I love Firefox. I’m a Firefox user, and hopefully always will be. Firefox is better than any other browser (plus it’s free and open-source). However, there have been a few technical things that I don’t like.

• Endless promotion of Mozilla VPN
• Firefox DNS over HTTPS silently fails
• Compact Toolbar Density not supported

Queue track: LCD Soundsystem – New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down

But, since Firefox can be customized, you can change these settings to what you like.

Mozilla VPN – Please stop bothering me

Since Firefox 93, Mozilla VPN promotions won’t go away. I understand Mozilla needs to make money. But I don’t want to constantly see this ad. I get it, you offer a VPN service. Unfortunately, there isn’t an easy way to hide the ads for their VPN. There isn’t even a documented way for the “user.js” settings, however I figured out a way to hide them when opening a new “Private” browsing window. This works in Firefox 94 to current (Firefox 96), and hopefully keeps working!

Update the Firefox user.js settings to fix this:

// FF94
user_pref("browser.privatebrowsing.vpnpromourl", "");

Before and after:

Firefox DNS over HTTPS silently fails open

Firefox has a built-in option for DNS over HTTPS (DOH). It’s great that you can set this up and add another layer of security from prying eyes. This actually isn’t a new thing, it has been around since Firefox 62.

However, I recently found out that it fails open by default with no warning.

What does this mean?
If the DNS over HTTPS server you pick stops working, Firefox silently fails to use DNS over HTTPS and uses your system’s default DNS settings instead. And there is no warning when this happens.

They say, a false sense of security is worse than no security at all. You thought you were more secure with DNS over HTTPS.

Read more about the option from:
Connection settings in Firefox
Firefox about DNS-over-HTTPS

And also read the Trusted Recursive Resolver wiki page carefully about the different options.

You can fix this by changing the setting for “network.trr.mode” to 3, which will force Firefox to only use the resolver you specify for DOH and if it fails, then Firefox won’t use the system’s DNS.

In the Firefox user.js settings file add:

//trr.mode 5 is no DOH. 2 is enable DOH. 3 is no failback to system dns
user_pref("network.trr.mode", 3);
user_pref("network.trr.default_provider_uri", "https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query");
user_pref("network.trr.uri", "https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query");
user_pref("network.trr.custom_uri", "https://dns.quad9.net/dns-query");
user_pref("network.trr.bootstrapAddress", "9.9.9.9");

The above also sets the DOH resolver to Quad9.

Also note:
When you change the setting (URL or Disable/Enable) in the Firefox Settings, it will reset “network.trr.mode” to 2 so you need to change this again!

Compact Toolbar Density option missing

I like the “Compact” Toolbar Density option because I don’t want a huge waste of space at the top of my Firefox window. I want to be able to optimize for these wide monitors we have, so vertical space is at a premium! Since Firefox 89 this has been hidden behind a configuration setting.

With this setting in the user.js you now have the Compact option again in Firefox:

// FF89
// Compact mode workaround in Firefox
// https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compact-mode-workaround-firefox
user_pref("browser.compactmode.show", true); // [DEFAULT: false]

Conclusion

Firefox is my browser of choice, and it is free and open-source. Its ability for customization means you can change it to your liking too. So these technical issues will (hopefully) always have a work-around.

The post Firefox, I love you but you’re bringing me down appeared first on Ryan Daniels.

Firefox is a fast and customizable web browser. And with the latest version called Firefox Quantum (version 57), it is faster than ever! It is great to load websites fast, but there’s another amazing feature. Changing the Firefox privacy settings to be more effective at making user tracking more difficult.

You are hopefully already using a content blocking add-on like uBlock Origin, to help eliminate things you don’t want to see (like maybe one or two ads), and also for your online safety. Customizing Firefox privacy settings is the next step.

To do this, normally you open a new tab, and type in “about:config”. Then you get tons of different settings to modify.

You can end up changing a lot of settings, all manually. But it can be easier, if you know how to save all your settings into a configuration file. And this works cross-platform (on Windows, Mac, Linux) as well.

The Problem

Nobody wants to manually type all these changes into Firefox. Especially in multiple places, like in your Firefox browser on your home computer, and your Firefox browser on your work computer.

What settings to change?

I keep mentioning changing settings, but what settings should you change? That’s a very good question. I’ll group the changes into two categories: Privacy and Usability. If you already know what you are doing, jump ahead to making the changes. If not, read on.

Firefox Privacy related changes

For some insights into what to change to be more secure, I recommend starting with privacytools.io. They have a helpful section for Firefox privacy settings. The entire website is good actually.
Another good resource is Firefox Profilemaker.
Keep in mind you should test after making a change, since websites can stop working!

The list of changes that I use is available on GitHub.

However, some changes might not work on the websites you use. So again, be sure to test. And take some time to understand what you are changing.

Firefox Usability changes

These changes are mainly to improve Firefox with my own personal preferences.

The biggest change for me was the tab sizes. I keep many tabs open (yes, probably way too many). And with Firefox 57, I find the tab width gets too small with many tabs open.

/* Fix tab width too small */
user_pref("browser.tabs.tabMinWidth", 100);

/* Change homepage */
user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "https://startpage.com/");

/* Increase disk write timer to prevent SSD from dying
 * Source: https://www.servethehome.com/firefox-is-eating-your-ssd-here-is-how-to-fix-it/
 */
user_pref("browser.sessionstore.interval", 120000);

/* Turn off Smooth Scroll */
user_pref("general.smoothScroll", false);

/* Turn off warning on about:config */
user_pref("general.warnOnAboutConfig", false);

/* disable onboarding junk */
user_pref("browser.onboarding.enabled", false);

How to automatically change Firefox settings

Here are the steps to make all the configuration changes in Firefox. And without having to use “about:config”. Put all desired changes into a configuration file and then Firefox reads from this file when it starts.

Here are the steps:

1. Put all of your configuration changes into a file named: user.js
2. Open your profile directory, which you can find in “about:support” or “about:profiles”
3. Save this file into your profile directory
4. Restart Firefox. This overrides the previous settings with the user.js file when Firefox starts
5. Optional: Rename user.js file to something like user-unused.js

Renaming user.js  will make sure not to override the settings again, in case you do make the changes in “about:config”. However, it could be good to keep this file in place in case Mozilla gets any ideas about changing your default search engine without asking you (if you have that in user.js of course). Not that Mozilla would ever do something like that..

Conclusion

To summarize, now you have put all your Firefox privacy and usability settings into your user.js file. You can now copy this file to your other Firefox profiles, on your other computers, and automatically have the same settings loaded into Firefox. As an added bonus, you have now made user tracking more difficult.

Have a question? Contact me.

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