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Many of these sites suggest making edits via “about:config”. The problem is it’s difficult to keep track of which settings you’ve altered. I highly recommend you use a user.js [1] file. The best part is you can make notes so later you knows why a setting was enabled or disabled.

The only downside is if you decide to undo a setting in user.js you’ll also have to make the same change in about:config.

[1] http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file



Firefox's about:support page lists the about:config prefs that have non-default values ("Important Modified Preferences"). That includes prefs you've changed and internal prefs changed by Firefox code.


Unfortunately the info provided by about:support doesn’t separate changes made via the gui and changes made via about:config. It also includes settings that may have been altered by Add-ons.

Another benefit to using a user.js file is that your changes are persistent. If Mozilla changes a setting via an upgrade, like they did with experiments and plan to do with DoH, your changes aren’t overridden.


They are saved under the user profile directory in the `prefs.js` file. src[0] I have it symlinked to `~/.config/firefox/pref.js` (which also contains `chrome/userChrome.css`, also symlinked to from the firefox profile) in this way they get checked into git with the rest of my dotfiles.

[0] https://support.mozilla.org/si/questions/965842


Another issue is that most of such modifications also suggest editing the allowed ciphers, which makes it easier for servers to track you.




good call. looks more actively maintained.


The maintainers and pull requesters are very persnickety too, so they usually are ahead of Mozilla's future releases.


Modified about:config settings appear in bold, though. It's good for a quick glance, but yeah not much after that.


and I remember one time being able to reorder the list so it shows all the modified items at the top


Sorting by the "Status" column still does this.


As long as `chrome://global/content/config.xul` still exists, you can use it. I certainly do, since the new interface is horrible and Mozilla constantly dismisses the obvious usability issues.


Thanks for this, I use it and userChrome for some add-on alterations, but it didn't occur to me I could use it for 'manual' about:config changes.

> The only downside is if you decide to undo a setting in user.js you’ll also have to make the same change in about:config.

You could change it to the inverse/default explicitly in user.js?




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