Some add-ons on the other hand do not show a remove option at all in the addons manager. Most of the add-ons that you cannot uninstall from within the browser are called global extensions. They are installed from third party sources, for instance when you install or update security software or another application on your system. The Babylon Toolbar is an example extension as it is often attached to software installations.

The majority of extensions are installed in the extensions directory of the Firefox profile folder. I’d suggest you start there to see if the extension that you want to remove from Firefox is listed there.

You may run into two issues here. First that extensions sometimes install with cryptic names so that it may be difficulty to identify them, and second that you may not find the extension that you want to uninstall listed here.

The easiest way to identify add-ons here is to load them into archiving software like 7-zip. Double-click on the install.rdf afterwards and look for name there.

Some extensions are already unpacked in a folder. Just open the folder of the extension in that case and double-click on the install.rdf file in there to identify its name.

It is however likely that you do not see the extension in the directory.

Global extensions

Global extensions can be installed into any directory. The most likely folder is the extensions folder in the Firefox installation folder. This is usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\extensions for 64-bit Windows operating systems, and C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions for 32-bit systems. Keep in mind though that you can install Firefox into any directory. Portable Firefox users need to open the extensions folder under the portable path.

Repeat the steps outlined above to identify all extensions listed here.

The third and final option is the Windows Registry. You may find extension information under the following two Registry keys:

• HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions\
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions\

Use the shortcut Windows-r to bring up the run box. Enter regedit in there and hit enter. Navigate to the keys in the Windows Registry and check if extensions are listed there.

Information that you will find there includes the extension path.

Backup the Registry key first by selecting File > Export. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the directory of the extension. Backup that directory as well, before you delete both the directory and the Registry key that links to it. Repeat the step for all extensions that you want to delete.

Please note that you need to close Firefox before you start deleting extensions on the system this way.

If you follow the method, you should be able to delete any extension that you cannot uninstall from within the browser interface.

A recent feature addition to Firefox 12 is causing some controversy among users. Firefox 12 is currently available in the Nightly channel before it moves on to the Aurora, Beta and then Stable channel. This means that the majority of Firefox users will experience the new feature – if not altered – in about 13 weeks.

Firefox 12 introduces the inline autocomplete feature in the browser which displays the first matching root url in the address bar. Firefox users can then use the enter key to automatically load the website in the browser.

The two core problems here are that Firefox is not displaying the most popular url in the address bar, and that it only looks at the root url and not page title for a match. As you can see on the screenshot above, entering the characters wi does not autocomplete to en.wikipedia.org or another appropriate hit, but to wisestartupblog, a site that I read an article once on.

One could now say that it does not really change the existing functionality, as it is still possible to select suggested results from the list with the mouse or cursor keys. The change is visual on the other hand and may irritate users who are not used to seeing entries being auto-completed. The issue that weights far more heavily is how results are selected. Instead of displaying a site that the user likely wants to visit, the first matching site is displayed. And while this may sometimes be the site the user wants to visit, it often may not be that site especially since there is no popularity check involved.

Firefox users who do not want the feature can turn it off, here is how it is done:

• Enter about:config in the address bar and hit enter to load the Firefox advanced configuration menu.
• First time users see a warning page before they can actually access the configuration.
• Filter for the term browser.urlbar.autoFill
• A double-click sets it to false, which will turn the feature off.

You can repeat the process to turn the auto fill in the address bar on again. (thanks Sören for the tip)

Mozilla is facing more competition than ever. First and foremost from Google’s Chrome browser that is posed to overtake the Firefox web browser in market share in 2012 (depending on the stats you are looking at it may have already happened). This has not kept the organization from signing an agreement with Google to keep Google the default search provider in the coming years.

Add HTTP Back To Address Bar – Mozilla has removed the http prefix in the address bar. Here is how you can add it back.

Change Firefox’s Minimum, Maximum Tab Width – Display more or less tabs in the browser at the same time without scrolling.

Configure Firefox To Delete All Cookies On Exit But Select Ones – Cookies can be beneficial, e.g. to stay logged in, and not beneficial, for instance when they are used for tracking purposes.

Configure Firefox To Install Add-Ons Faster – Save a few seconds every time you install add-ons in the Firefox web browser.

Delete Old Extension Preferences In Firefox – Extensions may add preferences to the browser during installation that do not get removed on uninstallation of the add-on. Here is how you can remove them.

Display All Modified Firefox Preferences – Sometimes you may only want to display modified preferences in Firefox to quickly change or reset them.

Don’t Like The New Firefox Button? Then Change It! – How to change the Firefox button.

Firefox, Thunderbird Lagging? Lag Fix Inside – If you are experiencing lags in Thunderbird or Firefox, you might want to try this fix.

