   

> These setting are what i use to make it easier for me to browse the web.
> 
> Edit: search for these in about:config
> 
> ```
> ...

 

THANK YOU!

I'm brand new to Linux and Gentoo, and your tip addresses my two remaining issues with FF.    :Cool: 

----------

## cgmd

OK... since firefox is being hacked, I have a very basic and fundamental noob question...

How can I get a url from the firefox address bar to go as a shortcut to my KDE desktop? Drag and drop doesn't work for me as it did on my windows desktop...

There's got to be something I'm overlooking!

Thanks...

----------

## linux_girl

 *cgmd wrote:*   

> OK... since firefox is being hacked, I have a very basic and fundamental noob question...
> 
> How can I get a url from the firefox address bar to go as a shortcut to my KDE desktop? Drag and drop doesn't work for me as it did on my windows desktop...
> 
> There's got to be something I'm overlooking!
> ...

 

draging and droping : i dont think i will work but u can make a script shelle and protocol handler to catche URLs

----------

## cgmd

linux_girl wrote:  *Quote:*   

> make a script shelle and protocol handler to catche URLs

 

Thank you for the information. 

Could you please post an example of such a shell script and protocol handler?

----------

## linux_girl

for exempl if u want to catch url like ed2k:// ad a prot hadler in => about:conf  like described above

make a shell script like $HOME/bin/ed2k.dump:

```

#!/bin/sh

echo $1 >>/tmp/URLS.txt

```

then ~/bin/ed2k.dump

just tail -f /tmp/URLS.txt and you should see every URL

----------

## gtr-xu1

My fav FF/TB feature is that you can store your profile on other discs, or systems. I keep my TB profile on a fat32 partition so I can access it from Windows and Linux. Works excellent - Really easy to set up too, when I get time I will do the same thing with my firefox bookmarks - There is a howto on the Mozilla site.

Laters

----------

## Hikaru79

I have the Java plugin working fine for Firefox, but say I want to be able to run Java applets in Firefox's RSS Aggregator part. Is this possible? Do I need some extension, or is there a way to enable this?

----------

## transient

 *Hikaru79 wrote:*   

> I have the Java plugin working fine for Firefox, but say I want to be able to run Java applets in Firefox's RSS Aggregator part. Is this possible? Do I need some extension, or is there a way to enable this?

 

I'm not sure. You could test it by embedding an applet in some rss with the usual <object> tag, and see if it renders it or not.

The plugin works on anything with the correct MIME-type for remote files, and anything with the correct extension for local files. So, if the .class file still gets sent as application/x-java-applet or whatever the MIME-type is, it should work.

----------

## linux_girl

just wondering if it is posible to :make firefox send html->text to festival --tts

so it easyer to listen then to read long pages of manuals.

----------

## Hikaru79

 *transient wrote:*   

>  *Hikaru79 wrote:*   I have the Java plugin working fine for Firefox, but say I want to be able to run Java applets in Firefox's RSS Aggregator part. Is this possible? Do I need some extension, or is there a way to enable this? 
> 
> I'm not sure. You could test it by embedding an applet in some rss with the usual <object> tag, and see if it renders it or not.
> 
> The plugin works on anything with the correct MIME-type for remote files, and anything with the correct extension for local files. So, if the .class file still gets sent as application/x-java-applet or whatever the MIME-type is, it should work.

 

I've tried that -- I have an RSS feed ( http://www.goproblems.com/rss/makefeed.php ) which works perfectly as a Live Bookmark in Firefox, but doesn't work at all if I give it to Thunderbird.  :Sad: 

----------

## effloresce

Linux scrollbars.

In both userChrome and userContent files.

```

scrollbarbutton[sbattr="scrollbar-up-bottom"] {display: -moz-box !important;}

scrollcorner {background-color: #f2f4f8;}

```

----------

## codergeek42

I just realized something cool: If you install the -bin packages (www-client/mozilla-firefox-bin and mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird-bin) then they automagically have the links working.For example, clicking a mailto: link in Firefox opens a Thunderbird "Compose Mail" window, and clicking a link from an email in Thunderbird magically opens the site in Firefox. That's very cool!   :Cool: 

----------

## opentaka

 *transient wrote:*   

> 
> 
> Firefox userChrome.css:[code]
> 
> font-family: monospace !important;
> ...

