List what the 'about:conffig' preferences are used for
Hello, I am a tinkerer and I would like to tweak my Firefox Developer Edition to suit my tastes, but I don't know what each of the preference commands does. Could you provide a list explaining what each command does and, if possible, how to use them? I don't want to reinstall Firefox.italic text I prefer to do things properly. Thanks
All Replies (5)
Hi
There is no full guide as to preferences listed in about:config as they can, and do, regularly change in Firefox updates.
Note that modifying prefs directly in about:config can sometimes break Firefox or cause strange behavior, there is no guarantee that this will keep working in future Firefox releases, so be careful with modifying prefs if you aren't sure you understand their purpose. You should only do this if you know what you're doing.
You can search the Firefox source code to find what a specific pref is used for. Note that you may have to leave out the leading pref branch.
This is an old mozillaZine KB article http://kb.mozillazine.org/About:config_entries that has not been updated since 2017. Many of the Preferences have since been made obsolete or had changes in Value and such.
The problem with trying to keep such a list updated is that many Preferences can be temporary for one version or a version range. There are also hidden preferences and a few are even ones where modifying the value has no effect.
An example of a Preference you cannot modify is the old obsolete front-end preference app.update.channel still listed in about:config as all it does is show what channel you are on. You have to change the channel with channel-prefs.js though installing the Firefox version from the channel you want is easy to do.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/about-config-editor-firefox
Warning: Changing advanced preferences can affect Firefox's stability and security. This is recommended for advanced users only.
Modified by James
You can search the Firefox source code for a specific pref and look at possible comments.
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