How To Downgrade Firefox Add-ons – This explains how to install an older add-on version in the browser. Can be useful if the new version has bugs, is incompatible or features that you do not like and do not want to use.

How To Run Firefox Stable, Beta, Aurora And Nightly Simultaneously – Firefox is offered in four different channels, and even some special test versions. (see also How To Create Multiple Firefox Profiles For Specific Tasks).

How to setup a Firefox Test Environment – A test environment can be useful for various purposes, for instance to test add-ons or browser related settings, or to divide different usage scenarios (e.g. work and after-work).

How To Switch Firefox Update Channels – How to switch between Nightly, Aurora, Beta and Stable channels of the browser.

How To Tweak The Firefox Address Bar – A detailed tutorial on customizing the browser’s location bar.

How To Uninstall The Babylon Toolbar Completely – A detailed uninstallation guide.

The Best Firefox Privacy Add-Ons – A list of privacy related add-ons for the Firefox web browser.

The Best Firefox Security Add-Ons – The best security add-ons for the browser.

Why Are 2 Plugin-Container.Exe Processes Running? – Explains why you may see more than one instance of Firefox’s out-of-process plugin process running on your system.

I then checked if it was an issue with the prefs.js or another file that does not get updated properly forcing the browser to repeat the same process on every start.

While I was looking through the Firefox profile folder I noticed a user.js file in there. And that file, according to Mozilla does not exist by default. The Firefox developers furthermore note that that “once an entry for a preference setting exists in the user.js file, any change you make to that setting in the options and preference dialogs or via about:config will be lost when you restart your Mozilla application because the user.js entry will override it”.

This for my situation meant that the user.js file was blocking Firefox from updating properly. I have no idea how and why it was created in the first place, but decided to create a backup and delete it to see if it resolves the issue.

I closed Firefox first, copied user.js from the profile folder to the Windows desktop, and deleted the file afterwards. Firefox on next start did not check for add-on compatibilities anymore and the browser seems to have returned to its former self.

It is also interesting to note that the user.js file has not been created again by the browser.

Hope this helps Firefox users who are encountering the same issue that I did. I suggest you create backups of the file just in case for an option to restore it if this does not resolve the issue you are experiencing.

A Firefox test environment is the perfect alternative, as long as it does not share data with the default browser version.

This tutorial explains how to setup a test environment that you can use to test add-ons or tweaks without affecting the default browser that you use regularly.

A few options are available: A portable version of Firefox could be enough for some users, others may want to use a virtual machine or only a different profile.

The portable version is probably the easiest to setup, it should not pose difficulties even to inexperienced users.

Portable Firefox

You can download a portable copy of Firefox from Portable Apps. Just install the portable version into a directory on your machine. You will notice that you cannot launch the portable and regular version of Firefox at the same time, which can be a serious problem.

The startup parameter -no-remote makes it possible to run multiple instances of Firefox at the same time. There is however even an easier option for the portable version of the browser. Go to the FirefoxPortable\Other\Source directory and copy the file FirefoxPortable.ini into the root folder. Open the file with a text editor and change the AllowMultipleInstances value to true.

You should now be able to launch Firefox Portable even if the installed version of the browser is already running.

You can now install add-ons and themes, modify settings and do other modifications that do not affect your default Firefox profile and installation.

The portable version has one disadvantage that needs to be mentioned. Everything that you change in the portable version remains, which means that you could run into a situation that you cannot recover the browser from. You could re-install the portable version, or keep a backup copy at hand to resolve the situation.

One Firefox, Two Profiles

The -no-remote parameter can be used to run multiple profiles that use the same Firefox core at the same time. Two steps are needed to complete the setup.

1. Creating a profile

You obviously need to have two profiles to run them at the same time. For that, you can use the new Profile Manager.

Just select New to create a new Firefox profile and that it is linked to the right version of the browser. You also need to make sure that Start new instance [-no-remote] is selected under Launch Options.

You can start Firefox with the newly created profile directly from the profile manager. It is however not that comfortable to launch the profile manager every time you want to start the second Firefox profile. Here is what you can do to circumvent this.

Create a new Firefox shortcut. Windows users can open the Firefox installation directory in Windows Explorer (C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\), right-click firefox.exe and select the create shortcut option from the context menu. The shortcut is either placed in the same directory or on newer versions of Windows on the desktop.

Right-click the shortcut and select Properties. Locate the Target line and add the following parameter to it at the end: -P profilename

Replace profilename with the name of the profile. If you are not sure how it is named open the Profile Manager again and take a look.

Click ok to apply the changes. I suggest you rename the shortcut as well to avoid confusion. If you have done everything correctly you should be able to launch a second instance of Firefox on your computer.

This method has the same disadvantage as the portable version environment. Everything that you do remains, which may lead to unrecoverable issues.

