about:config

In the old days, in order to hack some of the Firefox (and Netscape) settings, you had to edit your prefs.js or user.js file. Today, Mozilla has provided a real nice user interface for these settings. Just enter about:config in your address bar, and you'll see the complete list of settings. You'll also see settings managed by any extensions that you have installed. To change a setting, just double click it.

Here are a couple of web pages that explain some of the customizable settings:

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips

http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html

These are just some of the settings that I have customized:

browser.throbber.url

When you click the throbber (the little round activity indicator in the upper right corner of your browser window), it directs you to the default Firefox Start Page. You can change that URL to any page here. It's kind of like having a 2nd home page button.

dom.max_script_run_time

Have you ever seen this message:

"A script on this page may be busy, or it may have stopped responding. You can stop the script now, or you can continue to see if the script will complete."

By default, scripts that run within Firefox must finish within 5 seconds or you'll see the above message. You can change the default run time. I have mine set to '40'.

keyword.URL

When you enter a search term in the address field and press Enter, Firefox does a Google "I'm Feeling Lucky" search. You can change that to anything you want. Any words you enter in the location window are simply appended to the URL that you provide, and then Firefox takes you there. Knowing this, you can come up with some creative uses. Here are some good examples:

http://www.google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=

This is the default setting. Enter any words and you get the Google "I"m feeling lucky" search.

http://www.snc.edu/

Enter any top-level folder name from the St. Norbert College web site (i.e. "mission" or "dining"), and Firefox will send you to that web page. This is what I have set in my browser.

http://www.google.com/search?q=

Enter anything (i.e. "college tuition"), and Firefox will send you to a standard Google search.

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/

Now enter any word (i.e. "college"), and Firefox will look it up in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

http://maps.google.com/maps?&q=

Now enter any street address (i.e. "100 Grant St, 54115"), and Firefox will look it up in Google Maps.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/football/nfl/teams/

Now enter the name of any NFL team (i.e. "Packers"), and Firefox will take you to that team's page from SI.