Saturday - August 09, 2008

Damn You Firefox: haha! I win!!

I just installed the latest (and first I think) update to Firefox. It’s a “security” update. Yeah right. Like every other software update out there, I expected it to retain my settings and preferences. Nope.

It went an changed all my about:config settings, and all the other changes I’ve put in place. So now I’m back to the thing opening with two tabs, one for Welcome To Firefox! and the other my homepage. And I’m back to having the useless Google Search bar. And I’ve lost the extra buttons I put into the menu bar. And I’ve got that damn Most Visited thing back. And it’s reactivated that really @#$%^%&^% annoying Address Bar auto-fill thing again.

So I have to go look it all up again, hunt down all the bits and pieces, and make the changes all over again. Once bitten, twice shy: next time they have an update I’ll make copies of the key setting files first. Rotten bastards.

UPDATE - solutions found

You can get rid of the Google Search bar by going to Tools, then Toolbars, then Customize. A gray box appears with a bunch of icons in it. Reach up to the Google Search thingy with you mouse, and drag it into the gray box and let go. Ta da, it’s gone. You can get rid of the Most Recently Visited button or the Bookmarks Toolbar button the same way. I added the New Tab to the right of my homepage icon just by dragging and dropping.

You can get rid of that extra toolbar line up top by right clicking it. It’s called the Bookmarks Toolbar and you just uncheck the thing. Bye bye.

You can disable the address bar’s highly annoying AutoComplete feature this way:
Go into Windows Explorer and run down the directory tree until you find C: \Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile. In the profile directory create another directory called chrome. Go to the chrome directory. Create a file there named UserChrome.css. Follow the instructions located at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Disabling_autocomplete_-_Firefox, which are to add this text to the file:
/* Remove autocomplete dropdown */
#PopupAutoComplete > .autocomplete-tree { display: none !important; }
.autocomplete-history-dropmarker { display: none !important; }

and then save and close the file. Next follow the instructions for modifying about:config , located at http://kb.mozillazine.org/Talk:Disabling_autocomplete_-_Firefox:

Set all of the following values to 0 (zero) in about:config

* browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
* browser.urlbar.matchBehavior
* places.frecency.unvisitedBookmarkBonus
* places.frecency.bookmarkVisitBonus
* places.frecency.unvisitedTypedBonus

If you haven’t used about: config, you just type about:config in Firefox’s address bar and hit Enter. This brings up a big list of the settings. Scroll down until you find the names listed here, then right click on that item. A little pop-up appears ... select either the Modify or Toggle choices. Set the value to 0, click Ok. When you’re all done just close the tab. It’s self-saving.




By this point you will have opened and closed Firefox a whole mess of times. Are you still seeing the Welcome To Firefox screen as your first tab? Or, if you have done the update, are you still seeing the Update Complete screen as the first tab? If you are, does it bug the piss out of you? You will NOT find a way to disable this in any of the settings. It’s what is called an “in-product” page. Which means the program is programmed to go there. So, find a disgruntled programmer to find a fix. That’s me.

This is how to kill that one forever IF you have done the update. If you haven’t done it yet, read on. it’s a similar solution:

In the (windows XP) directory C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref there is a file called firefox-branding.js . Go there, find the file. Now just to be safe, copy that file to firefox-branding.js.original.txt

Next, edit the firefox-branding.js file (any editor will do. Wordpad works great): comment out the first 2 lines that read

pref("startup.homepage_override_url”,"http://%LOCALE%.www.mozilla.com/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%VERSION%/whatsnew/");
pref("startup.homepage_welcome_url”,"http://%LOCALE%.www.mozilla.com/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%VERSION%/firstrun/");

so that they now read

// pref("startup.homepage_override_url”,"http://%LOCALE%.www.mozilla.com/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%VERSION%/whatsnew/");
// pref("startup.homepage_welcome_url”,"http://%LOCALE%.www.mozilla.com/%LOCALE%/%APP%/%VERSION%/firstrun/");

save the file. Restart Firefox. No more Welcome! or Update Complete! tab. All you should see is your homepage. (this is a BMEWS exclusive tip. I searched; it ain’t out there anywhere. So I figured it out myself. Unless Firefox chose exactly that moment to stop showing these screens? They were in some other file in the pre-update version. I forgot where. Go hunt it down; it’s at or near the top of the file. Look for the en-us string followed shortly thereafter by the \welcome string [in other words, it’s a partial match for the URL that this annoying tab opens]) It could be in a .pref file, it could be in a .js file, it could be in a .ini file. But it’s only in 1 file, so you have to go on a treasure hunt.

Of course, if this blows up, (it shouldn’t) go back and remove the “//” comment symbols from those two lines. Also, if you start getting Java Console errors, you can take out the UserChrome.css lines you put in ... AutoComplete will run in the background, and just won’t show you any results. That’s a little wasteful, but it is a lot less annoying.

*********************

None of these tweaks has caused me a problem so far.

Posted by Drew458     on 08/09/2008 at 03:01 PM   
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