Virtual Machines, Sandbox

Virtual machines or sandboxing is the third possibility. This is usually more complicated to setup but has the advantage that changes are only temporary. You can use free programs like VMWare, Microsoft’s Virtual PC or the excellent Sandboxie.

You could use a Firefox browser appliance for VMware. Please note though that you need to update the browser as it uses an old version of Firefox (Firefox 8 at the time of writing).

To use it, you first need to install VMware on your computer. To run the browser application do the following:

In the VMware Player dialog box, browse for Virtual Machine Configuration File, browse to the directory where you installed the Browser Appliance, select the file Browser-Appliance.vmx, and click Open.

Closing Words

Users who test a lot benefit from setting up a test environment. This opens up lots of possibilities. You could run a cutting edge test environment, e.g. with the latest nightly versions of the browser to test your web pages and applications against it, or the same version as your standard profile is using.

Are you making use of different profiles in the browser? And if you are, for what purpose? Let me know in the comments.

Firefox users have three options to downgrade add-ons in the browser. It is not necessary to uninstall the new add-on version before installing the old one. Keep in mind though that older versions may be incompatible with your version of the browser.

Installing old Firefox Add-on versions

You have several options at your disposal to install an older version of an add-on. The first option is presented on the add-on’s page over at Mozilla. Lets take Video DownloadHelper as an example. Load the page in Firefox and scroll all the way down until you reach Version Information near the bottom of the screen. Click on the link to expand the selection. Locate See complete version history there and click on it.

This opens a new page where the majority of previous add-on releases are listed. Make sure you read the “be careful” section at the top to understand the risks.

You can install an older version of the add-on by moving the mouse cursor over a version and clicking on the Add to Firefox button to start the installation.

Release notes are usually offered for every version listed on the version history page. Just install the add-on and restart the browser afterwards to complete the process. The add-ons manager should now display the installed version and not the latest one.

Alternatives

You can alternatively connect to the public Mozilla ftp server to download a previous add-on version. You do however need the unique add-on ID which is not displayed publicly anymore (Mozilla switched from displaying the unique ID in the url to descriptive names instead). If you do know the ID, you can download it from the ftp server as well.

A third alternative comes sometimes in the form of the add-on homepage on the Internet (not on Mozilla). Developers sometimes offer download links to old add-on versions on their websites. It is however usually a lot easier to use the official Mozilla Firefox site for that.

Disable Updates

You are not done yet. If you would stop right here Firefox would try to install the latest add-on version automatically. Open about:add-ons in the Firefox address bar and click on the More link next to the extension that you have just downgraded.

Locate Automatic Updates there and switch it from Default to Off. This disables automatic updates for the selected add-on. See How To Turn Off Automatic Updates For Individual Firefox Add-Ons for an in depths guide.

Then I discovered that there is an easier way that would optimize that workflow significantly. I started to test holding down Shift, Alt, Cltr plus Enter combinations until I found the combination that would open the typed in text in a new tab page and not the active one.

Firefox users can either hold down Alt before they press enter or the Alt Gr key to open the entered text in a new browser tab. Website addresses (urls) are automatically loaded in the new tab while searches load the results of the default search engine instead in the new tab. Firefox will automatically switch to the new tab and restore the url text in the tab the text was entered in.

Do you prefer to open new tabs in the background instead of the foreground? No problem, all you need to do is to make a slight configuration change. Enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and hit enter. First time users need to confirm that they will be careful. Enter the parameter browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground in the filter bar on top. Only one entry is returned.

The default setting is false, which basically means that new tabs are not opened in the background. A double-click on the parameter changes the value to true which has the consequence that new tabs are opened in the background instead.

For Firefox, the address bar is called awesome bar. It is the same thing which may add to user confusion. Regardless, the new functionality provided by the Firefox address bar can be really handy, especially of configured to suit individual needs.

This guide is looking at some of the tweaks available to modify the address bar behavior of the Firefox web browser. Some of you may know some or even all of the tips. I still hope that the majority reading the tutorial will learn something new that may improve their workflow or browsing experience.

Searching from the address bar

Depending on what you enter in the address bar of the Firefox browser, either a website is loaded directly or a search is performed. When you enter a website address, e.g. ghacks.net, then the page is loaded. If you only enter ghacks, a search is triggered instead.

The default search engine used for those searches is Google Search. Please note that this is because of an agreement between Mozilla and Google. Google actually pays for that privilege.

You can change the default search engine used for keyword searches. For that, you need to open the advanced configuration of Firefox. Enter about:config in the address bar and hit enter. First time users need to accept the warning on the next page, everyone else sees a list of parameters.

Filter for the term keyword.url and hit enter.

