Another top with 25 best and most useful addons for Firefox

Mozilla Firefox, undoubtedly the best browser is so famous for its Add-ons. Here is a list of 25 Best and Most useful Add-ons for Firefox 3. The add-ons are small applications for the browser that will enhance the browsing experience and will also perform many useful operations. There are many add-ons available for Firefox but I have handpicked best of the best and most Popular and Useful add-ons that you should have installed.

You can check the Tips and Tricks of Firefox to Make Firefox Faster. You can even Optimize Firefox for Best Performance. You can go to the particular add-ons page by clicking on the name of the add-on. The list of the 25 best add-ons will be as follows..

COMFORT

All-in-One Sidebar :

All-in-One Sidebar (AiOS) is an award-winning sidebar control, inspired by Opera’s. It lets you quickly switch between sidebar panels, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions, and more in the sidebar, or view source or websites in the sidebar.

Down Them All :

The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox. It is all you can desire from a download manager: it features an advanced accelerator that increases speed up to 400% and it allows you to pause and resume downloads at any time.

Interclue :

Ever wanted to know what was behind the link before you clicked? Interclue tells you everything you need to know before you open yet another tab. Small icons appear on mouseover to warn you about dead links, Malware or Phishing Sites, etc, and for any valid links Interclue provides compact link previews, relevant extra information and useful next action buttons.

Cool Previews :

CoolPreviews (formerly known as Cooliris Previews) gives you the power to browse and share Web links and rich media faster. Just mouse over any link, and the preview window immediately appears to show you the content. To email it, just click.

IE Tab :

It is used for Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your web page displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.

SECURITY

AdBlock Plus :

Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them. It will block most advertisements fully automatically.

FoxyProxy :

FoxyProxy is an advanced proxy management tool that completely replaces Firefox’s limited proxying capabilities. It offers more features than SwitchProxy, ProxyButton, QuickProxy, xyzproxy, ProxyTex, TorButton, etc.

No Script :

The best security you can get in a web browser! Allow active content to run only from sites you trust, and protect yourself against XSS attacks. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice.

Secure Login :

Secure Login is a login extension for Mozilla Firefox integrated password manager. Its main feature is similar to Opera’s (the browser) Wand login.

MULTIMEDIA

Fireshot :

FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers.

FoxyTunes :

FoxyTunes lets you control almost any media player and find lyrics, covers, videos, bios and much more with a click right from your browser. It supports almost every music player like Winamp,itunes etc.

G Space :

This extension allows you to use your Gmail Space (4.1 GB and growing) for file storage. It acts as an online drive, so you can upload files from your hard drive and access them from every Internet capable system.

Cooliris :

Full-Screen, 3D — Cooliris (formerly known as PicLens) transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for searching, viewing, and sharing online photos and videos. Its “3D Wall” lets you effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images, videos, news feeds, sports feeds, and more.

Video Download Helper :

The easy way to download and convert Web videos from hundreds of YouTube-like sites. It is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video, audio and image files from many sites.

COMMUNITY

Blog RovR :

If you don’t have time to read ALL those Blogs! RovR does it for you. It fetches posts from your favorite blogs about anything you’re browsing, and shows you summaries you can open read posts without leaving the web page you were on. It also suggests popular items AND lets you Twitter about any site you’re on too.

Chat Zilla :

A clean, easy to use and highly extensible Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client. It provides all the usual IRC client features: multiple servers, a built-in list of standard networks, easy searching and sorting of available channels, logging, and DCC chat and file transfers, plus easy customization with JavaScript plug-ins and CSS styling.

Locator :

It is used to Locate highlighted address on Google map: simply highlight the address, right click with mouse, select ‘Locate on Google Map’ in popup menu and your place will be shown on Google map.

Reminder Fox :

ReminderFox displays and manages lists of date-based reminders and ToDo’s. It does not seek to be a full-fledged calendar. It makes sure you remember all of your important dates via easy-to-use lists, alerts, and alarm notifications.