 

this wont work anymore on latest firefox, so you wanna tryout 

http://cdn.mozdev.org/compact/

----------

## transient

By latest you mean 1.1.x?

It still works on all 1.0.x versions

----------

## ElijahLofgren

 *Quote:*   

> i've heard opera has a simple button to turn on/off image loading. how to have a button on top in moz to do the same?

 

You want the Image-Show-Hide - Firefox Extension available at: https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=232

After installing it you need to right click on the toolbar and click "Customize" then drag the yellow and blue imgsh button onto the toolbar.  :Wink: 

----------

## opentaka

Here you'll find some good adblock filter's!

```
http://www.geocities.com/pierceive/adblock/
```

----------

## plac3bo

Transient

 *Quote:*   

> 
> 
> a[href^="mailto:"]:before {
> 
> content: "\2709 " !important;
> ...

 

do you know how to view a complete list of these ascii (?) / unicode (??) chars like the little envelope you've provided here?

thanks.

----------

## opentaka

you could stop annnoying webpages resizing and moving your browser by making this value "true' from about:config

```
dom.disable_window_move_resize
```

----------

## noneckturtle

What do I need to do to enable realpalyer in Firefox on Gentoo?

Thanks.

----------

## TrueDFX

 *plac3bo wrote:*   

> Transient
> 
>  *Quote:*   
> 
> a[href^="mailto:"]:before {
> ...

 

You can try gnome-extra/gucharmap.

 *transient wrote:*   

> By latest you mean 1.1.x?
> 
> It still works on all 1.0.x versions

 

Not sure what he meant, but it works with the nightly builds (which report their main version as 1.0+) as well.

Oh, and just a simple little thing from me:

```
#content>tabbox {

   -moz-box-direction: reverse;

}
```

for userChrome.css will display the tab bar on the bottom of the window, instead of the top.

----------

## opentaka

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=170970

tips and tricks of firefox ;D

----------

## stevenaleach

I know there has to be some simple explanation for this but...

Does anyone know how to get Firefox to recognize and list Cups printers?  I first noticed this running ArchLinux.  I installed firefox, go to print and the only option is "Postscript Default".  Later after an update, suddenly when I selected print I had the Postscript Default as well as both printers connected to my server.  Great!  Now I have an Amd64 laptop, so I'm running Gentoo - I installed firefox-bin and thunderbird-bin and once again I have "Postscript Default" only.

I've gotten around the problem by installing gtklp and using this as the print command, but still I would love to know how to get it set up so that I can just select the appropriate printer when I select print.

----------

## Shadow Skill

Can someone explain to me why I can't change the text color in the searchbar...Here is my code: 

```
#search-container

{

    #font-family: Arial !important;

    

     

    #width: 400px !important;

    -moz-box-flex: 400 !important;

}

#searchbar

{

   -moz-box-flex: 400 !important;

   #color: Green !important;

   font-size: 15pt !important;

}

```

The font size changes just fine but no matter what I try the text color inside the box will not change from white, which appears as a nigh un readable grey with my current skin. [I know the color line is commented out in what I pasted btw.]

----------

## TrueDFX

Try "#searchbar input" or maybe "#searchbar html:input" (not sure if that's necessary) instead. There is a child of #searchbar that overrides the colour, so #searchbar's isn't actually used; to work around this, just set it for the input block specifically.

----------

## Shadow Skill

It was searchbar-textbox FINALLY I got the colors to change to what I need.  Let me ask you is it possible for me to define a set of colors for websites without using the gui override tools which screw up all websites.  I want to have it set so that whenever the website doesn't expressly define the text color and background I can force the background to either be white, or if the text is not defined properly I can set the text color to black for example?

----------

## COiN3D

Dunno if it has already been mentioned, but this plugin called "Session Saver" is awesome. I couldn't live without it anymore. It saves your tabs when you exit Firefox and re-opens them when you start Firefox again.