Most users will see Google listed here as the search engine. You need the search url of the search engine that you want to use for your Firefox keyword searches. Mozilla Zine offers some suggestions:

• For Scroogle, enter http://www.scroogle.org/cgi-bin/nbbw.cgi?Gw=
• for Bing, enter http://bing.com/results.aspx?q=
• for Ixquick, enter http://ixquick.com/do/metasearch.pl?cat=web&query=
• for Yahoo!, enter http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=
• For DDG (DuckDuckGo), enter https://duckduckgo.com/?q=

Use the following trick to add other search engines. Perform a search for TEST on the search engine, remove TEST from the url and use the resulting address.

Double-click on the parameter to change it. A box opens up that you can paste the url of your new search engine into.

Define Firefox’s suggestions feature

Firefox by default will suggest both websites from the history and the bookmarks when a keyword is entered into the browser’s address bar. This can speed up the loading of websites, as you only need to enter a few characters to get matching suggestions. Then again, it may also be embarrassing if multiple users are working on the computer and that particular version of Firefox.

Some Firefox users may want to change the default suggestions behavior. This can be done in the Firefox options. Click on the Firefox button and then on Options. Switch to the Privacy tab in the new window and locate the Location Bar entry at the bottom of the screen.

Click on the pulldown menu and select one of the available options. You can select to display only history or bookmark suggestions, both history and bookmark suggestions or no suggestions at all.

Firefox supports special characters that display specific types of suggestions to the user. They are:

• Add ^ to search for matches in your browsing history.
• Add * to search for matches in your bookmarks.
• Add + to search for matches in pages you’ve tagged.
• Add % to search for matches in your currently open tabs.
• Add ~ to search for matches in pages you’ve typed.
• Add # to search for matches in page titles.
• Add @ to search for matches in web addresses (URLs).

This is especially helpful if Firefox does not display all the results available (the display is limited to a set amount of results). Using the chars above you can limit the results further.

You can also delete particular entries by selecting them first and using Delete to remove them. This works only for History entries, not bookmark suggestions.

Change the number of suggestions

You can change the number of suggestions that the address bar displays. The default number is 12 and you can use the advanced configuration menu to increase or decrease the number.

Enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and filter for the term browser.urlbar.maxRichResults

Double-click the parameter and change the number. Users with large screens may want to increase the number of suggestions, users on low screen resolutions reduce it.

Use other search engines from the address bar

Sometimes you may want to use a different search engine for a particular search. Say you want to find something on Wikipedia. And while you could simply enter “phrase Wikipedia” in the address bar to let the default search engine display the Wikipedia entry for the term in first position of the search results, you may want to speed things up by searching on Wikipedia directly.

Firefox users can add keywords to search engines. These keywords can then be entered in front of the search term in Firefox’s address bar to search on that search engine for the entered term.

The process is easy and straightforward. Visit the website that you want to add as a keyword search. Locate the search form on the website, right-click it and select add a keyword for this search from the context menu.

A small window opens to add the search engine to the Firefox bookmarks. Make sure you enter a unique keyword in the keyword field. This is the string that you enter in front of the search term in the Firefox address bar when you want to search that particular search engine.

Use Advanced Search operators

If the search engine supports it, advanced search operators can be used directly from Firefox’s address bar. It is usually best to start with the search term and add advanced operators afterwards. Searches like “ghacks technology news” or Ghacks -linux are valid, while cache:ghacks.net linux is not (as it is confused by Firefox with an unknown protocol).

Open bookmarks with the help of keywords

Just like you can assign keywords to search engines, you can also assign them to bookmarks to open sites directly without having to enter the full web address.

Open your bookmarks library and locate the bookmark that you want to assign a keyword to. Select the bookmark and click on the More link to display the keyword form field. Enter a keyword for the website. You can from that moment on enter that keyword to load the bookmark directly in Firefox.

Add-ons to modify the Awesome Bar

Add-ons are one of the strongest selling points of the Firefox browser. Here are several popular add-ons that can tweak the way the address bar behaves.

• Oldbar – Don’t like the new awesome bar? The install oldbar to make the new address bar look and behave like that of Firefox 2.
• Simplify Awesome Bar – Use the awesome bar from anywhere.
• Hide Unvisited – Hide bookmarks from showing up in the Awesome Bar that you have not visited since the last clearing of history.
• RSS Icon in Awesomebar – Display RSS Feed icons in the awesome bar.
• Edit Middle – show results even when you edit the middle of the search query.
• Enter Selects – Pressing enter opens the first suggested result automatically.

Have additional tips that you’d like to share with everyone? Let us know in the comments.

This behavior is finally going to change with the release of Firefox 10. For now, the new feature has been implemented into recent Nightly versions of Firefox 11. The technology is disabled by default and needs to be activated before it can be tested.

