Tips & Tweaks

Mozilla has allowed extension signing not to be enforced on the Nightly and Developer Edition (Aurora) builds for add-on developers. However, it is enabled by default though when you install or update to these builds. To turn off the extension signing follow these steps: In a new tab type: about:config in Firefox’s address bar and hit enter. Confirm you will be careful if a warning message is displayed. Search for xpinstall.signatures.required. Double-click on the preference name so that its value is set to false. Restart the browser to reactivate any disabled extensions The release version of Firefox 41 (September 2015) will still…

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One of the first things I wanted to check out was how Mozilla had worked around Microsoft disabling the default browser API. I downloaded and installed Firefox 40 Beta on the freshly upgraded Windows 10 machine and upon first run I was asked if I wanted to make Firefox my default browser (Chrome was currently default and then I had switched it to Edge later for testing purposes). Firefox detected it was NOT the default browser Once you click the Use Firefox as my default browser button the Windows 10 Settings > System > Default Apps screen opens which is a…

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Adjust Tabs Font Size

If you find the text on the tabs is too small, you can change the size of the font by adding the below lines to your userChrome.css file located in your profile folder: #tabbrowser-tabs { font-size: 20px !important; } Note: You don’t have to use 20px, you can set the value smaller or larger depending on your needs.

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How to block Canvas fingerprinting

“Pale Moon 25.6 ships with anti-fingerprinting option“We talked about a fingerprinting technique using Canvas before and explained how companies make use of the feature supported by all modern web browsers to track users across the Internet.“We also told you how to block Canvas fingerprinting in Firefox and Chrome. … “ Source: gHacks Tech News  Pale Moon 25.6 ships with anti-fingerprinting option

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Recently it has been revealed Windows 10 changes the way users can set the default browser. Furthermore, when users upgrade to Windows 10 Microsoft’s Edge browser becomes the default browser. If you trying to make Firefox your default browser from within Firefox (Tools > Options > General Tab > Make Default) you will get this unfriendly message: Windows 10 does not allow a browser to set itself as default browser. Microsoft has taken away the API functionality of a browser to make itself the default browser in Windows 10. Trying to set the default browser the traditional method give this annoying pop-up which…

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How-To: Change AdBlock Plus Sidebar Shortcut

For some odd reason AdBlock Plus in Firefox choose to use the keyboard CTRL+SHIFT+V to open the sidebar (blockable items). The problem with using this is CTRL+SHIFT+V is the universal keyboard shortcut to Paste as Plain Text of Paste without Formatting. After some searching I found a thread from October 2012 on the Adblock Plus Forums that provided a solution: In a new tab type about:config and press enter If needed click the I’ll be careful, I promise button on the ‘This might void your warranty warning’. In the search box paste extensions.adblockplus.sidebar_key You should see one result as a string with the default value…

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How-To: Disable Pocket

Even though Mozilla is forcing you to accept Pocket as part of your Firefox experience since they integrated into Firefox (which may be a violation of Pocket’s own TOS), doesn’t mean you have to keep it active. If you want to get rid of this feature that you didn’t ask for, didn’t want and don’t plan to use, follow these simple steps: Remove the Pocket icon from the toolbar by right-clicking on the icon and select ‘Remove from Toolbar’ Open a new tab and in the address bar type about:config and press enter (if applicable) click the I’ll be careful,…

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How to disable auto-playing Flash and HTML5 videos

“If I had to rate annoying things that I encounter on the Internet on a scale, auto-playing videos would certainly make it to the top of the list, especially if they are not configured to start muted by default. But even if videos start muted, they are a huge annoyance as they may distract users, suck up bandwidth or waste cpu cycles. …” Source: gHacks Tech News

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Turn Firefox into a Security Information Powerhouse

“The majority of things that happen when you load a website in your browser of choice happen in the background. Unless you have installed security extensions in the browser or software on the system, you may be completely unaware of the connections that are initiated when a page is loaded in the browser.“While you can check that manually using the browser’s developer tools (hit F12 and switch to network for that), it is only displaying information to you while the page is loading.“The Firefox web browser is probably the browser with the best selection of extensions that provide you with…

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How to remove the Dropbox Update plugin from Firefox

“Dropbox users who run Firefox on Windows may want to check the plugins listing of the browser as the browser may have picked up the Dropbox Update plugin automatically after a recent update.“Mozilla, for unknown reasons, never fixed the automatic plugin installation issue in Firefox. While you can block the automatic installation of plugins manually in Firefox, there is no default indicator or permission system in place to protect users.“Firefox checks various locations on the computer automatically for plugins and integrates them automatically.“Programs too may install plugins in Firefox without informing users about that. This is one of the reasons…

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