SamePlace :

Extensible instant messaging client based on the XMPP (Jabber) protocol. Accesses Jabber, GTalk, Twitter, MSN, AIM (and more, via gateways). It REQUIRES the xmpp4moz extension (download it from http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3632/ )

PROFESSIONAL

FireBug :

Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.

FireFTP :

FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.It includes more advanced features such as: directory comparison, syncing directories while navigating, SFTP, SSL encryption, search/filtering, integrity checks, remote editing, drag & drop, file hashing, and much more!

Stylish :

Customize the look of the application and of websites with Stylish, a user styles manager. User styles empower your browsing experience by letting you fix ugly sites, customize the look of your browser or mail client, or just have fun.

SQLite Manager :

Manage any SQLite database on your computer. An intuitive hierarchical tree showing database objects. Helpful dialogs to manage tables, indexes, views and triggers. You can browse and search the tables, as well as add, edit and delete the records. Facility to execute any sql query.

Web Developer :

Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. It is very much useful for the developers to access different tools they need.

Greasemonkey :

Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. You can get hundreds of scripts, for a wide variety of popular sites, are already available at http://userscripts.org.

Along with these there are many such add-ons which will provide you with various functions to make your browsing experience interesting. Share your favourite Firefox add-ons here. Bookmark and share this post, if you like and Happy Browsing..!!

Hacks and tricks to make Firefox Super fast

Firefox has been outperforming IE in every department for years, and version 3 is speedier than ever.

But tweak the right settings and you could make it faster still, more than doubling your speed in some situations, all for about five minutes work and for the cost of precisely nothing at all. Here's what you need to do.

1. Enable pipelining

Browsers are normally very polite, sending a request to a server then waiting for a response before continuing. Pipelining is a more aggressive technique that lets them send multiple requests before any responses are received, often reducing page download times. To enable it, type about:config in the address bar, double-click network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining so their values are set to true, then double-click network.http.pipelining.maxrequests and set this to 8.

Keep in mind that some servers don't support pipelining, though, and if you regularly visit a lot of these then the tweak can actually reduce performance. Set network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining to false again if you have any problems.

2. Render quickly

Large, complex web pages can take a while to download. Firefox doesn't want to keep you waiting, so by default will display what it's received so far every 0.12 seconds (the "content notify interval"). While this helps the browser feel snappy, frequent redraws increase the total page load time, so a longer content notify interval will improve performance.

Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click (Apple users ctrl-click) somewhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.notify.interval as your preference name, click OK, enter 500000 (that's five hundred thousand, not fifty thousand) and click OK again.

Right-click again in the window and select New > Boolean. This time create a value called content.notify.ontimer and set it to True to finish the job.

3. Faster loading

If you haven't moved your mouse or touched the keyboard for 0.75 seconds (the content switch threshold) then Firefox enters a low frequency interrupt mode, which means its interface becomes less responsive but your page loads more quickly. Reducing the content switch threshold can improve performance, then, and it only takes a moment.

Type about:config and press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Integer. Type content.switch.threshold, click OK, enter 250000 (a quarter of a second) and click OK to finish.

4. No interruptions

You can take the last step even further by telling Firefox to ignore user interface events altogether until the current page has been downloaded. This is a little drastic as Firefox could remain unresponsive for quite some time, but try this and see how it works for you.

Type about:config, press [Enter], right-click in the window and select New > Boolean. Type content.interrupt.parsing, click OK, set the value to False and click OK.

5. Block Flash

Intrusive Flash animations are everywhere, popping up over the content you actually want to read and slowing down your browsing. Fortunately there's a very easy solution. Install the Flashblock extension (flashblock.mozdev.org) and it'll block all Flash applets from loading, so web pages will display much more quickly. And if you discover some Flash content that isn't entirely useless, just click its placeholder to download and view the applet as normal.

