Mozilla has kept the current about:config page in Firefox that was built on XML aside (still available by default in release) and created a new about config page by using HTML and default styles from Photon design system. The new page can be accessed and seen in Nightly.
The about:config has been converted into new, information is the same but the display is different and usage also changes. For instance, in old page, double-clicking an entry changes preference the value, in the new page, doing so selects the text. You need to use triple-click to select the preference name or value. The company is planning to keep old about:config page around for some more time at chrome://global/content/config.xul.
Performance: On slower machines, you may notice the page a bit slow to load all preferences for the first time on screen and the developers taken care so that the navigation, scrolling and find in page will be fast anyway once the search results are displayed.
If you’re curious to see the Firefox’s new about:config page, follow the steps below
1. Ensure you’re using latest Firefox Nightly
2. Visit chrome://browser/content/aboutconfig/aboutconfig.html
3. Click ‘I accept the risk’ to new “Here be dragons warning ” which shows the same message as in the old page, but offers new checkbox ‘Annoy me again, please’
4. Search for something you’re looking for by typing in filter or press Esc to display all preferences and their values
Note: Cursor should be in the search field for Esc to work. Here is the old or current page of about:config.
Do you like the new about:config page?
Related articles:
Firefox: How to reset all Preferences in about:config?
Export Firefox about:config settings to a CSV file
Preference Monitor Notifies When Firefox About:Config Preferences Changes
Anything that slows things down is fine by me. I disable hardware acceleration so I can watch pages crawl in.
And I hate words. The less words, the better. They should make the fonts bigger and prettier and add more padding so only four or five prefs show. Light grey, of course. And big enough to make long text strings get shortened. As in, accessibili…
Elimination of the status and type columns is sheer genius. Why stop there? Dump the value column.
Three clicks? Why not four?
This new HTML config page is a strp in the right direction, but still has a way to go.
While I’m here, I add a suggestion: the edit and toggle buttons, make ’em pulse and spin.
The status column is replaced by font-weight and the absence or presence of the reset button.
If you have usecases where you need the type column, I urge you to post that on Bugzilla, such that it gets re-implemented.
Three clicks because it’s standard it HTML pages to select the bigger context. You can also use your cursor to mark everything.
The new page is better accessible than the old one (no rightclicks anymore etc). And when exactly do you need forty rows at once on your display?
No sorting and awful performance… WTF… This is massive regression in features.
As a long-time user/tweaker of FF, I have certain settings that have been carried over from years ago. Now, I do not remember which ones do what. It would be good to have a comment (user-editable) column where, as the user adds a new setting, we can also add a description/comment. Some might say that there’s the knowledge base on mozilla’s website – but that doesn’t give all the up-to-date info – and definitely not for the addons that might have left crud when being uninstalled. In all these scenarios, imo, its better to have a description that either gets auto-filled by the addon, or comes pre-filled with FF or could be edited by the user. Knowing these descriptions, it might help to cleanup unused/unnecessary prefs.
I think, that WebExtensions cannot write to
about:config, but I might be wrong. 😅True, Firefox will becoming more and more Chrome-like copypasta.