Posted by Mitch on Mar 23, 2010 under Firefox Tips |
Sometimes, Firefox won’t start after an upgrade to the latest version (3.6 at the time of this writing). Here’s what fixed it.
1. Launch Firefox with extensions off. In Windows, you can do this by going to Start > Run and typing firefox -extoff and clicking OK.
2. Click Tools > Add-ons.
3. Disable some of the addons. You will want to disable a few at a time to determine which one is causing the issue.
Once you have disabled the offending Add-on, Firefox should start up fine and you should be able to enjoy the upgrade.
Posted by Mitch on Dec 11, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
If you want to be able to select text with the keyboard, or just need a visual for selecting text with the mouse in Firefox for Windows, you can enable Caret Browsing. Simply press the F7 key on your keyboard. Click Yes on the prompt that appears.
To disable Caret Browsing, simply press F7 again. A prompt will not appear when you disable it.
Where can you set your default web browser in Windows XP?
You can set Google Chrome, IE, Firefox, Opera, or whatever browser you like to be the default all in one location:
1. Open the Control Panel.
2. Open Add/Remove Programs.
3. Click Set Program Access and Defaults on the left pane.
4. Open the Custom area.
5. Select the bullet for the browser you wish to be the default.
6. Click OK.
Posted by Mitch on Jun 04, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
Don’t like the selection of search engines that Firefox provides? You’d prefer Dogpile instead? Here’s how to add Dogpile to the list of search engines in the Firefox bar.
1. Visit Dogpile.com
2. Click on the arrow next to the logo of the already selected search engine provider. Add “Dogpile.com” will be an option.
Posted by Mitch on May 26, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
When you type an address in the address bar of Firefox, it comes up with a list of sites you’ve previously visited. You may want to clear this list. However, finding out how to do this proved very difficult for me.
Going to Tools > Clear Private Data and selecting Browsing History doesn’t do it. Typing about:config in the address bar and changing the setting for browser.urlbar.maxRichResult to 0 worked fine. But this doesn’t really clear it. It just makes the suggestions go back 0 days. If you decide to later change this setting again, it will still display the same items that were in there before.
I resorted to a tip regarding deleting the places.sqlite file from my Firefox profile folder at C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\ Mozilla\Firefox\Profile\profile folder
This step actually deleted the address bar history data. Still items showed up when I typed a URL. I found out they were sites that were located in my bookmarks section. But I didn’t bookmark any of these! How’d they get there? Well, my StumbleUpon plug-in was saving items to my Bookmarks automatically. There are a variety of applications that automatically bookmark items as well. You may need to look into this possibility on your own system.
Deleting the bookmarks finally closed the case on this problem. So bottom line you only need to do two things to clear up this issue:
- Delete the places.squite file.
- Clear unwanted Bookmarks.
If you don’t care to have the address bar history feature at all, you can just set browser.urlbar.maxRichResult to 0 using the instructions above.
Posted by Mitch on May 22, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
You can enable or disable the referrer from being reported to web sites that you visit with this Firefox tweak.
1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Find the entry that says Network.http.sendRefererHeader and double-click on it.
3. Set the entry to one of the following:
- 0 – Disable referrer.
- 1 – Send the Referer header when clicking on a link, and set document.referrer for the following page.
- 2 – Send the Referer header when clicking on a link or loading an image.
See also: Network.http.sendRefererHeader
Posted by Mitch on Apr 23, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
You can set Firefox to reduce the amount of RAM or memory it uses while it is minimized with this tweak.
1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Right-click any area in the window and click New > Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize and press Enter.
4. Select True and press Enter.
Posted by Mitch on Apr 13, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
Today I clicked on a link at Google, suddenly a screen appeared that tried to trick me. It was a screen that appeared to run a scan on my computer and turned up hundreds of spyware applications and viruses. Another screen then appeared that said:
Warning!! Your computer contains various signs of viruses and malware programs presence. Your system requires immediate anti viruses check!System Security will perform a quick and free scanning of your PC for viruses and malicious programs.
Of course this was just spyware trying to find its way onto my computer. I quickly tried to close out of this, and it just kept reappearing. My only resort was to CTRL + ALT + DEL and kill the Firefox process. I thought I was in the clear, but when I tried to go back into Firefox, the evil message above appeared again.
This was because I had Firefox set to Show my windows and tabs open from last time. So it kept opening the same web site over and over again.
To get past this, I had to perform the following steps:
1. Start Firefox in Safe Mode. Click Start > Run and type firefox -safe-mode.
2. Click Continue in Safe Mode.
3. Go to Tools > Options…
4. Under the General tab, set When Firefox starts to Show a blank page.
5. Click OK.
6. Close Firefox and then start it back up normally. Now you should be able to continue your web browsing life.
Posted by Mitch on Feb 20, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
Disable or enable the dialog box that appears when you print a page in Firefox.
1. Type about:config in the address bar.
2. Locate the entry for print.show_print_progress.
3. Double-click the entry to toggle the setting between true or false.
true = Box will show when printing.
false = Box will not show when printing.