6. Increase the cache size

As you browse the web so Firefox stores site images and scripts in a local memory cache, where they can be speedily retrieved if you revisit the same page. If you have plenty of RAM (2 GB of more), leave Firefox running all the time and regularly return to pages then you can improve performance by increasing this cache size. Type about:config and press [Enter], then right-click anywhere in the window and select New > Integer. Type browser.cache.memory.capacity, click OK, enter 65536 and click OK, then restart your browser to get the new, larger cache.

7. Enable TraceMonkey

TraceMonkey is a new Firefox feature that converts slow Javascript into super-speedy x86 code, and so lets it run some functions anything up to 20 times faster than the current version. It's still buggy so isn't available in the regular Firefox download yet, but if you're willing to risk the odd crash or two then there's an easy way to try it out.

Install the latest nightly build (ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/nightly/latest-trunk/), launch it, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Type JIT in the filter box, then double-click javascript.options.jit.chrome and javascript.options.jit.content to change their values to true, and that's it - you're running the fastest Firefox Javascript engine ever.

8. Compress data

If you've a slow internet connection then it may feel like you'll never get Firefox to perform properly, but that's not necessarily true. Install toonel.net (toonel.net) and this clever Java applet will re-route your web traffic through its own server, compressing it at the same time, so there's much less to download. And it can even compress JPEGs by allowing you to reduce their quality. This all helps to cut your data transfer, useful if you're on a limited 1 GB-per-month account, and can at best double your browsing performance.

IE6, IE7 and IE8 under Mac or Linux (cont.)

The good news is that Microsoft provides free VirtualPC disk images for each of their browsers:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B…

The bad news is that they wont run on Mac and VirtualPC wont run inside Parallels or VMWare Fusion — but I’ve found a solution! We can convert the disk images to work for VMWare Fusion or VirtualBox.

Setup

First go and download the versions of IE you want to use:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B…

To do the conversion you’ll need a copy of the Qemu command line tool. I couldn’t get it to work on Mac, so you’ll probably need to use it on a Linux or Windows machine. (you can do this through Parallels or VMWare Fusion too) Download, extract and install Qemu tool on your computer.

Linux

WILL NOT work on windows because it was not compiled to support files over 2GB.
http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/

Windows

Download “Qemu-0.9.1-windows.zip” from:
http://lassauge.free.fr/qemu/

VMWare Fusion

This is the easiest way to go and has superior support for shared network and clipboard between Mac and PC, except it means you’ll need to buy a copy of VMWare Fusion. I wrote these instructions using the trial version, someday I’ll buy my own full version.

The process will probably take less than an hour and require about 2Gb of space. These instructions are tailored towards using Windows for the file conversion with qemu. If you’re using Linux you’re probably smart enough to adapt these instructions to your system. Several people in the comments have mentioned being able to use Q on the Mac to do the file conversion.

1. Open a command prompt: Start > Run and type “cmd”
2. Use “cd” to go to the directory you download and extracted Qemu.
3. Run:
   qemu-img.exe convert -f vpc "XP SP2 with IE7.vhd” -O vmdk XPIE7.vmdk
   • “XP SP2 with IE7.vhd” is the path to the IE VPC file you downloaded
   • “XPIE7.vmdk” is the new file that VMWare Fusion will use.
4. Wait…(will probably take 15 - 30 minutes)
5. Move the new “.vmdk” file to your mac.
6. Open VMWare Fusion and click File > New
7. Go through the wizard and when you get to the “Virtual Hard Disk” page, expand “Advanced disk options”, check “Use an existing virtual disk” and use the dropdown to find the new “.vmdk” file.
8. Finish the wizard and start it! (If prompted to upgrade the virtual harddrive, click “Yes”)
9. Ignore any driver dialogs that ask you to insert a Windows CD. The VMWare Tools should install these drivers for you (see next step).
10. Install the VMWare tools (Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools) as soon as Windows boots up. If installing the tools gives you a weird error, read the next section.
11. You’re done!

