8 ms·

Firefox is nice. But over time there are more and more things I need to configure to get a "good" browser experience. Things I do: - about:preferences#general

• inetknght 7y ago
  Once upon a time, software would go through all of the configuration options and explain what they did. This would always happen on a new installation but good software also had a button to click to repeat the walkthrough. Ode to user-friendly software.
  • reagent_finder 7y ago
    That's not at all true, any and all wizards or configuration dialogues would go over a small subset of settings deemed 'important' by someone. There isn't a single program out there anywhere that has a walkthrough that goes through all configuration options. At least I don't believe one to exist, I would certainly be enthusiastic to be proven wrong! About:config in Firefox has 3930 lines. That would be a very, very, very long walkthrough :) I can see it now, "Okay, to use Firefox, you will now have to click 'next' 4000 times." Thanks.
    • Yoric 7y ago
      I remember installing Linux like that during the (early?) 90s. It took about two days of answering endless questions ("Do you want Klingon fonts?") I much prefer what we get nowadays.
      • reagent_finder 7y ago
        But do you get Klingon fonts?
      • eitland 7y ago
        About 10 years later (sometime in 01-03) I remember installing Red Hat from the CDs in the school library. It was absolutely no problem to get it working for what I needed it for, and with minimal tweaking (I had no clue back then) I got sound working as well. Remember, this was back in the days were on Windows you'd carefully archive any CDs or diskettes that came with your computer to have a chance to reinstall it and Linux just worked (sometimes, it wasn't always that easy back then.)
      • ttctciyf 7y ago
        Sounds like you must have chosen the expert install option (or whatever they called it) in slackware install scripts.. Are you sure there wasn't also an option to just install a typical server or desktop application set, or just install everything? :)
• deogeo 7y ago
  Your first two changes seem to be the default now.
• faitswulff 7y ago
  I haven't needed to do all of these since I set up Sync, which makes me think life might be easier if you just made a Firefox account to sync your settings.
  • thibran 7y ago
    To me Sync and Pocket are extra features (and some others), that should be enabled by user action. Why doesn't Firefox come with a Mozilla Tools section in Settings which allows easily to enable those services + a button to that settings page on the (bottom/top right) new tab page. This way it would be reachable, but at same time, not so intrusive as it is right now. I would even go as fare and say that the dev-tools should be an addon too, and not ship by default (because probably 99% of the users never use it). It should be possible to create a delightful browser experience, which respects user privacy and enables power-users/developers to do more.
    • temac 7y ago
      I believe pocket and especially sync do nothing if you don't use them. This is in absolute contrast with Chrome that ties your whole navigator to your google account if you ever log on gmail...
      • ppseafield 7y ago
        Pocket link recommendations appear on the new tab page on new installs. You can turn them off, but they are there by default. Additionally the Pocket button persists in the address bar, but is also removable. It's indeed minuscule in comparison with what Chrome does.
• soulofmischief 7y ago
  That's funny, Chrome's lack of Ctrl+Tab cycling via most recent is a death blow for me. I love that about Firefox, and love that it's configurable. Otherwise... yeah. It's pretty unusable out the gate.
  • whatever_dude 7y ago
    My new pet theory is that software nowadays is _anti_ power user. In the 90s and 2000s, software came with a bunch of features that most users would want, and also a few small but powerful features that a tiny portion of their users ("power" users) really cared about. Almost every software had "power" features of some kind. A config file, command line arguments, that kind of stuff. Nowadays, popular software like Chrome are all too eager to drop "power" features; to make themselves simpler. This avoids confusing general users, at the cost of alienating "power" users. Dropping Ctrl+tab (heck, making shortcuts support a low priority) is one of such features.
    • floatingatoll 7y ago
      Power users often make it a priority to shut off in-product metrics that would represent their needs statistically. Since ‘power users’ as described are probably 0.01% or less of the world’s population, that’s probably less of a big deal for decision making than it sounds, but it’s always interesting to me to watch a subgroup dedicate itself to not being counted and then complain about the outcomes as if they didn’t contribute to their own workflow’s downturn.