Mozilla plans to integrate the override ability into Firefox 10 Aurora soon and then in the beta and stable channels when they hit version 10 as well.

To disable strict add-on compatibility in Firefox, users need to enter about:config into the browser and filter for the key extensions.strictCompatibility.

The default state is true which means that strict add-on compatibility is enabled. This means that Firefox will disable add-ons that are not compatible with the version of the browser.

A double-click on the entry and the selection of False turns strict compatibility off. What this means is that Firefox will assume that add-ons are also compatible with the updated version of the browser.

There are a few exceptions to the rule though that need to be listed here. While it is possible to force add-on compatibility this way, it does not ensure that add-ons are indeed compatible with the more recent version of the browser. If add-ons are technically incompatible with the new version of Firefox, then forcing them to be compatible won’t change that fact; The add-ons will remain incompatible. But there are other requirements. Add-ons with binary components will be ignored by the new directive, as will add-ons with a minimal compatible version that is higher than the version of the web browser.

Add-on developers lastly can force their add-ons to be strictly compatible. (via)

Update: I noticed that the latest Aurora version is already listing the extensions.strictCompatibility parameter.

Something was not working as expected, and so the search for a fix began. My first thought was that the Compatibility Reporter needed an updated, checked the official site and noticed that none was available there.

I then checked the add-on manager in the browser to see if I could re-enable the disabled add-ons. This too was unfortunately no possible.

Next step were the Firefox Options, I thought that Mozilla maybe had added a switch or flag to the options to prevent automatic add-on enabling. This too was not the case.

Last and final step was my decision to force compatibility directly in the about:config dialog, and this worked. But lets start at the very beginning. Enter about:config in the address bar and tap on the enter key. You see a big list of parameters. Enter compatibility at the top to filter for all parameters with compatibility in the name.

If you have the Add-on Compatibility Reporter installed you will see a large list of compatibility parameters. They start at Firefox 3.6 and go all the way up to Firefox 9. Yes, that is right. My take on this is that the parameters are added by the Compatibility Reporter, and that the program was configured to add compatibility up to Firefox 9. Considering that Aurora is now Firefox 10 and the Nightly builds Firefox 11, it is safe to assume that we will see an update of the program soon that remedies the situation. For now, you have to add the compatibility information manually. Right-click in the listing and select New > Boolean.

Enter extensions.checkCompatibility.10.0a as the name and select the value false on the next page. Restart the browser afterwards. If everything worked out correctly your add-ons should all be enabled again in the Firefox web browser.

A corrupt or accidentally deleted bookmarks file could have a serious impact on my work day. Most modern web browsers come with synchronization and backup options that can be used to restore data in the browser. The majority of those features need to be activated though before they can be used to restore data.

Firefox users who cannot access all or part of their bookmarks anymore can make use of the browser’s built-in restoration option to restore bookmarks in the browser. This feature is enabled by default. Here is how it is done.

Use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-Shift-b to open the bookmarks manager. Locate the Import and Backup menu at the top and click it to display its menu options.

Move the mouse cursor over the Restore menu to display a list of bookmark backups that can be restored. Firefox by default backs up the bookmarks once per day (if the browser is used).

Click on a data to restore that bookmarks backup in the browser. Please note that Firefox will overwrite the existing bookmarks with the backup. Bookmarks that you have added in the meantime will not be available once the restoration has completed.

Firefox users can make use of the export bookmarks to HTML in the same menu to create a manual backup of their current bookmarks file. It is always a good idea to backup the file before restorations. This manual copy can then be restored by selecting the Import bookmarks from HTML option in the same menu.

Bookmarks can also also be backed up as JSON files instead by selecting the Backup option of the menu. These bookmark backups can then be restored via the Restore > Choose File option.

Firefox users can alternatively configure the synchronization option under Tools > Set Up Sync to synchronize the bookmarks with a cloud server.

Have you ever lost bookmarks in Firefox? What did you do to restore them?

With Firefox it is another issue. The browser just stops receiving traffic from the Internet as if it is blocked by a firewall or as if the Internet connection died. The only solution here so far was to restart the web browser.

David Bradley now has found a solution that fixed the Thunderbird lag issue, and probably the Firefox no traffic issue as well.

David mentioned frequent stutter or lag in the browser leading to the “not responding” message that can last for a few moments. This was the same behavior that I experienced in Thunderbird.

The solution or fix here is to assign one specific core to the Firefox, or in my case Thunderbird, process. This obviously only works if a multi-core cpu is available.

Users who just want to test the setting can assign a specific core by opening the Windows Task Manager with Ctrl-Shift-Esc, right-clicking the firefox.exe or thunderbird.exe process and selecting Affinity from the context menu.