Installing the VMWare Tools

If the VMWare Tools wont install automatically follow these simple steps to install it manually:

1. With VMWare Fusion running click Virtual Machine > Install VMWare Tools
2. Open your “My Computer” to see which drive letter the CDRom with the VMWare Tools has mounted to.
3. Open a command prompt: Start > Run and type “cmd”
4. Type the following and press enter (change “D” to the drive letter from step 2):
   • msiexec -i "D:\VMware Tools.msi"
5. The installation wizard should open and walk you through the rest of the install.

VirtualBox

The great thing with VirtualBox is that it’s free and available for most OSes! The process will take a little longer and will temporarily require about 20Gb - 30Gb of disk space. In the end your IE virtual disk will only be about 2Gb.

You might be tempted to do the VMWare Fusion conversion, outlined above, and use the “.vmdk” file in VirtualBox. It’s true that VirtualBox supports “.vmdk”, but everytime I tried it I ran into massive problems.

These instructions are tailored towards using Windows for the file conversion with qemu. If you’re using Linux you’re probably smart enough to adapt these instructions to your system. Several people in the comments have mentioned being able to use Q on the Mac to do the file conversion.

1. Open a command prompt: Start > Run and type “cmd”
2. Use “cd” to go to the directory you download and extracted Qemu.
3. Run: qemu-img.exe convert -f vpc "XP SP2 with IE7.vhd” -O raw XPIE7.bin
   • “XP SP2 with IE7.vhd” is the path to the IE VPC file you just downloaded
   • “XPIE7.bin” is the new file.
4. Wait…(will take about an hour)
5. Move the new “.bin” file to your mac. (or try the next 2 steps on the same machine)
6. Install VirtualBox
7. Convert and compress the “.bin” file. (This can also be done on Windows or Linux if you have VirtualBox on that machine)
   1. Open a terminal or command prompt.
   2. Go to the directory where your “.bin” file is.
   3. VBoxManage convertdd XPIE7.bin XPIE7.vdi (FYI: on Windows, VBoxManage is in “C:\Program Files\innotek VirtualBox\”)
   4. VBoxManage modifyvdi XPIE7.vdi compact
8. Open VirtualBox
9. Click New
10. Go through the wizard
    • Give it at least 350MB of “Base Memory”
    • Use the new “.vdi” file as the “Boot Hard Disk”.
11. Finish wizard and start it!
12. Ignore any driver dialogs that ask you to insert a Windows CD. The VirtualBox tools should install these drivers for you (see next step).
13. Be sure to install the VirtualBox tools as soon as Windows boots up. (Click: Device > Install Guest Additions)

How to have IE on Linux

Most of you guys already know how to do this trick, but for those of you who don't check below.

IEs 4 Linux needs two packages: cabextract and Wine. You can install them using your Linux package manager (synaptic, apt-get, yum, emerge etc) or go to their sites.

After that, download IEs 4 Linux. Extract it. Run 'ies4linux'. Follow the instructions.

In a terminal, you can do:

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
cd ies4linux-*
./ies4linux

Note: This allows you to install IE6 and a (as beta) IE7, for the moment IE8 is not supported.

21 About:Config Tricks For Firefox 3

Firefox 3 one of the maximum downloaded open source browser which has set a Guinness world record. Their were Over 8,000,000 downloads in 24 hours!. Along with Firefox 3 Spreadfirefox also got new cool look.

Firefox 3 about:config file is the core configuration file of Firefox. By editing about:config file we can get amazing hacks for Firefox 3. Firefox allows the users to change many preferences in the about:config file so it’s totally ethical to do it.Here is list of 21 Firefox 3 hacks & tweaks.

To get the Firefox 3 configuration file type “about:config” at address bar.

