Ubuntu Wiki

This is the place where we collect neat tweaks and customizations for the Firefox browser.

TableOfContents

Speed up Firefox

There are hundreds of tweaks of how to speed up your web surfing in Firefox. However, many depend on the speed of your computer or your bandwidth, and may slow down your browsing experience if your computer or bandwidth is too slow or fast. The ones listed here are independent of such performance.

Type "about:config" in the address bar, and use the filter to search and change the following values:

• "network.dns.disableIPv6": set "false".
• "network.http.pipelining": set "true".
• "network.http.proxy.pipelining": set "true".
• "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests": set "8".
• "content.notify.backoffcount": set "5".
• "plugin.expose_full_path": set "true".
• "ui.submenuDelay": set "0" (zero).

Installing the [http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/ "Fasterfox" Extension] can make most of these changes from a GUI.

For extensive tweaking, refer to [http://www.tweakfactor.com/articles/tweaks/firefoxtweak/1.html the Firefox Tweak Guide].

The QuickSearch function

Instead of navigating to Google or Wikipedia or other search engines before doing your search, you can do this directly from the location bar.

To set this up simply right-click on the textbox on the webpage where you'd normally enter your search and choose 'Add a Keyword for this Search'. This creates a special bookmark. It doesn't really matter what name you give it or where you save it, but give it a memorable keyword; for example for searching Google 'g' is a good keyword.

Now in the location bar type "g Pat Metheny Group" and Firefox will do a Google search for Pat Metheny Group.

Examples:

Google:

Keyword proposal: g

Location: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%s&btnG=Google+Search

Google image search:

Keyword proposal: img

Location: http://images.google.com/images?svnum=10&hl=en&lr=&q=%s&btnG=Search

Wikipedia:

Keyword: wiki

Location http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search?search=%s&go=Go

Please also note that typing one or many words in the location bar, that dont match any of your keywords will do a google "I feel lucky" search for the word(s) you typed.

External player for web embedded media

A lot of people have been getting trouble trying to make a firefox plugin for embedded media to work. Install [https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=446 this] extension, configure it to use your favorite media player and start watching those trailers!

Refer to [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=33107 this] thread for troubleshooting.

The adblock extension

Tired of ads, but don't have the time/knowledge to configure your [https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10 adblock extension] to block all those flashing animations? Now there is an extension that [https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1136 automatically updates your adblock filter].

Ever wanted to download an embedded movie or flash animation, but couldnt find the address in the source code? There is an easier way. Now, whenever there is embedded media, there will be a small "Adblock" tab pointing out from it. Click it, copy the address, click cancel, paste it wherever you want. Done!

Clicking an aim link opens a gaim conversation window

1. In gaim, click Tools->Preferences->Plugins & click the check box next to "Remote Control" (You may need to restart gaim)

2. In Firefox, type about:config in the location bar. Then right click in the list, and select New->String. In the box that pops up, type

network.protocol-handler.app.aim

and click OK.

3. In the second box that pops up, type:

gaim-remote uri %r

Refer to [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=28620 this] thread in the Ubuntu forums.

Better looking form widgets

The default form widgets in Firefox don't look too good in the Linux version. Here is how to make them look a bit neater.

Note: Before doing this, you might want to check the [http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=44110&page=1&pp=10 thread] on this tweak.

1. First of all, back up the directory we are doing to replace. Open a terminal (Applications > System Tools > Terminal).) and type

sudo cp -Rf /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res-backup

1. Download [http://ubuntuforums.org/attachment.php?attachmentid=1455 this] file to your home directory.

2. Extract the file in the correct directory:

cd /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox
sudo tar -xvzf ~/firefox-form-widgets-fixed.tar.gz

1. Optional: Delete the tar archive:

rm ~/firefox-form-widgets-fixed.tar.gz

1. Restart Firefox.

If it doesn't work, or you are unsatisfied with the result, revert to the old forms by doing:

sudo rm -rf /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res
sudo mv /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res-backup /usr/lib/mozilla-firefox/res