[rc_kas]

I keep meaning to make a guide "how to make firefox not suck" but I never get around to it.

It's a great browser, but I always forget the default settings are super stupid. Myself and power users all have it customized to the hilt.

It takes some serious work to get a new new FireFox install working nicely.

[bxparks]

No kidding. I had to create a Google Doc document to remember all the little things that I have to clobber in Firefox to make it behave reasonably. Here is an excerpt of how I clobber the defaults:

  - Enable pixel-perfect smooth scrolling (Linux): MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 (why do we still have to do this??)
  - Enable: Ctrl-Tab cycles through recent used order
  - Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab"
  - Disable: "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab group"
  - Disable: "Enable Picture-in-Picture video controls"
  - Disable: "Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface"
  - Disable: "Recommend extensions as you browse"
  - Disable: "Recommend features as you browse"
  - Disable: "Enable link previews"
  - Homepage and new windows: Blank page
  - New tabs: Blank page
  - Disable: Web Search
  - Disable: Weather
  - Disable: Shortcuts
  - Disable: Recommended stories
  - Disable: Support Firefox
  - Disable: "Save and autofill payment info"
  - Disable: "Save and autofill addresses"
  - Disable: "Ask to save passwords"
  - Locations: Select "Block new requests asking to access your location"
  - Notification: Select "Block new requests asking to allow notifications"
  - Autoplay: Select "Block Audio and Video"
  - Virtual Reality: Select "Block new requests asking to access your virtual reality devices"
  - Default Search engine: DuckDuckGo
  - Disable "Suggest search engines to use"
  - Disable "Quick actions"
  - Disable "Suggestions from Firefox"
  - Disable: "Title Bar"
  - Default Zoom: 110%, 120%, depending on the laptop

I probably forgot a few things.

And I install the following extensions:

  - uBlock Origin
  - Privacy Badger
  - Facebook Container
  - Firefox Multi-account Container

[em-miyamoto]

Or you could just use user.js and not have to change every setting manually each time you start from scratch.

[LetMeLogin]

Yes, Betterfox all the way in + few custom settings.

I am still in position where I need to put some small pipeline to automatically download latest + merge my stuff and deploy, but even if it's manual every month or two it's not too bad.

[bxparks]

Did not know about 'user.js', thanks! I guess creating a document that lists all my overrides was the first step. Now I have to figure out how to create a user.js that works on Linux, Macos, Windows, and maybe Android?

[nxtbl]

Same file works everywhere. Just leave out the ones that are different on platforms:

- browser.download.dir

- browser.helperApps.neverAsk.saveToDisk

And instead of making a "google doc" a plaintext file would be better.

[addandsubtract]

What does the Facebook container do that can't be done by the Multi-Account Container? I just have a Facebook/Google/AWS/etc. container set up there.

[boredpudding]

It's automatic. So if you open Facebook, or any Meta site, it automatically puts it in it's own container.

Together with Privacy Badger, Meta has no clue what you're doing on the rest of the web.

[addandsubtract]

But MAC does that, too, if you create a "Facebook" container.

[olyjohn]

But I think you have to add every Meta domain into that container manually. The other one sounds like it's got them all already put into their own container. Convenient if you one day decide to set up an account on Instagram but never used it before, and forget to add it to the container.

[Terr_]

For starters, it has a habit of ruining navigation closing the page you were on when you clicked the Facebook-ish link. :p

[lencastre]

multi container is top top, one for email, one for banking, one for shopping, one for socials

[catlikesshrimp]

Is this just a matter of preference or is it something else?

"Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab""

[bxparks]

I guess personal preference?

Image preview is slightly slower and has noticeable latency, compared to the text popup that is almost instantaneous.

And it is more visually distracting. I hate UI features that interfere with my workflow. I hate most UI animations. I turned animations off on my Android phone, and now the thing just flies.

[estimator7292]

At this level you'll probably find more utility in starting your own fork of firefox

[Mxrtxn]

This is why I use nixos so I can easily deploy a configured firefox quickly

[alpaca128]

I just copy-paste the firefox profile folder. No need to reconfigure anything and the session is also preserved.

[bxparks]

How does nixos solve Firefox configuration on MacOS and Windows? :-) I use all 3 OSes daily.

[shawn_w]

The only things I do with a new copy of Firefox is install uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger and it works quite nicely.

(Oh, and an extension that redirects reddit links to old reddit, and RES)

[guimi]

If I'm not mistaken, no need to use Privacy Badger if you're already using uBlock Origin and Firefox Total Cookie Protection. https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1d3so6g/should_i_u...

[ghostwords]

Nah, Privacy Badger is different. PB doesn't use ad blocker lists and comes with its own special features like replacing tweets with click-to-activate placeholders. And if you want to block all ads, PB works well in combination with ad blockers.

As for Firefox’s Total Cookie Protection, cookies are not the only tracking vector: https://privacybadger.org/#Is-Privacy-Badger-compatible-with...

[lencastre]

privacy badger is still alive??

[fsckboy]

i think what keeps it alive is that it shows up on the default "extensions you might especially like" screen inside the "install extensions" menu

[shawn_w]

Um, yes? Last update in December. Did someone prematurely call it dead?

[drnick1]

This. Since Firefox claims to be a privacy-first browser, it should, by default, use the Arkenfox settings (report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting), and include uBlock Origin out of the box.

But it should go even further; the ultimate goal should be for all Firefox users to basically look the same from the point of view of third parties and put an end to tracking in the modern Web.

[esperent]

> report spoofed values for language, screen size, fonts, and many other attributes that aid fingerprinting

How much do these break functionality? If I spoof language, am I going to start seeing websites in German? If I spoof screen size, am I going to get weirdly zoomed websites?

[mook]

If anything, it might unbreak things.

I have my browser set to request, in order, English, a different English, then a non-English language. Some sites (Android docs, Gitlab, F-Droid) will send me the non-English content; Google even preferentially does their AI translation thing instead of the original English.

[Washuu]

Then for some web sites it won't matter and display the dominant language of the country that you're accessing from. My Firefox sends US English as the only preferred language, but a ton of US tech companies default to showing web sites in Japanese without a way to change it because I access them from Japan. It's pretty typical of American companies that don't understand localization and accessibility.

[lstodd]

Most infuriating is when they do it based on GeoIP. So what I'm in Istanbul currently, I know maybe a dozen words in Turkish. But no, and also they insist on having broken language switchers.

[drnick1]

The settings used by Arkenfox broadly mirror that of the Tor browser. If you find Tor usable, then Firefox with this config should be fine.

[dgellow]

A coworker (hi Robert!) created his own version of Firefox that doesn’t suck, with sane defaults and keyboard centric: https://github.com/glide-browser/glide

Pretty impressive project, and it’s really nice to use, I would recommend to give it a try

[Retr0id]

Likewise. The main thing I change is enforcing separate address bar and search box. It takes a lot of configuring to make the address bar stop being "smart" (i.e. never send things I type there to a search engine even if they're not valid URLs), and I can't even remember what options I used to fix it.

[NoPicklez]

Could you mention some of these settings? I moved to Firefox from being a Chrome user and interested to know improvements