Posted by Mitch on Feb 19, 2009 under Firefox Tips |
Firefox may display image-not-found instead of the text in the ALT text of the image. I like to be able to see what image was supposed to appear, so I enable this feature.
1. Type about:config in the address bar.
2. Locate the entry for browser.display.force_inline_alttext.
3. Double-click the entry to toggle the setting between true and false.
true = ALT text will display.
false = image-not-found will display.
Posted by Mitch on Nov 15, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
When trying to print in Firefox, you get the following error:
Printing failed when starting the document
However, when you use other applications, it prints just fine.
To try to solve this issue, try the following steps:
1. Type about:config in the address bar.
2. Locate the entry for print.print_printer.
3. Right-click this entry and select Reset.
4. Close all Firefox windows, then reopen it. Hopefully you are able to print OK now.
Posted by Mitch on Oct 12, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
Disable the countdown during Add-on/Plug-in installation in Firefox 3.
1. In the address bar, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Locate and double-click the entry for security.dialog_enable_delay
3. Double-click on it to set it to 0.
Alternately, you can change this setting to a value to make the countdown shorter or longer. Entering 2000 will set it to countdown for 2 seconds before the plug-in will install, 3000 = 3 seconds, 1000 = 1 seconds and so on.
Posted by Mitch on Jul 22, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
For a month now, I have been dealing with this AVG Safe Search 8.0 listing that appears in my Firefox 3 Extensions list. I can’t uninstall it because the button is grayed out. I am able to disable it, but it’s still annoying. I want it completely gone.
I searched high and low for how to get rid of it. I searched my Extensions and Plug-in folders, looking to delete this annoyance and couldn’t find anything. So I gave up my search for a while.
This listing was still bothering me though. I just hate software that crawls its way into every crevice of your system and leaves you no way out.
I launched REGEDIT and found a listing in the Registry at:
KEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions
It was labeled:
{3f963a5b-e555-4543-90e2-c3908898db71}
C:\Program Files\AVG\AVG8\Firefox
After deleting this registry key. The AVG Safe Search plug-in was then removed from Firefox 3.
See also: Adding Extensions using the Windows Registry
Posted by Mitch on Jun 29, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
The back and forward buttons in Firefox 3 are oversized. If you don’t like this, you can change it with the following steps.
1. Right-click the Home button in the toolbar.
2. Click Customize.
3. Check the box for Use Small Icons.
4. Click Done.
Posted by Mitch on Jun 29, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
The new address or URL bar in Firefox 3 is a little too cluttered for me. I liked when it just had the URL’s up there instead of the titles. There is no setting in Firefox 3 that enables the ‘classic’ behavior, but there is a plugin that does it.
Check out oldbar. It will make Firefox 3′s URL bar display only URL’s instead of all the other junk.
Posted by Mitch on Jun 28, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
Many Firefox 3 for Windows users are complaining that when they scroll on web pages it can be very slow and choppy. There is a way to fix this problem though.
1. Close Firefox 3 and navigate to the chrome folder. The location may vary. Mine was located at:
C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\randomvalue\chrome
2. Right click the file userContent-example.css and select Rename.
3. Take out the -example to give the file a name of userContent.css.
4. Open userContent.css in Notepad.
5. Copy and paste the following code at the end of the file:
/* Smooth Scrolling: Disable Fixed Background Images */
body {
background-attachment: scroll !important;
}
6. Save and close Notepad.
Now give Firefox 3 a shot. Hopefully the scrolling is quicker and smoother.
Source: Fix Firefox 3 Choppy Scrolling Via UserContent.css
Posted by Mitch on Jun 25, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
After installing Firefox 3 along with my StumbleUpon toolbar, I started getting these annoying toolbar tips that kept appearing. I discovered a way to disable them though.
1. In the address bar, type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Locate and double-click the entry for browser.chrome.toolbar_tips
3. Double-click on it to set it to false.
Posted by Mitch on Jun 01, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
How to disable the AVG Safe Search feature that checks links in Firefox. The feature shows up next to links when performing searches in Google.
1. In Firefox, click Tools > Add-ons.
2. Click Disable in the AVG Safe Search Add-on.
3. Close the window. When you restart Firefox the next time, the AVG Safe Search option will now be disabled.
Posted by Mitch on Apr 28, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
When I installed Firefox 3, the Back and Forward buttons disappeared from the toolbar. Here’s how to bring them back.
This tutorial will work with Firefox 2 also.
1. Right-click on the Home or Refresh button.
2. Click Customize…
3. Drag the Back button to the area of the toolbar you want it. Do the same with the Forward button.
4. Click Done.
Posted by Mitch on Apr 21, 2008 under Firefox Tips |
In Firefox, there is a setting that can allow or disallow scripts from opening your browser window.
1. Type about:config in the address bar and press Enter.
2. Find the setting dom.allow_scripts_to_close_windows.
3. Double-click on the setting to set it to true to enable scripts to close the browser window via close(). Set it to false to prevent scripts from closing windows via close().
Note: This setting is available in Firefox 3 and Firefox 2.
Subscribe