Here is List of about:config hacks for Firefox 3

1) Disable Extension Compatibility Checks
extensions.checkCompatibility = False
extensions.checkUpdateSecurity = False

2) Location Bar (Set number Auto Complete URL at Address Bar)

This is a good hack to trim down that huge auto-complete list on your URL bar. By default it displays maximum 12 URL

browser.urlbar.maxRichResults = #

Enter Number at # (3,10,12 etc)

3) Stop Displaying Website Icon (Favicon) in Address bar & On Tab

browser.chrome.site_icons = False

4) Disable Prefetch (Helpful for frequent Google searcher, low-speed internet connection or low RAM)

network.prefetch-next = False

5) Extend Spell check to forms

layout.spellcheckDefault = 2
Change Value from 1 to 2

6) Disable Blinking Text

browser.blink_allowed = False

7) Speed Tweaks

network.http.pipelining false to true
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 30 to 8
network.http.max-connections 30 to 96
network.http.max-connections-per-server 15 to 32
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server 6 to 8
network.http.pipelining.ssl false to true
network.http.proxy.pipelining false to true

8 ) Disable Annoying Browser Behavior

dom.disable_window_open_feature.menubar
dom.disable_window_move_resize
dom.disable_window_open_feature.titlebar
dom.disable_window_open_feature.toolbar

Set all of above to value False

9) Remove Tab Close Button from all Tab and set A single Close Button at Right

browser.tabs.closeButtons = 3

Single Close Button to control all Firefox Opened Tabs. (value should be 3 and not 2 Thanks Andreas )

10) Disabler Browser Toolbar Tip

browser.chrome.toolbar_tips = False

11) Show More Tabs on Single Firefox Window before Scrolling

browser.tabs.tabMinWidth = 75

Setting lesser value with reduce Tab width

12) Past Copy Content with Middlemouse Click

middlemouse.paste = True

13) Scroll webpage in One Go

mousewheel.withaltkey.action=1

14) Disable Delay Time While Installing Firefox Add-on

security.dialog_enable_delay = 0

(Zero is number of seconds Firefox should wait while installing Add-on)

15) Increase History Undo Close Tab Limit ( Recently Closed Tabs )

browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo=15

By default you can undo 10 recently closed tabs inorder to increase your history closed tabs. Change number 13 to as per your choice.

16) Open Firefox Default Search Bar Result in New Tab

browser.search.openintab=True

17) Right Click View Source in Your Favorite Editor

view_source.editor.external=True
view_source.editor.path= Path of Editor

(e.g. path C:\Program Files\npp.4.8.2.bin\notepad++.exe)

18) Enable/Disable Single Click to Select Whole URL in Address bar

To Enable Single Click Select URL of address bar use the below about:config Tweak

browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = True

To disable Single Click Select

browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll = False

19) Emule/ed2k link association (Linux users)

network.protocol-handler.app.ed2k= /usr/bin/ed2k
network.protocol-handler.external.ed2k = true

20) Fast Scrolling Across Tabs

toolkit.scrollbox.scrollIncrement =75

( 75 is number of pixels to scroll at a time when scrolling the tab strip’s scrollbox. (Default: 20)

21) Auto Complete URL while You type at address Bar

browser.urlbar.autoFill=True

Many of above about:config hacks are available in Older Firefox Version, at the end if some thing goes wrong then feel free to restore your about:config to older setting see the below image of how to restore about:config

Hope you guys like this Firefox 3 hacks, If you have any tips or hacks related to Firefox 3 about:config, hacks, tweaks do let me know I will include it in above list.

Maximize Firefox Using about:config

you type about:config in your address bar, Firefox opens the master directory of user-defined preferences and built-in settings. The ultimate arena for performance tampering, the about:config settings are the foundation for programming Firefox extensions.

We’ll show some simple about:config modifications below. Even if the word “Boolean” means nothing to you, we’ll try to make it easy to understand about:config settings. For power users, Mozillazine.org has a comprehensive list of about:config settings, their meanings, and how to modify them. Btw, although the screenshots below were made on a Mac, all of these hacks work for Windows users too.

