How do I customize Firefox?

Did you know that Firefox can be customized in many ways even when you don’t use add-ons?

A highly customizable web browser, Firefox can be manually customized and modifying default settings this way is not difficult at all and can be done through a single command. “about:config” command is your free pass to a personalized browsing experience. Here are a few about:config tweaks that help improve your browsing experience.

Note: To see, access, and change default settings, type about:config in the browser’s address bar and then hit Enter. All current settings will be displayed in an alphabetical order. You can narrow down the configuration preferences to only those you need by typing a search item in the Filter bar.

Customize the tab start tab page

By default, whenever you click a new tab Firefox displays thumbnails of nine websites that it feels are most important to you. Firefox, like other web browsers, creates this list by looking at your browsing history.

If you wish, you can customize this list manually. But what if you want a tab start page that is completely different? To achieve this, locate browser.newtab.url, click it twice, and type the address of the website you require.

Open search results in a new tab

If you want to open a new search launched from the Search tool bar in a new tab, search for browser.search.openintab and set it to “true”.

Enable pipelining

Pipelining is best described as multi-threaded surfing. It involves sending of multiple requests simultaneously to a server in place of the default method in which only one request is relayed at a time.

Firefox supports this method, which can help websites load faster in some cases. To enable it, search for network.http.pipelining.ssl, network.http.proxy.pipelining, and network.http.pipelining and set all of them to “true”.

Ease up the load on your RAM when Firefox is minimized

Firefox offers many great features, but being light on memory is hardly its strong point. Even when minimized, Firefox can eat away a good portion of your memory.

If you find other applications running at a snails pace even when you have Firefox minimized, forcing Firefox to transfer some of its load on RAM to the hard drive is an option you should consider. By doing this you can free up some precious memory space and help other applications run faster. To do so, you will need to create a new entry in the about:config databank. Right-click at any part of the list and then click “New”. Next, select “Boolean” and give the new entry name config.trim_on_minimize. Lastly, feed its value as “true”.

In many ways, Firefox manages its settings the same way as Windows registry. Vitally important to the smooth functioning of a Windows computer, registry can every now and then develop issues. These issues, while easy to take care of if you have a good registry cleaner, can cause serious problems when not addressed. That is why we recommend you regularly scan your registry with an advanced registry cleaning tool.