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knowledge

By Jack Wallen

If you really want to fine-tune your Firefox functionality, you have to roll up your sleeves and tinker with the about:config page. Jack Wallen shares some simple hacks to make Firefox work the way you want.

Unless you’re a Firefox power user, you may not be familiar with the about:config page. The Firefox about:config page is not so much a page as it is a somewhat hidden configuration section. It’s hidden because it’s fairly powerful and not nearly as simple to use as the standard Preferences window. In the about:config page, you have to know what you are doing or you can mess things up a bit. In fact, when you attempt to go to that page for the first time, you have to accept an agreement (which is really just a warning) before you can continue.

How this page works is simple. You reach the page by entering about:config in the address bar. There are entries (one per line) that handle various types of configurations. Each entry has a searchable keyword. The entries can be of Boolean, integer, or string value. Entries contain Name, Status, Type, and Value. Typically, you will be modifying only the Value, by double-clicking on it and making the change. With all of that in mind, let’s take a look at 10 of the best ways you can “hack” the about:config page.

Note: This article is also available as a PDF download.

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wow_screenWOW! My search got hijacked by WOWWay! when I switched my cable internet service to WOW. My default search results page has always been Google; however, after my WOW! installation, I noticed that whenever I did a keyword search using the Location toolbar, my results page would be an ugly WOWWay-branded search results page rather than Google.

This was terribly invasive and annoying for me, so I took some time to research how to set Firefox back to Google keyword search results page. This is how I did it:

  1. In the Location toolbar, enter about:config
  2. When prompted, select “I Promise”
  3. Look for Preference name: keyword.URL
  4. Right-click whatever the current value is in the value column and select “Modify”
  5. Enter this new value:

    http://www.google.com/search?ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=

Sources:

http://ketanravalnurture.blogspot.com/2009/02/how-change-default-search-engine.html

Keyword.URL – MozillaZine Knowledge Base.

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