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My Tips & Notes for Mozilla Firefox

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As a regular Mozilla Firefox user, I'm going to share a few tips and personal reminders about this web browser in this article.

Extensions

A list of extensions I find interesting.

  • uBlock Origin: Quite simply, the best ad blocker in town.
  • Livemarks: Mozilla had the bad idea (they're not always inspired) of abandoning RSS support. This plugin makes up for that ignominy.
  • I still don't care about cookies: Suppresses cookie warnings in compliance with EU regulations. Please note this plugin only blocks or hides cookie-related pop-ups, not deletes them.
  • NoScript: Enhance security by disabling the execution of JavaScript and other executable content. It is still possible to authorize the execution of content from trusted websites. Extension for advanced users only.
  • stip: Simply the best of them all 🤭! Allows you to display your v4 and v6 public ip address(es).
  • Textarea Cache: Save content in textarea. User can recover the saved texts in the cache panel, even the tab or the window is closed unexpectedly.

Folders

Windows

  • Profile directory, useful when migrating to a new computer:
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
  • Profile configuration file:
C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini

Linux

  • Profile directory, useful when migrating to a new computer:
/home/<user>/.mozilla/firefox/<profiles>
  • Profile configuration file:
/home/<user>/.mozilla/firefox/profiles.ini

Temporary Profile

For testing purposes, it may be useful to launch Firefox with a temporary profile.

Windows

  • Create a firefox.bat file, and run it to launch Firefox with a temporary profile:
@echo off rmdir /q /s "c:\Windows\Temp\fx" "c:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" -profile "c:\Windows\Temp\fx"

Linux

  • Run this command line from a terminal:
user@host:~$ read -p "New profile? [y/N]" new; if [ "$new" == "y" ]; then rm -r /tmp/firefox/; mkdir /tmp/firefox/; fi; firefox --profile /tmp/firefox/

Advanced Configuration

This section is dedicated to the options found in the browser's about:config menu.

  • browser.urlbar.switchTabs.searchAllContainers: set false to disable Tab Switching Across Containers. This means Firefox won't automatically open a tab that's already active when you type an open url into the address bar.
  • media.play-stand-alone: set false to disable . Prevents Firefox from reading media from the browser. Will propose a download instead.

Keyboard Shortcuts

  • F11: Full screen
  • F12: Open/Close the built in Firefox Developer Tools
  • Ctrl+h: Open/Close History side bar
  • Ctrl+f: Search current page
  • Ctrl+k: Move cursor to search bar
  • Ctrl+l: Move cursor to url bar
  • Ctrl+t: Open a new tab
  • Ctrl+T: Restore last closed tab
  • Ctrl++: Zoom In
  • Ctrl+-: Zoom Out
  • Ctrl+0: Actual size
  • Ctrl+Shift+p: New private window
  • Ctrl+Alt+r: Enable/Disable Toggle reader view (Linux)
  • F9: Enable/Disable Toggle reader view (Windows)