Here they need to select a specific cpu core or remove one from the listing to test the fix. Please note that this is only a temporary solution. A system state change, e.g. a reboot, standby or hibernation resets the affinity settings there.

A permanent solution is to create a new program shortcut and set the cpu affinity this way.

The command for Firefox is this one:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\” /affinity x firefox.exe

where x is the cpu core number. (cpu 0 = 1, cpu 1 = 2, cpu 2 = 4, cpu 3 = 8 and so on).

For Thunderbird the command is

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /c start “C:\Program Files (x86)\Miramar 3.3 Alpha 1\thunderbird.exe” /affinity x thunderbird.exe

The easiest way is to copy the shortcut from the start menu or to use Windows Explorer to open the folder where the program is installed. There you can right-click firefox.exe or thunderbird.exe and select to create a new shortcut.

It is likely that we will see an official fix in the coming days / weeks. You can then simply delete the shortcut or modify it again so that all cpu cores are used by the application. It is unlikely that this change has an effect on the program’s performance.

Windows XP users cannot make use of the command. The suggestion here is to use the freeware RunFirst which sets the process affinity automatically to one core.

Has this fixed your issue as well? Let me know in the comments. (thanks David, via)

Still, I decided to do some research and found out that I’m not the only user affected by the Update Failed message. I received the error message running Firefox Aurora, others running the latest stable version of the browser.

First thing I noticed was that the Firefox Aurora version that I was running was not automatically updated anymore. The version was a few days old and checking manually for updates returned the message that the browser was up to date (turned out later it was not).

When you look at the Firefox Help forum you get a lot of recommendations. This ranges from malware to plugins or extensions that affect the updating mechanism to files that previous updates left behind in the Firefox installation folder.

Solutions

If you have files in the defaults\pref folder in the Firefox installation folder (C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\pref) folder other than the file channel-prefs.js then the updater didn’t remove those files or wasn’t able to do that because other software (possibly visualization software) had prevented that. That causes Firefox to override correct prefs with older prefs from firefox.all. [source]

Enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and filter for the term app.update.url there. Make sure the url begins with https://aus3.mozilla.org/.

Another possible cause that was mentioned quite often were third party extensions and plugins. Google Update was mentioned for instance several times in various Mozilla forum threads. I’m personally not really sure why the plugin gets installed into Firefox in the first place. I did notice that a Pando Media Booster plugin was installed on my system which I have not heard about before. I suspect that it was installed with the Might and Magic: Heroes VI game that I installed recently as it is commonly installed with games, especially MMOs.

Uninstalling the software from my system did not resolve the updating issue. It is not conclusive if the plugin had something to do with it though.

My solution was the following: I went to the Mozilla Firefox download page and re-downloaded the latest version of the web browser from there. I then installed it which did update my version of the browser to the latest version. It is to early to say if it fixed the issue completely, but I have not received the message ever since.

When you click on install on the Mozilla add-on repository or a third party site, you will get a notification about the download of the add-on first. Firefox displays the remaining time to download the extension. The browser then opens an installation prompt to give the user the option to go ahead with the installation or cancel it.

You need to wait until the countdown ends and the Install Now button is displayed. A click outside of the Firefox window will reset that countdown, if you switch windows the installation dialog prompt vanishes completely.

I do not really see a need for the delay during add-on installations. The majority of users have selected to install the add-on, and the countdown does not really add to the security of the process. The only relevant information displayed in the installation window is the add-on name and version, and that’s something that you can verify in less than a second.

If you are like me you’d like to get rid of the countdown to speed up add-on installations in the Firefox browser. For that you need to enter about:config into the Firefox address bar and hit enter. First time users need to confirm that they will be careful before they can proceed.

Enter the parameter security.dialog_enable_delay into the filter form at the top of the screen. Only one parameter should now be listed in the window. It has a value of 2000 which is the time in milliseconds that add-on installations get delayed. Double-click the parameter and change the value to 0 to disable the delay completely.

The value should now be 0. The change is effective right at that moment. The Install Now button should be enabled immediately on all future add-on installations saving you about two seconds per installation.

You can reset the setting by right-clicking the parameter in about:config and selecting reset from the context menu.

Other protocols are showing up by default. If you visit https sites for instance you see the https protocol in the address bar. This makes sense as it acts as it helps the user identify that the connection is to a secure site.

Lets take a look at the way urls are displayed in the Firefox address bar.

As you can see, there is no http protocol in front, and the www part of the address is shown in lighter colors.

To modify this display, enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and hit the enter key afterwards. First time users need to click the “I’ll be careful, I promise! link” on the warning page before they can modify the settings.

Filter for the term browser.urlbar.trimURLs and double-click it in the results listing. This sets it from True to False. The changes should be visible right away. Setting the parameter to False disables url trimming in Firefox so that the http protocol is shown on all tabs again.