----------

## m0p

My tweaked stuff:

```
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);

user_pref("browser.cache.disk_cache_ssl", true);

user_pref("browser.xul.error_pages.enabled", true);

user_pref("content.interrupt.parsing", true);

user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);

user_pref("content.maxtextrun", 8191);

user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);

user_pref("content.notify.interval", 250000);

user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);

user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 250000);

user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 48);

user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16);

user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16);

user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 4);

user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);

user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);

user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);

user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);
```

EDIT: To use those, just open up ~/.mozilla/Firefox/profilename/prefs.js and append that stuff. Also works for Mozilla and pretty much any browser that uses Gecko.

----------

## Sheepdogj15

for you guys who want to bleed out whatever speed you can get, and you have plenty of RAM to spare, check this out. after reading this thread regarding /tmp and /var/tmp, i set it up so that those directories are mounted in RAM, rather on the disk. (read the whole thread before trying it out, because there is important stuff there regarding making portage not use /var/tmp, and cleaning out those dir's). the details on how to do that are in that thread. 

anyhoo, i bring it up because i just set it up so firefox's cache is now in /var/tmp. what's cool about this is that for sites i go to pretty often, images and such almost load instantaneously, whereas there had been a small but noticable delay. i don't know for sure, but there might also be a slight speed up if you go to a new sight. it depends on how Firefox handles writing to cache (if it does it while loading, then that's a disk write operation, which means time). if so, i haven't noticed it myself, but then i haven't paid attention for it either.

basically, if you do mount it in RAM using tmpfs, move the "Cache" folder from your profile directory into /var/tmp (or /tmp... i have it in /var/tmp because i set it up to save /var/tmp over reboots). then, create a symlink in your profile folder, with the same exact name, and point it to the real Cache folder. not too hard  :Cool: 

----------

## Sheepdogj15

heh. it apparently doesn't work as i thought it did. 

when Firefox is restarted, it replaces the symlink with the folder again.

so, instead, you can bind it in using the mount command. e.g. 

# mount --bind /var/tmp/firefox /home/usr/.mozilla/firefox/profile/Cache

put it in your local.start to have it done on bootup and put a corresponding "umount" command in your local.stop

----------

## Shadow Skill

Does anyone know how to remove the close tab button from firefox via the css file? [If its already been said in this thread I'm sorry but im barely conscious right now seeing as its four am here.] It just started annoying me all of a sudden, and I must make it go away. :Twisted Evil: 

Offtopic: Is there a simillar thread here for opera? I'd like to elongate the search bar in that browser as well but can't seem to find it in Opera's rather extensive options.  :Sad: 

Edit I found the answer to my first question.  :Smile: 

I also found that the example for hiding the help and go menu entries does not work with firefox 1.0.4 win32 anyone else experience that tweak not working on thier systems?

One last thing is it possible to put the progress indicator and rss feed/plugin status symbols in the url bar like they are in Opera?

----------

## instauration

I emerged mozilla-thunderbird-1.0.5 last night and now I can no longer open a new tab in Firefox when clicking on the link in Thunderbird email.

Current versions:

www-client/mozilla-launcher-1.35

www-client/mozilla-firefox-1.0.5

mail-client/mozilla-thunderbird-1.0.5

I have a script in /usr/local/bin called 'fftab' which I use as the setting for 'network.protocol-handler.app.http' in prefs.js under my .thunderbird directory.

Here's the prefs.js setting: user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/usr/local/bin/fftab");

Here's the script (taken from MozillaZine posting, not my own):

```

#!/bin/sh

#

# This script allows external apps to open new URLs in Firefox

# or open a new instance of Firefox if it isn't already started

#

/usr/bin/firefox -a firefox -remote "openURL($@,new-tab)" ||

exec /usr/bin/firefox "$@";

```

Until these recent upgrades to mozilla-launcher, mozilla-firefox, and mozilla-thunderbird I've never had a problem with this working. And if I remember correctly, not specifically until the thunderbird upgrade (it was the last of the three).

If I run the fftab script from the command line (example: fftab "https://forums.gentoo.org/viewtopic-t-302479-highlight-thunderbird+tips.html") it works fine.

