blog.watashii » firefox

Firefox Reserved Ports Restricted For Security Reasons

watashii — Wed, 12 May 2010 03:22:44 +0000

When browsing to web sites based on non standard HTTP ports, such as port 636 for LDAP SSL, Firefox bans access with the above message. By default, a number of ports are blocked from access due to a number of potential security vulnerabilities. These banned ports are usually reserved for specific services and are not ideal for web browsing.

To unblock these ports, we can specify the network.security.ports.banned.override preference in about:config. This is a new preference inside about:config, so right-click on the screen and create a new String preference to the port you want to allow access. You can also specify a range instead of a single port number, such as 1-1024. Just a word of warning, unblocking ports will pose a security risk.

Vacuum Database to Speedup Firefox

watashii — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 05:37:15 +0000

Firefox performance can be improved by defragmenting the internal SQLite database. This can be done by running a vacuum command within Firefox, as explained in Mozilla Links. The process are as follows:

1) Open Tools > Error Console (or Press Ctrl + Shift + J)

2) In the Code text box, paste the following (in one single line)

Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].
getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).
DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");

Note: Make sure the double-quotes are normal quotes and not slanted quotes

3) Press Evaluate. Firefox will freeze for a few seconds while the database is being defragmented.

A handier add-on extension is also available to perform this action.

Firefox Disable Flashing Cursor

watashii — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 10:54:47 +0000

Something annoying just sprung up, a flashing cursor appears whenever I click on any part of a webpage.

The solution?

Firefox 3 > Tools > Options > Advanced > General > Accessibility >

UnTick “Always use the cursor keys to navigate within pages”

Viewing Firefox Cache Files

watashii — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 08:55:42 +0000

The browser cache stores all the web pages and images downloaded on to the computer to allow faster access and reduce the downloading bandwidth when revisiting a website.

Type “about:cache” on your Firefox address bar to view the cached files. There are 3 types of cache for allocating the files…

1) Memory cache device, stores all the files which are downloaded per session into your computers RAM (or temporary memory). This means after you restart your Firefox, the files will be cleared out.

2) Disk cache device, stores all the files into your hard disk drive. This is some file location in your computer, for example within your Windows C:\ drive. These are available after restarting the Firefox and accessible without an internet connection.

3) Offline cache device, stores all the files which can be used for offline browsing. Typically it is empty, but is targeted for upcoming offline applications. Watch this space.

One useful tip to improve FIrefox performance is to disable disk cache (or set Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Offline Storage: Use 0Mb). What this means to to purely rely on the RAM memory for cached data, and not read from the disk. A simple concept: memory read speed is faster than disk read speed.

Add Search Engines to Firefox

watashii — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 08:19:49 +0000

Most Firefox users should know about the search engine lists, which makes life easier by searching directly on Firefox instead of going to the search homepage. But what if you want to add more?

To add new search engines: Click the search icon > Click “Manage Search Engines” > Click “Get more search engines…”

This will bring up the Firefox search tool addon page for commonly used search engines.

A more comprehensive list is available at mycroft.mozdev.org which I noticed its missing on the Firefox addon site, so here it is for convenience. These are FF2+ and IE7+ compatible.

Firefox 3.0 Upgraded

watashii — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 08:28:16 +0000

Just upgraded my Firefox from FF2.0 to FF3.0 today. Here are my initial findings:

1) Browsing feels more snappier than FF2.0, definitely has improved memory handling. Especially websites with flash content.

2) The most noticeable new feature was the ‘Awesome Bar’, which provides suggestions when entering the URL. It takes time to get used to it, since it acts like a search box of your favorites/rss feeds rather than the most typed URL. See here for tweaks of this. Or revert back to FF2.0′s ‘Old Bar’ with this extension.

3) One minor issue, it doesn’t migrate my FF2.0 setting for “Keep history for the past x days”. Lets hope all my other settings were migrated!

4) My URL bar doesn’t color yellow on HTTPS secure site.

To solve HTTPS bar coloring issue, see this, or if you’re on XP just add the following code in userChrome.css in your profile file, via C:\Documents and Settings\User\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\chrome\


/* Secure site coloring */
#urlbar[level="high"][pageproxystate="valid"] > .autocomplete-textbox-container ,
#urlbar[level="high"][pageproxystate="valid"] > .autocomplete-history-dropmarker ,
#urlbar[level="low"][pageproxystate="valid"] > .autocomplete-textbox-container ,
#urlbar[level="low"][pageproxystate="valid"] > .autocomplete-history-dropmarker {
background-color: #F5F6BE !important;
color: #000000 !important;
}