Chapter 9. Changing Preferences and Settings

IN THIS CHAPTER

• about:

• about:buildconfig

• about:cache

• about:config, Firefox's Configuration Console

• about:credits Who's Guilty?

• about:Mozilla

• about:plugins, Plugging into Plug-ins

• Working with about: Secrets for Power Users

First introduced with Firebird version 0.6, the about: facility enables you to view various settings and change preferences. There are a total of seven options:

• about: Displays an about screen listing Firefox's version information, as well as other useful information.

• about:buildconfig Displays information about the actual build of Firefox. This shows which compiler options were used, as well as the target platform.

• about:cache Lists information about the memory and disk cache. All the cached entries can be listed as well.

• about:config Enables you to modify any of the Firefox preferences and create new preferences if desired.

• about:credits Displays a list of all the people who have worked on Firefox and is retrieved from the Internet so that it is up-to-date.

• about:Mozilla Shows an excerpt from The Book of Mozilla, 7:15.

• about:plugins Shows information about all the plug-ins installed on the computer. Plug-ins are universal, not user specific like extensions are.

All except for about:config are read-only and do not allow changes. about:config can be used to change preferences for all parts of Firefox.

This chapter is primarily intended to show you how to use about:config. The other about: components are described here but not discussed in depth unless there is a relationship between them and about:config.