What gives?

----------

## Oxidative

I'm having the same problem, although I only have the usual lines in my user.js

 *Quote:*   

> user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.http", "/usr/bin/firefox");
> 
> user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.https", "/usr/bin/firefox");
> 
> user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.ftp", "/usr/bin/firefox");

 

Whenever clickling a link in thunderbird, I get this message in console:

 *Quote:*   

> /usr/libexec/mozilla-launcher: can't find the browser 

 

Problem first occured after the update of Thunderbird to 1.0.5 and mozilla-launcher to 1.35

----------

## Sheepdogj15

i haven't had this problem  :Confused: 

----------

## Fritz Heinrichmeyer

i call it an error in /usr/bin/firefox

this works for me, here is my /usr/bin/firefox:

```

#!/bin/sh

#

# Stub script to run mozilla-launcher.  We used to use a symlink here but

# OOo brokenness makes it necessary to use a stub instead:

# http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=78890

export MOZILLA_LAUNCHER=firefox

# this is new!!!

export MOZILLA_LIBDIR=/usr/lib/MozillaFirefox

exec /usr/libexec/mozilla-launcher "$@"

```

----------

## Oxidative

Thanks Fritz, that fixed it right away  :Very Happy: 

----------

## linux_girl

1)any idea on how to get rid of the firefox ugly filechooser in favour of kde filechooser ? app ported from win to linux always handle prety bad filechoosers !!!

2)any how to make festival read html pages ?

3) merge all kde bookmarks with firefox ?

[EDIT]

4)how to make firefox lunch faster or to make it always in memory(RAM) and never get to swap for desktop user.

i belive it can be done with a sticky chmod but i duno how

[/EDIT]

----------

## Shadow Skill

 *linux_girl wrote:*   

> 1)any idea on how to get rid of the firefox ugly filechooser in favour of kde filechooser ? app ported from win to linux always handle prety bad filechoosers !!!
> 
> 2)any how to make festival read html pages ?
> 
> 3) merge all kde bookmarks with firefox ?

 Now that I think about it the filechooser for firefox does look nasty, I would prefer a gnome hack for the chooser though.

----------

## Thunrida

With Thunderbird 1.0.5 head of message pane become really loaded with information. Temporarly solution is not to show it (click "-"), but it's a bad solution. I can't see now if message is for me only of for many people. And this info gets included when I fw mail. And what is worse, I cannot edit it, for it is in some kind of object. So I have to manually copy paste only address and say:hey, this came from "mail...".

This is the whole info I'm talking about. Does enybody knows the solution, how to get old style back?

From:

X-Account-Key:

X-UIDL:

X-Mozilla-Status:

X-Mozilla-Status2:

Return-Path:

X-Virus-Scanned:

X-Real-To:

X-ListServer:

List-Unsubscribe:

List-ID:

List-Archive:

Message-ID:

Reply-To:

Sender:

To: 

Precedence:

MIME-Version:

Content-Type:

X-Original-Message-Id:

Content-Transfer-Encoding:

From:

Date:

Subject:

----------

## TrueDFX

Isn't there an option in the View menu to switch between showing all headers and showing only some headers? Perhaps the default setting simply changed for you? (Disclaimer: I haven't used Thunderbird in a while.)

----------

## Thunrida

THANK YOU.

I went through all settings, but I somehow missed this one.

----------

## Sheepdogj15

 *Sheepdogj15 wrote:*   

> for you guys who want to bleed out whatever speed you can get, and you have plenty of RAM to spare, check this out. after reading this thread regarding /tmp and /var/tmp, i set it up so that those directories are mounted in RAM, rather on the disk. (read the whole thread before trying it out, because there is important stuff there regarding making portage not use /var/tmp, and cleaning out those dir's). the details on how to do that are in that thread. 
> 
> anyhoo, i bring it up because i just set it up so firefox's cache is now in /var/tmp. what's cool about this is that for sites i go to pretty often, images and such almost load instantaneously, whereas there had been a small but noticable delay. i don't know for sure, but there might also be a slight speed up if you go to a new sight. it depends on how Firefox handles writing to cache (if it does it while loading, then that's a disk write operation, which means time). if so, i haven't noticed it myself, but then i haven't paid attention for it either.
> 
> basically, if you do mount it in RAM using tmpfs, move the "Cache" folder from your profile directory into /var/tmp (or /tmp... i have it in /var/tmp because i set it up to save /var/tmp over reboots). then, create a symlink in your profile folder, with the same exact name, and point it to the real Cache folder. not too hard 
> ...