      • soulofmischief 7y ago
        This is a false dichotomy and a strawman. The only two options are not either participating in often misused, grossly overreaching, non-configurable telemetry programs or disabling them completely. And power users are not dedicating themselves to not helping the product getting better. You've gotten the argument twisted. We love to make software better by offering up information about how we use a product. However, in this climate the rational response is to disable all telemetry until the situation is under control with better legislation. Don't paint this with the wrong colors. Power users are not the irrational group here, and this 0.01% figure which you based your argument on isn't grounded in reality, and therefore neither is your argument.
• LukaD 7y ago
  The absolute worst default setting for me is smooth scrolling enabled.
  • ambrop7 7y ago
    See my sibling comment, that should make it much better.
• Jaruzel 7y ago
  The one thing that really annoys me in all major browsers, is that you can't set a 'new tab page' without installing an extension. It's a nuts design.
  • lunchables 7y ago
    Not sure exactly what you mean, but Firefox allows you to specify both new tab and new window behavior, even independently. Firefox Default, Custom page or just blank.
    • Jaruzel 7y ago
      All I have for New Tabs is 'Firefox Home (Default)' and 'Blank Page', it does not allow me to set a Custom URL. Which is why I have an extension installed to do it.
  • grenoire 7y ago
    I'm not too bothered by this, otherwise I would likely set it to HN and waste even more time than I already do.
• StavrosK 7y ago
  On the contrary, the first thing I do is log in to Sync, which is (/claims to be) encrypted so Mozilla can't read your settings/data, and everything Just Works TM. Plus, I get the added benefit of syncing all my passwords and being able to send pages to my phone, though I would quite like it if it were faster (I've had cases where the pages took days to arrive).
  • ajphdiv 7y ago
    Sync can also be self hosted. https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncserver https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncserver
    • stiray 7y ago
      I love firefox but this is one hell of an annoyance I would beat author with a large trump. A hellofablob of dependencies etc. Like it was deliberately build to not self host it (and no I dont want docker). I really really really hate it for almost 10 years. There was a project rewritting it in go but was abandoned and probably the next thing I will develop will be a replacement .
      • mrmuagi 7y ago
        Given it's written in python 2.7, it's due for a rewrite if I understand.
      • paulddraper 7y ago
        > and no I dont want docker Forgive me, but it sounds like you just want to be unhappy about the distribution, because that solves your problem pretty well.
        • stiray 7y ago
          I have freebsd server and jails. Ergo, docker doesnt solve my problem.
      • em-bee 7y ago
• Pimpus 7y ago
  How does this make for a better "browsing experience"? It is just neurotic nitpicking. A good browsing experience means performance, security, minimal popups and minimal tracking. Firefox provides this OOTB now.
  • ubercow13 7y ago
    For example the notifications one improves browsing experience by eliminating spam notification popups from news sites
  • Boxxed 7y ago
    You must be new here... Welcome to HN.
• wfdctrl 7y ago
  You can set these settings using a user.js file, so you don't have to reconfigure everything over and over again.
  • m-p-3 7y ago
    Uh didn't know that, I'll have to redo my `about:config` tweaks in that format.
  • ilikepi 7y ago
    Yep, if you don't want to use Sync, user.js is an alternative. It's also helpful for sharing settings across multiple profiles. (For the latter, I do wish there was support for including other files...) There is a user.js project on github[1] maintained by ghacks.net community members that provides a source of documentation for many settings. It's also useful as a way to monitor new and deprecated settings. [1]: https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js https://github.com/ghacksuserjs/ghacks-user.js
    • CTOSian 7y ago
      thanks for this!! Hope this will solve my main annoyance with Firefox: sometimes I change Linux distro and then I lose all of my firefox settings, ("sync" would be better and keep flags changed by the users, but I don't think that the FF devs bother about it)
• siliconpotato 7y ago
  It's a good thing that you are actually able to tweak these things to your personal tastes.
  • thibran 7y ago
    Yes it is, and I'm thankful that it is possible. There is – and always was – someone who gets paid to distract you from doing what you want to do. This is called advertising and we have seen on the web multiple very aggressive excesses here: pop-ups, auto playing sound/video and nowadays notification spam. What I'm trying to say here is, that you shouldn't need to be a nerd to get a pleasant browsing experience.