To modify about:config, pull it up using your address bar. The settings appear in a searchable list view.



Type a string into the search bar for a live sort. To modify the setting, right click on it and choose Toggle for a boolean value or Modify for an integer or string.



Change the setting as desired, and simply restart Firefox to use the new configuration. (There’s no need to save.)

The first two tips below were adapted from a great tutorial by Gina Trapani at Lifehacker, and they’ll help you dip your toe into the about:config waters. We’ve chosen the easiest and most useful mods from her list. A very old guide (2004) to about:config modding at TweakFactor is still good in places; we’ve reviewed and modfied some tips below as well.

1. About:config - fetch only the content you view

Firefox 2.0 and later likes to prepare itself for the next link you may click; to make clicked links load fast, it pre-loads content from pages which are linked to the page you’re currently viewing. Pre-fetching only occurs when the browser is idle, so it shouldn’t affect your bandwidth. Bear in mind that the makers of browser extension Fasterfox seem to think pre-fetching speeds things up. If you find this pointless and/or creepy, you can turn it off.

-In about:config, pull up network.prefetch-next.
-The default value is true. Right click and toggle it to false. Restart Firefox and enjoy.

2. About:config - limit memory usage

On both Macs and PCs, our favorite browser can be quite the RAM hog. Tame the beast with browser.cache.memory.capacity. This preference must be added to your list; it won’t appear by default.
-First, check your memory usage with about:cache?device=memory in the URL bar. The window will display your current settings and the current cache contents. In the settings below, Firefox’s current maximum storage size is 1 percent of the RAM capacity of the computer.



-To change the amount of memory that Firefox can use, open about:config and right-click in the window New ? Integer.
-Enter browser.cache.memory.capacity as the preference name.
-Enter a value in KB. (There’s a handy calculator here.) Computerworld has a 2006 article about Firefox memory usage to guide you.

3. About:config - Hotrodded broadband with network preferences

Mozillazine.org (which isn’t an official Mozilla publication, btw) lists preferences that can be used to “fine-tune performance.” Among these are the:
network.http.max-connections
network.http.max-connections-per-server
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server

Most of the above preferences control the number of simultaneous connections your browser can make with an HTTP server. (HTTP protocol is the communication interface used for the vast majority of web surfing.) Some unscrupulous or uninformed commentators will tell you to jack up the number of possible connections as high as you can. However, this can lead to problems for both you (the web surfer/client) and the web pages you view (HTTP server).

“If you raise [the number], do it reasonably,” writes user lazlo in the Mozillazine forums. “Changes like these are at least partly responsible for the infamous /. effect [which crashes servers during high traffic.]” Some servers will even ban your IP address if you overclock your settings too severely, so be a good net citizen and don’t hog.

network.http.max-connections
-Controls the number of simultaneous possible connections using the HTTP protocol (used for most webpages). Default setting = 24

network.http.max-connections-per-server
-Controls the number of simultaneous HTTP connections possible with one server. Default setting = 8

If you’re using a gateway (a.k.a. proxy server), the preferences
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy
network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server
controls the same settings as network.http.max-connections and network.http.max-connections-per-server. If you don’t know what a proxy server is, you’re probably not using one.

4. About:config - pipelining for faster page loads (maybe)

Normally, your computer issues HTTP requests one at a time, waiting for a server response before sending the next request. Pipelining allows multiple requests from your computer to flow out without waiting for the server responses. Your computer (the client) handles the responses in the same order that the original request was received.

Depending on your web usage, pipelining can mean that you perceive a faster load time.
Imagine the difference between a constant conversation in which each side pauses and waits for the other’s response, and an exchange with one side making a long speech and then waiting for the other side’s long speech in response. It may seem faster to you or it may not.

Note that some pages may not be built to the HTTP 1.1 standard required for pipelining and may not be able to handle it. They may just refuse to load.

