How do I reset the Settings and about:config without affecting anything else?
Hello Team,
I have been an avid user of Firefox for as long as I can remember. This however has one major drawback: the accumulation of all the settings and changes over the years! I explain this below.
I have noticed that my browser is not performing as intended, i.e. a lot of browsing especially in pages like Google Maps is very slow, some images and videos are covered by some distorted image, other objects are not loading at all, and the list goes on. Now, I know that most of you will say that this may be because of add-ons. I really wish it was.
I performed the following tests: 1. I created a new profile from about:profiles and loaded it. It was just a bare Firefox with nothing else on it. I was blown away by how everything worked so fast and smoothly. Literally, even Google maps was smoother than it was on Chrome. 2. I started adding my add-ons, etc. Nothing changed, even when they were all added. Everything worked perfectly. 3. I went back to my "broken" Firefox and started changing everything in Settings to match the new profile: especially under Privacy & Security. Still the same issues. 4. Once, on the new Profile, I logged in to sync with my Firefox account so I can pull in my bookmarks, etc. the new profile became "broken" too.
This leaves me with one conclusion. The broken part is deeper in the Firefox settings. Keep in mind that as a long time user of Firefox this is the accumulation of a lot of settings over all these years (including a few changed settings in the about:config page.)
My question now is, how do I reset my about:config changes and anything else related without having to lose my sync? (because if I do and then I re-sync then all those changes come back again.)
Ultimately that is what I think is the solution is: to reset the Settings and about:config settings (and any other related ones) without affecting anything else so that they will be pulled up to the sync server (hence why I need to remain logged into my account) and pushed onto my other Firefox browsers.
Correct me if I am wrong here or if you have any other solutions.
Chosen solution
Do you have enabled "Resist Fingerprinting" if you check this pref on the about:config page?
- privacy.resistFingerprinting => false
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-protection-against-fingerprinting
All Replies (4)
Your mistake was using sync. You can add bookmarks and other data from an old profile. You should definitely backup profiles. As far as Settings and about:config are concerned, tampering with them may not help (as you have discovered) and you are looking for a needle in a haystack.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profiles-where-firefox-stores-user-data https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/back-and-restore-information-firefox-profiles
I would create a new profile (I know it's laborious, I have had to do it twice recently) and avoid sync like the plague.
First of all, thank you all for your answers!!
@donthavecow, unless I have misunderstood what you are trying to say, I think you might have misread my issue. I haven't lost any data, on the contrary, my data is just fine and I am able to restore it with Sync, unfortunately Sync is restoring a bit too much!! :D i.e. it's also restoring some settings that I don't want. :)
@terry21, I have actually considered this, I know it's quite a bit of work, and a tedious one at that, that's why I was hoping to avoid it and I was hoping for a "simpler" solution. Also, I don't really want to avoid Sync, it's actually extremely helpful to me for multiple reasons, e.g. I don't need to do anything else except login to my account and my Firefox is as it was before, whenever I do a format or get a new PC without having to backup my data and, most importantly, I do tend to send tabs from one device to another very often, etc. Actually, when I was doing these tests, I backed up my passwords that I have on FF to a file and when I tried to import them it failed to import around 10-15 of them on one of my computers and on the other it failed all of them. So I don't really want to avoid Sync right now, unless I find something much better. :) Regarding tampering with settings and about:config, that was mostly a few years ago when some features were available only if you enabled them via about:config. It was so long ago I basically forgot which ones they were!! LOL!!
So unless there is another way of performing a reset to the Firefox settings alone I will have to create a new Sync account or something along those lines.
It's actually quite weird to have the "Refresh Firefox" feature log you off your account, when logging on back to your account basically undoes the whole "Refresh" procedure. IMO the "Refresh" feature should not log you off your account at all in the first place!! Or at least give you some options what you want to "Refresh".
Modified by G-Cyborg
Chosen Solution
Do you have enabled "Resist Fingerprinting" if you check this pref on the about:config page?
- privacy.resistFingerprinting => false
- https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-protection-against-fingerprinting
@cor-el, that was genius!!! A few tests that I just did seem to show that that was the culprit all along!!! Thank you so much for that solution. Who knew it would be so simple!!! What do you suggest for fingerprinting protection instead of that? Or you believe that the protection that FF provides even without that is enough?