Mozilla Tweaks
I find the standard configuration of Mozilla less than ideal. Here's some of the tweaks I always make after installing Mozilla. (Updated for the Mozilla 1.4 release.)
Changes in Preferences dialog
Go to Edit menu and choose Preferences.
In Appearance->Fonts category:
- Switch proportional to Sans Serif.
- Change Serif to Georgia.
- Change Sans Serif to Trebuchet MS
- Change minimum font size to 9
In Appearance->Colors category:
- Change background color to light yellow so it is noticable when not set.
- I do this primarily as a web developer, but I also find a slightly colored background a little easier to read than white.
- Uncheck underline links.
- because it's just better.
In Navigator category:
- Change the Home Page - Change to open blank page all the time
- Change home page location to http://www.worldtimzone.com?
- Toolbar buttons - Check go, and print. Uncheck the rest.
I always use Alt+Home for home and the "real" Bookmarks menu to drag and drop bookmarks.
- Of course, set Mozilla as default browser :-)
In Navigator->History:
- Change history to 15 days
-because 9 feels too short
In Navigator->Internet Search:
- Default Search Engine: Google
- Uncheck open search tab in sidebar
I don't do tabbed browsing. If I did, I'd set open links in background
In Navigator->Downloads:
- Open a progress dialog
(I wish I could open a minimized progress dialog).
In Privacy & Security->Popup Windows:
- Block unrequested popup windows
In Privacy & Security->Forms category:
In Privacy & Security->Paswords category:
In Privacy & Security->Paswords category:
In Advanced->Scripts &Plugins category:
- Uncheck move or resize existing windows.
- Uncheck change status bar text.
- I'm torn on unchecking hide the status bar.
I do additional customization to ChatZilla and Mail if I'm going to use them, but I'll focus on the browser for this paper.
Changes from the menus
- View->Show/Hide - uncheck Component bar
- I never use it
- View->Show/Hide->Site Navigation Bar - check show only as needed
Changes in prefs.js
I guess technically you should change user.js in your profile directory (you may need to create the file if it doesn't exist). You can also do this by typing about:config
in the address bar and then finding the appropriate preference and modifying it.
- browser.blink_allowed - set it to false
Of course leaving it on lets you more quickly recognize the really bad sites. ;-)
- browser.chrome.favicons - set to true
Looks great! This doesn't seem to be working 1.4. Is it?
- dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizeable - set it to true
You can always resize the window! Woot!
- general.smoothScroll - set it to true to enable "smooth scrolling".
- Interestingly, I hated smoth scrolling until I got an LCD screen. Now I find it much easier to read while scrolling.
- slider.snapMultiplier - Set it to 20 or something big.
- This gets rid of the annoying jump back up the page when dragging the scrollbar thumb and drifting too far away from the bar. I wish I could change this in Windows across the board.
Cosmetic enhancements
- Add a better splash screen (drop a mozilla.bmp file in the Mozilla bin directory) or turn it off (add -nosplash to the commandline when starting Mozilla).
- Get more obvious icons for the desktop.
Change to userChrome.css
Since I use bookmarklets all the time, I like them to stand out. Add the following to the userChrome.css file in your profile chrome directory. (You can rename the userChrome-example.css that's in that directory.)
It appears this doesn't work with the new bookmarks in Mozilla 1.4, but may be useful for 1.3 users.
/* Mark the bookmarklets with special icons in the Personal Toolbar */
.bookmark-item[id^="javascript:"] > .toolbarbutton-icon {
list-style-image: url("chrome://communicator/skin/bookmarks/bookmark-item-updated.gif") !important;
}
/* Mark bookmarklets with special icons in the bookmarks menu */
menuitem.bookmark-item[id^="javascript:"] > .menu-iconic-left {
list-style-image: url("chrome://communicator/skin/bookmarks/bookmark-item-updated.gif") !important;
}