To get rid of the light gray coloring, you need to enter browser.urlbar.formatting.enabled into the filter bar. Double-click the parameter again to set it to false. This removes the url formatting so that the url is displayed in one color.

The change is visible right away. The url formatting should look like this one from now on.

You can reverse the effect by completing the same steps again.

Modified parameters in about:config are highlighted in bold, but there is not a way to display only those preferences in the web browser. And even if you could do that, you still would not see all modified preferences in a single interface.

Good news though that there is a way to display all modified preferences in Firefox. This is done via the about:support troubleshooting information page.

Simply enter about:support in the Firefox address bar and hit the enter key. This should open the Troubleshooting Information page in the browser.

If you scroll down a bit there you’ll find the modified preferences listing there.

Here you find a listing of all preferences that have been modified in this version of Firefox. Please note that the modifications are user specific, and that different modified preferences will be shown for those user accounts (unless they are duplicates).

Each modified preference relates directly to an entry in Firefox’s about:config listing of preferences. Entries are not linked and it is not possible to change their value from the troubleshooting page. Best practice therefor is to have both the about:support and about:config pages open in windows next to each other. This way you could copy the preference’s name into the about:config filter to find the preferences there easily.

The modified preferences listing can be used to troubleshoot issues in the browser. The information can be copied and pasted into another document as part of the troubleshooting process, for instance for documentation purposes. (via)

You may have also noticed that you can only run one version of the browser at the same time. This can be a issue if you sometimes want to run multiple versions of the web browser at the same time.

Download Firefox

Before I start explaining how you can optimize your configuration the way you want it, I’m listing the available Firefox downloads to make sure you got the latest versions of the web browsers.

• Firefox Stable Download [link]
• Firefox Beta Download [link]
• Firefox Aurora Download [link]
• Firefox Nightly Download [link]
• Mozilla Profile Manager [link

]

Go ahead and download and install all the Firefox versions that you want to use on your computer. I also suggest you download the latest version of the Mozilla Profile Manager, as we will use the program to configure different Firefox profiles.

Install the different versions of the browser. Note that they all install into different folders on the system with the exception of the beta which installs in the same directory as the stable version. You need to change the installation folder of the beta by selecting Custom during installation.

I also suggest you create desktop shortcuts for all versions of Firefox that you have installed on the system. You do that by opening the folders in the file manager, right-clicking the Firefox executable and selecting Create Shortcut from the context menu.

Firefox profiles

Depending on your situation and needs, you may want to run all different Firefox versions with one profile or multiple profiles. A profile basically consists of user specific settings and data. This includes installed add-ons and themes, the browsing history, bookmarks and pretty much everything else that is created or added by a user.

Start the Mozilla Profile Manager. You will see a list of profiles available on the system. We only need to create profiles in the manager. It is theoretically possible to use the Profile Manager to launch multiple versions of the browser at the same time. This would however mean that you need to run the Profile Manager every time you want to do that. There is a better way of doing it which I’m going to highlight in a bit.

You create new profiles with a click on New. You can alternatively copy an existing profile. This basically creates an identical profile for use in another version of Firefox.

All you need to fill out in the Create Profile window is the name of the new profile. I suggest you pick one word names without spaces as this will make upcoming steps easier.

The new profile is then shown in the Profile Manager window. Repeat the steps until you have created all the profiles that you want to use.

Configuring Firefox

Now that we have installed the Firefox versions and the profiles that we want to use, we need to associate the different versions with their profiles. This is done by editing the shortcut link directly. I suggest you keep the default profile associated with the stable version of Firefox.

Right-click the shortcut and select Properties from the context menu. Locate the Target field in the menu.

Lets first take a look at the available start-up parameters.

• -p: Launch the Firefox profile selector on start.
• -p profilename: loads the selected profile automatically on browser start instead of the default profile.
• -no-remote: Allows to run the version of Firefox next to others

You add the commands at the end of the Target line after the closing “.

A full line would look like the following:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox Beta\firefox.exe” -p secure -no-remote

The path obviously changes with each different version of the browser. The selected profile in this example is called secure. Please note that profiles are case sensitive, and that you need to need to enclose multiple words in “word1 word2″.

Once you have gone through all shortcuts, you can simply start one or multiple Firefox versions with clicks on the shortcuts.

This could be a permissions problem, or a bug in Firefox. I’d like to describe how Firefox users can disable the What’s New page after updates for good. Firefox users have two options to resolve the issue from within the web browser.

Tweaking about:config

Both tweaks are applied to the about:config window. You just need to enter about:config in the address bar and hit enter to display it. First time users see a warning page first. Now enter the string browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone in the filter at the top of the screen. This version indicates the current milestone build of the browser. The What’s New page is triggered by comparing the milestone build of the update to that build. If they are different the What’s New Page is displayed.