To try your luck with pipelining, open about:config and access
network.http.pipelining
-Default = false. Toggle it to true.

To bump up the max number of requests in a pipeline, access
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
-Default = 4. Enter a value from 1 to 8. (1 will disable pipelining.)

(To turn on pipelining from behind a proxy server, access
network.http.proxy.pipelining
-Default = false. Toggle to true.

Incidentally, the W3C (the international standards organization for the World Wide Web) hasn’t updated its pipelining standards since 1997. For a more technical explanation of pipelining features, benefits and drawbacks, check out this FAQ by Mozilla developer Darin Fisher.

5. About:config - reduce page rendering time

Typically, as a web page loads in a browser, the downloaded elements appear one by one (are “rendered”). The nglayout.initialpaint.delay preference designates the number of milliseconds before Firefox begins to render or “paint” the page. The default 250 ms settings compromises between dial-up users, who benefit from longer paint delays, and broadband users, who don’t. In a recent Mozilla developer discussion of the setting, user chob wrote:

“Setting [nglayout.initialpaint.delay] to 0 can mean as soon as the server sends the first byte, Firefox tries to parse this and start layout, but of course it takes time for enough HTML to come back for Firefox to render anything worth seeing.

“Setting a value to 0 probably just means Firefox chews a little more CPU time as it tried to render and reflow before having enough data to show anything meaningful. Although it probably gives the impression of being slightly more responsive because the page starts to render quarter of a second earlier.”

Create nglayout.initialpaint.delay in about:config as a new integer preference.



Default = 250. Broadband users can try a setting 0 – 100, while dial-up users can try 275 or higher.

6. About:config - mod Firefox responsiveness while rendering

After nglayout.initialpaint.delay has been created and modified, Firefox may speed up rendering while annoying you with constant adjustments as you scroll through that new content. The preference content.switch.threshold controls Firefox’s responsiveness to your input (i.e. responsiveness to the UI) at the expense of slightly slowing the page load. Since you’ve already minimized the page load time with tips 2, 4, 5, and 6, that shouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice.

Firefox has two modes of user interaction with web pages that are still loading: high frequency interrupt mode and low frequency interrupt mode. The high mode better tolerates user interactions with the content. What content.switch.threshold ontent.switch.threshold controls is the number of microseconds of inactivity that will activate low frequency interrupt mode. In other words, it controls how long you have to do nothing before Firefox assumes you are waiting for the whole page to load.

To mod content.switch.threshold
-First, make sure that preferences content.notify.ontimer and content.interrupt.parsing are set to true (their default setting). (You can learn about these settings at Mozillazine’s Content.switch.threshold page.)
-Next, create content.switch.threshold as a new integer preference. Default = 750,000. The range is 1 to 1,000,000.

Just don’t forget that as Mozillazine.org says, “raising the value will make the application more responsive at the expense of page load time.”

This tip is based on a tip from TheHowToGeek.

7. Backup your preferences

Now that you’ve tinkered to your heart’s delight, protect the ones you love – your user preferences – by backing them up. This info is adapted from the Mozilla guide to Firefox user profile backups.
-First, locate your Firefox user profile.



The string xxxxxxxx represents random characters assigned by the OS as the name of your profile. Don’t worry; there’s probably only one user profile in the folder anyway, so it shouldn’t be hard to find.

-After locating the profile file, close Firefox.
-Copy the file to the backup media.

Ta da!

Restoring from a profile backup is also easy (usually). Mozilla advises here.

8. Modify about:config speed settings in one step - Fasterfox extension

All of that sounds like a lot of work and a lot of tinkering. Maybe another extension wouldn’t be so bad after all. Fasterfox tweaks many of the above settings and more. Now that you understand a few of the about:config settings, you can steal from the Fasterfox about:config mods to make more changes. Several possible about:config preference settings from Fasterfox, based on your connection and CPU speed, are listed here.