 

after monkeying with this some more, i found that Firefox gets finicky about the whole deal. so, messing with the cache folder in your profile is a bad idea. 

but instead, i found out you can set Firefox to use a different cache location, through user.js. this is the line i added:

```
user_pref("browser.cache.disk.parent_directory","/var/tmp/firefox/");
```

make sure the appropriate directory actually exists. firefox will automatically create the cache folder itself. 

so far, it seems to work as expected.

----------

## Matteo Azzali

Any way to select a filebrowser (download manager->

open containing folder) different than nautilus?

(creating a symlink named /usr/bin/nautilus pointing

at konqueror won't work)

----------

## songpenguin

For any of you who use proxies to become anonymous. https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=125 is a plugin (SwitchProxy Tool) that allows me to switch between my passthough and privoxy/tor setup with a click of my mouse. It has an optional toolbar and can display/change the proxy state from the statusbar. It works with all public proxies (and supports chaining) as well as Privoxy/Tor and Jap. 

A note on JAP, I don't trust it because it has a short mix lingth (2 servers, 3 if you cont that one with ~25 users on it) and has a mechanism to wiretap. 

Also, does anyone know of some way to keep firefox from taking ~25% of my CPU just to move my mouse over it?

Thanks for the thread,

Songpenguin

----------

## MrPixel

Now using latest Firefox 1.0.6, and I've found that not only does (as always) reinstall all the search engines I don't want (ie Creative Commons, eBay)... but I can't find where to delete them.  That is, there is nothing in /usr/lib/MozillaFirefox/searchplugins

Where have they gone?  And why can't users just install their own individually, anyway?

----------

## Gogiel

 *MrPixel wrote:*   

> Now using latest Firefox 1.0.6, and I've found that not only does (as always) reinstall all the search engines I don't want (ie Creative Commons, eBay)... but I can't find where to delete them.  That is, there is nothing in /usr/lib/MozillaFirefox/searchplugins
> 
> Where have they gone?  And why can't users just install their own individually, anyway?

 

AFAIR FF 1.0.6 is in /opt/firefox.

----------

## MrPixel

/opt/firefox does not exist on my system (I'm not using the -bin ebuild)

----------

## opentaka

memo..

adblock filter address changed to

http://www.pierceive.com/

----------

## Gogiel

 *MrPixel wrote:*   

> /opt/firefox does not exist on my system (I'm not using the -bin ebuild)

 

But I remember, that after upgrading FF emerge changed directory (/usr/lib/firefox or sth?).

```
qpkg -l mozilla-firefox|grep searchplugins
```

----------

## Adaptive

I thought the tip was great showing how to set up the irc:// protocol to be handled.  I like to use ksirc as my irc client and it needs to have the URL parsed and passed as ksirc --server=<servername> --channel=<channel name>.  I wrote a perl script to do this and I thought I would share it for [scripting] newbs like myself.

```

#! /usr/bin/perl

my $input = $ARGV[0];

#remove the irc://

my $str1 = substr($input,6);

#split the string at the /

@parsed = split(/\//,$str1);

$command = "/usr/kde/3.4/bin/ksirc --server=" . $parsed[0] . " --channel=" . $parsed[1];

exec($command)

```

----------

## Nylex

I'm having a problem with Thunderbird and Firefox and looking through this thread, there was nothing about it. I can open "mailto:" links with Thunderbird now (and open links from Thunderbird in Firefox), but the problem is that Firefox doesn't have the "Read Mail (x new)" and "New Message..." entries in the Tools menu. Is there any way to get these?

Thanks.