Firefox users can change the value to ignore to ignore those checks. Double-click in the value field and change the string to ignore. Once set to ignore, the checks will no longer be performed which also means that the What’s New page will no longer show up after browser upgrades.

The second option has been suggested in support forums. It is not as effective though and I would only recommend it for Firefox users who cannot get the first setting to work properly. The two preferences startup.homepage_override_url and startup.homepage_welcome_url define which pages the Firefox browser displays after new installations and upgrades. All you would need to do is to replace the default value with your homepage that you have set in the browser. This performs the update check, but will load the homepage instead of the What’s New page in the browser.

The new settings will obviously only take effect if the preferences are writable on the system.

One problem that Firefox users can run into after installing the toolbar is that it won’t uninstall properly on thire system. Users who remove the Babylon Toolbar from Window’s Uninstall a Program control panel applet may notice that the Firefox add-on is still installed after the removal.

Even worse, the add-on cannot be uninstalled from within the browser, as the uninstall button is grayed out which means that it cannot be uninstalled from within the web browser.

Situations like these, where the uninstall link is missing, are usually a sign of a third party software directly installing a Firefox add-on. This sometimes happens without specific permission to install the add-on whichs has been a problem in the web browser for quite some time. Mozilla recently announced that they would put an end to automatic third party add-on installations in Firefox.

For now though, users do not have much choice but to hunt down the location of the add-on manually on their system to remove the add-on manually. There are a few possible locations where third party add-ons can be placed during installation, and one of them is the Firefox directory under program files.

Please note that the directory depends on the location where you have installed the web browser. Firefox users can install it in the default location, or pick a custom location for the files. It also needs to be mentioned that Mozilla adds the user data directories to another folder on Windows.

On my 64-bit Windows 7 system, the folder where the Babylon Toolbar was installed in was C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\extensions\ffxtlbr@babylon.com

I suggest you either look into your program files folder first (note that it is c:\program files\ on 32-bit operating systems) before you search for the folder ffxtlbr@babylon.com if you cannot find the Babylon Toolbar folder there.

Close the Firefox browser and delete the complete ffxtlbr@babylon.com folder afterwards. This should remove the toolbar from the web browser. Just start the Firefox browser afterwards to check if the toolbar add-on is no longer listed in the Firefox add-ons manager.

Update: Google Chrome users who want to remove the Babylon Toolbar from their browser need to do the following:

• Click the wrench icon in the Google Chrome address bar and select Tools > Extensions. It is alternatively possible to load chrome://settings/extensions directly.
• See if the Babylon Toolbar is listed in the browser. It usually displays as Babylon Chrome OCR. If the toolbar is there, click on uninstall to remove the toolbar from the browser.
• Close the window afterwards. Click the wrench icon again and select Options from the context menu.
• Check the Home Page setting under Basics to see if babylon is listed as the homepage in the browsre. If it is replace it with another homepage that you want to open or select the Use the New Tab page option.
• Click Manage search engines afterwards and check if Babylong is listed on the page. Hover your mouse over the entry and click on the x icon to uninstall it there as well. Go back to the previous page and pick another available search engine as the default browser search engine.

One of the things however that could be better is a quicker way of enabling and deactivating multiple add-ons in the Firefox web browser.

Why would someone want to activate or deactivate multiple extensions at once in the Firefox web browser? It could be used to speed up tests performed in the web browser, for example when you encounter problems on a website that you suspect to be add-on related.

It could also come in handy to quickly activate and deactivate add-ons that are only needed for specific work routines or work related tasks. A web developer could disable extensions like Firebug at the end of the work day to speed up the browsing.

It needs to be noted that this can also be achieved by configuring multiple profiles in the browser. (see How To Create Multiple Firefox Profiles For Specific Tasks)

Multiple Addon Deactivator is an add-on for Firefox that adds options to quickly enable or disable multiple add-ons in the browser.

The extension adds a new entry to the Tools menu of the browser which displays a new window with a compact list of all installed (activated and deactivated) add-ons.

Add-on backgrounds are color coded. Green background colors indicate active add-ons, red colors incompatible add-ons and gray colors deactivated add-ons.

Users need to place checkmarks into the boxes of the add-ons that they want to activate or deactivate in bulk. The action itself is then activated with a click on one of the available buttons at the bottom of the screen.

This way it is relatively easy and definitely a bit faster to deactivate or activate multiple add-ons in the browser. It would have even been better if the developer would have added options to create add-on groups, or at least an option to select all activated, deactivated or incompatible add-ons with a single click.

Firefox users can download and install Multiple Addon Deactivator at the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.