    • hombre_fatal 7y ago
      If you limited your post to just the lines that you're talking about in this post, you'd have "install ublock" and "Notification Settings > Block new requests". Not very damning, nor nerdy.
    • kgwxd 7y ago
      But no other major browser is any better in that department, they're all worse.
• mschuetz 7y ago
  > - about:preferences#general > Downloads > always ask where to save I hate the default behaviour so much. What's wrong with asking me where to save the file? I almost certainly have a place in mind where the file should go.
  • m-p-3 7y ago
    I prefer to dump everything in the Downloads folder and move files if they're needed on a longer term.
    • em-bee 7y ago
      a useful default would be to ask for the location the first time something is saved and then provide the option to not ask again but reuse that location.
  • Zarel 7y ago
    I think it's easier to drag-and-drop from the Downloads folder to where I want to save it, than to dig through a Save dialog to find the folder I want to save something in. So it's less work whether or not you want to put your download somewhere long-term.
    • mschuetz 7y ago
      The download folder can still be the default, and all you'd have to do is to press "save" if you're okay with the default.
    • rkagerer 7y ago
      It's a shame they never made a Shift+Click type feature (or something like that) for downloads - like a modifier or menu option that forces the Save As dialog.
  • sandov 7y ago
    I prefer it to get out of my way and just download the file. I'll have time to sort my directories later.
• j1elo 7y ago
  Problem is, all those are preference settings that change with each user's preferences, and at the end of the day they need to default to something, so it only makes sense that they default on what might be most useful for most users. Just as a quick counterexample, in my case: > about:preferences#general > Startup > restore previous session Same. > about:preferences#general > Tabs > uncheck Ctrl+Tab cycle Never have used Ctrl+Tab so no point in disabling it. Never going to push those keys, so the default doesn't bother me at all. > about:preferences#general > Downloads > always ask where to save I do _not_ want having to indicate where to save. That's why I have a Downloads folder; everything downloaded must go to the Downloads folder, no questions asked. I'll delete or organize later. > about:preferences#home > Firefox Home Content > disable all except Top Sites Same for me. > about:preferences#privacy > Permission > Notification Settings > Block new requests Same for me. > about:preferences#privacy > Firefox Data Collection and Use > disable I don't really mind. Depending on the mood, it will be disabled or left enabled upon a new installation. If it helps them develop Firefox, I'm willing to let Mozilla snoop a bit. > Set in about:config extensions.pocket.enabled to false Never used Pocket. Could disable it, but I just hide the icon. Lately I've been thinking that maybe I'm missing on some nice feature that the browser is offering me and I'm ignoring... > Install the addons: uBlock Origin, Gesturefy, Firefox Multi-Account Containers Those are your choice of extensions. Although I coincide with uBlock and the Multi-Account ones. The later, though, is just in a very preliminary development state; it needs much more work IMHO to be even a candidate for integration into the default installation. Right now, it is too minimal (missing convenience features such as exporting the settings and sync with the official Mozilla service) > I remove the home button I want my Home button. I have to explicitly enable it in Chrome, so I could complain about the same thing you do. > I remove the sidebar button I want my sidebar easily accessible, frequently swapping between "Tabs" and "Bookmark Search Plus 2". My sidebar is 99% time open. > I reject every Firefox pop-up that wants me to enable Sync or whatever I want my Mozilla account set up for synchronization of everything it allows (except history). It's a fundamental part of my workflow and it's the first thing I enable after a clean installation. In summary, your preferences are just as valid as mine and any other person's, so I'd understand that they will never find a perfect set of defaults that would satisfy everybody. EDIT: Added separation between paragraphs
• ambrop7 7y ago
  Two more about.config: - gfx.webrender.all = true (important on Linux, fixes jerky scrolling) - general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel.durationMaxMS = 200 (makes mouse scroll animation faster)
• sadness2 7y ago
  I don't do any of those things, and I find the experience nice. These are pretty specific customizations.
• wishinghand 7y ago
  I can’t imagine why this is the top comment. You’re complaining that you have to set the preferences options to your personal preferences which will certainly differ from other users.
• m463 7y ago
  I tried blocking the telemetry but stuff kept coming back with updates. In the end, using Little Snitch (on mac), I ended up blocking firefox communicating with mozilla.org. I update firefox via safari.