----------

## swimmer

 *MrPixel wrote:*   

> /opt/firefox does not exist on my system (I'm not using the -bin ebuild)

 

It is /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/searchplugins/ ...

greetz

swimmer

----------

## nly00471

I did the following tip:

 *gnac wrote:*   

> I found this on a number of other threads (some of which you [transient] participated in) and thought it made sense to repeat it here since this thread's goal is to be a common repository of tips and tricks.  I apologize to the original posters for not quoting them here.
> 
> Tip:
> 
> If you want thunderbird to open links in email in firefox add the following lines to the ~/.thunderbird/default.???/user.js file.   if the user.js file doesn't exist, create it. 
> ...

 

but now my thunderbird isn't starting again, some one have a clue or can tell me where I can find a log file

findout that I got the following error:

```

localhost ~ # thunderbird start

No running windows found

Removing /root/.thunderbird/adt9oyez.default/compreg.dat leftover from older thunderbird

Removing /root/.thunderbird/adt9oyez.default/XUL.mfasl leftover from older thunderbird

(thunderbird-bin:1364): Gdk-WARNING **: gdk_property_get(): length value has wrapped in calculation (did you pass G_MAXLONG?)

*** loading the extensions datasource

(thunderbird-bin:1364): Gdk-WARNING **: gdk_property_get(): length value has wrapped in calculation (did you pass G_MAXLONG?)

*** loading the extensions datasource

thunderbird-bin exited with non-zero status (1)

```

Thanks

----------

## TGL

One more tip : Using ConQuery to quickly search Gentoo stuffs

You will find there a collection of search plugins for the ConQuery extension, dedicated to search of various Gentoo ressources (documentation, forums, mailing-list archives, bugzilla, etc.).

----------

## hamaker

HELP!

Since some time (I thought it was since I created the user.js refering hhtp https and ftp to firefox) Thunderbird opens all URL's in firefox. That is: also all images, refered to by URL's, but, naturaly, I don't want that! I removed my user.js, but that doesn't help. 

How do I solve this?

thx

----------

## yngwin

How to make (most) older extensions work in newer (development) versions of Firefox:

http://dev.d10e.net/nb/2005/09/14/how-to-make-older-extensions-work-in-firefox-15-beta

----------

## Matteo Azzali

Ok, nobody knows how to get rid of nautilus, so I'm starting to think it's impossible. Anyone knows if Opera is good and let me choose?

----------

## opentaka

 *Matteo Azzali wrote:*   

> Ok, nobody knows how to get rid of nautilus, so I'm starting to think it's impossible. Anyone knows if Opera is good and let me choose?

 

opera is quite good. very fast page rendering, fast responce, stable.

but no extensions etc to play with  :Sad: 

----------

## skellr

 *Quote:*   

> @-moz-document url-prefix(http://www.mozilla.org/) {}
> 
> @-moz-document domain(mozilla.org) {} For all page (and sub-domains) of the mozilla.org domain.
> 
> @-moz-document url(http://www.mozilla.org/) {} For just the page matching that exact URL.

 

An example userContent.css {image}

```
@-moz-document url-prefix(http://forums.gentoo.org/) {

body, input, select { 

   background-color: #eee !important;

}

td.row1, td.row2, td.row3, td.row3right { 

   background-color: #dbdbdb !important;

}

td.spaceRow {

   background-color: #46357c !important;

   padding: 0px !important;

}

td.code, td.quote {

   border: 1px inset #ccc !important;

   background-color: #ccc !important;

}

td.code {

   color: #000 !important;

   font-family: "Bitstream Vera Sans Mono" !important;

}

th {

   background-color: #dbdbdb !important;

   border-color: #dbdbdb !important;

}

table.forumline { 

   background-color: #c0c0c0 !important;

}

img[title="No new posts"], img[alt="Who is Online"], 

img[alt="Post new topic"], img[title="New posts"],

img[alt="Reply to topic"], img[alt="Reply with quote"],

td[nowrap="nowrap"][valign="middle"] img {

   opacity: 0.7 !important;

}

td.cat, td.catLeft, td.catRight,td.catHead, td.catBottom,

td.catSides, td.rowpic {

   opacity: .6 !important;

}

textarea {

   background-color: #dfdfdf !important;

}

}
```

----------

