Advanced Firefox tips, tricks & tweaks

We have included some fixes for Firefox that we have found very useful. By default, Firefox is dumbed down to accommodate 24 mbs craigsflaggers Warmodems. We do recommend several other compatible & useful Add-ons to go along with our software on this page. The tweaks below have already been implemented when you install any of our software. If you want to test non recommended tricks, and you crash your browser, you can just run the Freeze Firefox tool built into your Desktop Extended Shell Context Menu (shift + right click the desktop). Making the following changes improves your ability to download multiple files, use multiple pages, stream audio, video, tunnel through proxies and more. It’s time to unleash the beast.

Do you have cable modem, or high speed WiFi?

Firefox has always been deliberately throttled back to allow slow speed modems to function optimally. It’s time to unleash the beast that this browser can become. If you have sent more than 2 help requests, this is section is probably not for you, so don’t attempt it. If you have not sent any help requests, don’t start now please 😉 We are going to give you a list of advanced Firefox browser tweaks we added to improve your security and allow you to download, stream, and use proxies to the fullest extent allowed by your high speed modem, and show you how you can add some of your own preferences if you so desire. Very few people have a turbo-charged browser like this, there will be many advantages. Our reason to include these preferences in your installation, is so you can have multiple tabs open and flagging for extra power and less instability in the browser. To add changes of your own, you need to find your Firefox profile folder. This is given a random name when its installed for security purposes. You can install this plugin (Profile folder button) that gives you a shortcut to this folder in your toolbar if you like.

How it’s done :

  • Exit out of the Firefox browser completely, because if you don’t close the browser, it’ll overwrite the settings to default.
  • Find your prefs.js file (usually in C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\ directory in windows 7,8 & 10).
  • Backup your prefs.js file.
  • Copy and paste the preferences listed below at the BOTTOM of the file.
  • Save the prefs.js file and restart your browser .

Finding The Profile Folder :

The profile folder is where Firefox saves all your settings and refers to a location on your hard drive.

C:\Users\[USERNAME]\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\

Firefox is capable of handling more than one user and thus, more than one profile. The path examples above refers to the default profile that is automatically created when you start Firefox for the first time. To make changes to your Firefox preferences:

Find your prefs.js

When you open your profile folder, you will find a small file called prefs.js .

  • Copy your prefs.js file, and paste it back into the same directory/folder so you have a back up.
  • Open your prefs.js file in notepad or any other plain text editor.
  • Copy and paste the preferences you wish to add
  • Save the prefs.js file and restart your browser .

These are just a few of the preferences we already added to your Firefox configuration and their descriptions:

// Performance
// This will allow Firefox to maintain it GUI memory so that the browser window
user_pref(“config.trim_on_minimize”, false);

// Specify the amount of memory cache:
// -1 = determine dynamically (default), 0 = none, n = memory capacity in kilobytes
// If you have the memory to spare, enabling this will run things a little smoother
user_pref(“browser.cache.memory.capacity”, 65536); //<– thus equal about 64 megs, drop down to less if you can’t spare the RAM

// Remove painting delay when loading pages
user_pref(“nglayout.initialpaint.delay”, 0); // Default is 250

user_pref(“content.notify.ontimer”, true); // Turn on timer-based reflow management

user_pref(“content.notify.interval”, 100); // Sets the allowed time between reflows in microseconds

// Set the number of reflows to do before waiting for the rest of the page to arrive
user_pref(“content.notify.backoffcount”, 200);

// Other Tweaks
user_pref(“content.max.tokenizing.time”, 3000000);
user_pref(“content.maxtextrun”, 8191);

// Enable Improve pipelining:
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.proxy.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining.firstrequest”, true); // Default is false
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”, 8); // Default is 4

// Increase Multi-Threaded Downloading performance
user_pref(“network.http.max-connections”, 96); // Default is 24 <– Use this for modems
user_pref(“network.http.max-connections-per-server”, 32); // Default is 8 <– Use this for modems
user_pref(“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy”, 24); // Default is 4 <– Use this for modems
user_pref(“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server”, 12); // Default is 2 <– Use this for modems

// Other Tweaks
user_pref(“network.dnsCacheExpiration”, 86400);
user_pref(“network.dnsCacheEntries”, 256);
user_pref(“network.ftp.idleConnectionTimeout”, 60);
user_pref(“network.http.keep-alive.timeout”, 30);

user_pref(“ui.submenuDelay”, 0);

user_pref(“dom.disable_window_status_change”, true);

