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:

In Appearance->Colors category:

In Navigator category:

In Navigator->History:

In Navigator->Internet Search:

I don't do tabbed browsing. If I did, I'd set open links in background

In Navigator->Downloads:

In Privacy & Security->Popup Windows:

In Privacy & Security->Forms category:

In Privacy & Security->Paswords category:

In Privacy & Security->Paswords category:

In Advanced->Scripts &Plugins category:

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

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.

Cosmetic enhancements

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;
}

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