Firefox

My web browser is quickly becoming one of the most useful tools on my computer. As I spend more time configuring it I thought it might be important to start documenting some of the addons in a central place.

Force Install Addons

Certain addons (such as pentadactyl) are very particular about the version of firefox that they support. This can become a bit of a mess when you're dealing with Arch's penchant for the latest, most cutting edge packages.

Force Install

Occasionally, you can force install addons into newer versions of firefox simply by clicking the greyed out 'Download' button. Try this first.

Fool Compatibility Check

This largely seems voided now that you can force install addons into newer versions of firefox (they will be blocked if they truly are incompatible). Just the same, in old versions of firefox you can fool it's compatibility checker by modifying one of it's variables.

navigate to <code>about:config</code>
Rclick > New Boolean
name: extensions.checkCompatibility.30.0   #(or version you want firefox to test as true)
value: true

## Restart Firefox

Downgrade Firefox

Don't be intimidated, this is really simple. Firstly, if you can find the version you want in /var/cache/pacman/pkg/ then you can very simply downgrade it with the command pacman -U /var/cache/pacman/pkg/firefox-x.x.

If it isn't found there, don't stress, you can download a precompiled binary from: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/

tar -xvf firefox-xx.x.x
sudo mv firefox /opt/                   # alternatively, you could put it where the actual firefox
                                        # binaries go in /usr/lib/firefox
sudo chown -R root:root /opt/firefox
/opt/firefox/firefox &

## since we're only installing this for pentadactyl, I've created
## a symbolic link as pentadactyl (so I can still keep an up to date
## version of firefox).
sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/pentadactyl

Addons

firefox addon tridactyl	vim keybindings in firefox
firefox addon dark mode	comprehensive dark stylesheet for websites
firefox addon foxsplitter
firefox addon pentadactyl	vim keybindings in firefox (closer to vim than pentadactyl)
firefox addon vimperator	vim keybindings in firefox
firefox addon it's all text	edit textfield in external editor
firefox addon private tab	supports private tabs alongside other tabs

Appearance

FXchrome (discontinued)

Firefox has overly wide tabs. I don't like it. Too bubbly. FXchrome replaces firefox's tabs with something a little closer to chrome's tabs.I have stopped using this extension because pentadactyl sufficiently slims the tabs.

burling

Changes the colour of the tab-bar. This one is darker, fits better with pentadactyl solarized or desert colour themes.

disable spellcheck underline

I never use the spellcheck underline, and it makes text more difficult to read. If you'd like to disable it, you can find it in the Firfox menu:

:set guioptions+=T
Menu > Preferences > Advanced(General Tab) > Check My Spelling as I Type

Settings

MMB scrolling

Edit->Preferences->Advanced->General  >> Use autoscrolling		(mmb scrolling in firefox)

NoHide Bookmarks on Fullscreen

Maximize Firefox (F11)
Mouse to top-of-screen > Rclick > Uncheck Hide Toolbars

Linux

Flash Plugin

The flash plugin does not officially support linux. Google created their own fork for chromium, and there are ways of using it in firefox.

pepper flash