// Shows an error page instead of an error popup dialog, have been using this for a long time now
// found this useful if you load multiple pages at the same the dialog box actually holds up the browser
// using this will allow the other pages/elements to load for the rest of the pages
user_pref(“browser.xul.error_pages.enabled”, true);

// Searching & Type Ahead
// Change to normal Google search:
user_pref(“keyword.URL”, “http://google.com/search?btnG=Google+Search&q=”);

// Find As You Type Configuration:
// Set this pref to false to disable Find As You Type:
user_pref(“accessibility.typeaheadfind”, true);

// If you set this pref to true, typing can automatically start Find As You Type.
// If false (default), you must hit / (find text) or ‘ (find links) before your search.
user_pref(“accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart”, true);

// Set this pref to false if you want Find As You Type to search normal text too:
user_pref(“accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly”, false);

// Set this pref to true if you require that the link starts with the entered text:
user_pref(“accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly”, false);

// This is the time in milliseconds for the Find As You Type to stop watching for keystrokes:
user_pref(“accessibility.typeaheadfind.timeout”, 3000);

// Do not Reuse Active Mozilla Browser, create a new one for email links etc.
user_pref(“advanced.system.supportDDEExec”, false);

// Disable Smooth Scrolling (found it faster to have this off)
user_pref(“general.smoothScroll”, false);

// Allows for faster mouse scrolling
user_pref(“mousewheel.withnokey.numlines”, 6); // Adjust this accordingly – Default = 1
user_pref(“mousewheel.withnokey.sysnumlines”, false); // This must be set to false in order to read previous line

user_pref(“extensions.disabledObsolete”, true);

user_pref(“browser.display.show_image_placeholders”, true);

// 1.0 Preview disables dynamic theme switching, this re-enables dynamic theme switching.
user_pref(“extensions.dss.enabled”, true);

// Mail & News
user_pref(“mailnews.start_page.enabled”, false);

// always send messages in MIME format (both plain- and HTML-formatted)
user_pref(“mail.default_html_action”, 3);

// The follow two are disabled for security reasons
user_pref(“mailnews.message_display.allow.plugins”, false);
user_pref(“javascript.allow.mailnews”),

user_pref(“alerts.totalOpenTime”, 7000);

// Disable this for performance and security issues when reading emails
// Security issues? Yes especially with zlib, jpeg, png and all kinds of new attacks coming out,
// displaying images inline can no longer be taken for granted. This only affects attached graphics.
user_pref(“mail.inline_attachments”, false);

user_pref(“mailnews.show_send_progress”, false);

// Security
// Just to make sure, disable windows shell: protocol
user_pref(“network.protocol-handler.external.shell”, false);

// Show full path for plugin file on about:plugins page
// the full path was removed for security purposes, please keep that in mind
// Note: showing full paths can be a security risk only use when debugging.
user_pref(“plugin.expose_full_path”, false);

user_pref(“nglayout.initialpaint.delay”, 100);
user_pref(“content.notify.ontimer”, true);
user_pref(“content.notify.interval”, 100000);
user_pref(“content.notify.backoffcount”, 5);
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.proxy.pipelining”, true);
user_pref(“network.http.pipelining.maxrequests”, 8);
user_pref(“network.http.max-connections”, 32);
user_pref(“network.http.max-connections-per-server”, 8);
user_pref(“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy”, 4);
user_pref(“network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server”, 2);

At this time, any other modifications to Firefox are unnecessary. This procedure is just for fun, and without customer support. We have written these instructions so you will be able to do this on your own, and revert to your backed up copy if required. Please don’t trouble our staff if you don’t have the required experience to navigate to the path described, back up the .js file, locate tweaks online and apply them. Ensure you are using prefs for this version of firefox.

Here is a tool to automate this process for you if you like, Mozilla Optimizer. The original source is here: http://www.softpedia.com/get/Tweak/Browser…Optimizer.shtml  All Firefox optimizations can be applied manually, this tool simply automates this procedure.

If you mangle your Firefox configuration, no big deal, you can just locate the Freeze Firefox setting in the aforementioned Extended Desktop Context menu as described in the configuration tab of the instructions for your application, and reset it. These operations do not disturb our software at all. Over the years we have continuously researched and added helpful tweaks, as of this writing in 2026, we have added 104 tweaks to your default configuration to enhance every aspect of your Craigslist experience!