Firefox 3 configuration tweaks in about:config

Firefox 3 comes with several preferences baked into its options dialogs, but there are still a few you can only access by rolling up your sleeves and digging into its configuration manually. Power users have been diving under Firefox's hood to get their browser to behave just how they like since version 0.9, but Firefox 3 offers some new settings that customize its new features. Let's take a look at our favorite Firefox 3 about:config tweaks for customizing your browser.

What the heck is about:config? Firefox keeps its advanced settings in a giant configuration file in your Firefox directory, and even offers an advanced interface to edit that file in the browser itself. To make these changes, type about:config in Firefox's address bar. You'll get a half-joking, half-serious message about voiding Firefox's warranty if you change any settings. Press the "I'll be careful. I promise!" button (because you will be) and you'll be on your way. Warning: Keep track of what settings you change where in about:config, because one false move can make your browser go loony. You'd do well to back up your Firefox profile first before proceeding.

Got all that? Onto the tweaks.

Set Firefox 3 to use Gmail as your default mailto: link client. When you come across a clickable email address on web page, you don't have to copy the address, switch to Gmail, hit Compose on a new message, and paste it into the To: box. Firefox 3 can now register web applications like Gmail to handle certain link types. This trick isn't exclusively an about:config tweak—it involves some Javascript as well—but in the end you'll be able to click an email link and automatically launch a new Gmail message. Here's how to set Firefox 3 to launch Gmail for mailto links.

See richer image colors by enabling color profiling support. Firefox 3 can support advanced color profiles in digital photos, but ships with the feature turned off by default because it can cause a performance hit. If you've got a fast machine, and view digital photos online that look washed out because they're using a non-sRGB profile, you can set gfx.color_management.enabled equal to true to see richer colors. Here's more on this (somewhat controversial) color management tweak.

Tweak the AwesomeBar's suggestion algorithm. You've been living with Firefox 3's smart location bar (aka "AwesomeBar") for over two months now. Does it make the right suggestions for you? If you want to rank your bookmarks higher than your history—or vice versa—here's how to tweak about:config values to customize the AwesomeBar's suggestions algorithm.

Adjust the Smart Location Bar's number of suggestions. Speaking of the "AwesomeBar," if you wish the suggestion drop-down contained just a few more or less options, in about:config, enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults in the Filter field to set this preference.

Make your bookmarks available to Launchy and Quicksilver. In the upgrade from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3, keyboard launcher maniacs may have noticed that their Firefox bookmarks didn't show up in Launchy or Quicksilver options on search. That's because Firefox 3 stores its bookmarks differently than Firefox 2 did. Here's the configuration setting that will make Firefox 3's bookmarks available to Launchy and Quicksilver.

Increase Firefox 3's popup count. Even though you told Firefox 3 to allow pop-ups from a particular domain (like Google Reader), it maxes out after 25. If you're sick of Firefox limiting your pop-up count to 20, adjust the dom.popup_maximum key about:config value to something higher (like 2000).

Change the URL bar's behavior. When you click on Firefox 3's address bar, the browser automatically selects the entire URL there. If you'd rather your mouse pointer just appear where you clicked, set browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll to false in about:config.

Oldies But Goodies

While you're in about:config anyway, might as well set a couple of our favorite non-Firefox 3 preferences, too.

• Disable binking text. When the blink tag's got you down, you can save yourself from seizure and suppress blinking text forever.
• Enable spell-checking in text fields. Firefox can spell-check as you type, and does by default in text areas, but not one-line text fields. In about:config, set layout.spellcheckDefault value equal to 2 to enable spell-checking in single line input fields as well as text areas.
• Skip the add-on installation delay. When you're installing extensions left and right (and you know what you're doing), you don't want to wait for Firefox's built-in four-second countdown to complete before the Install button gets enabled. Here's how to skip the installation delay for Firefox extensions.