Firefox Setting Default Preferences

Wednesday, 28 September 2005 19:46

Firefox allows for set preferences for every new user that opens up the web browser.

The best way to automatically set preferences within Firefox 2 is to do the following:
Automatic preferences can be stored in the file "%firefox directory%\defaults\profile\prefs.js". By default, this will be under "C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\prefs.js".

To modify this, go into Start -> Run, and type the following:

notepad C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\defaults\profile\prefs.js

Notepad will open up with the default configuration file for Firefox.
To modify this, delete all the information that is in the current file and replace it with our own predefined preferences as below:

user_pref("browser.cache.disk.capacity", 5000);
user_pref("browser.download.folderList", 1);
user_pref("browser.download.manager.retention", 1);
user_pref("browser.history_expire_days", 365);
user_pref("browser.link.open_external", 3);
user_pref("browser.preferences.lastpanel", 4);
user_pref("browser.search.selectedEngine", "Google");
user_pref("browser.startup.homepage", "http://www.desertcrystal.com");
user_pref("extensions.disabledObsolete", true);
user_pref("intl.accept_languages", "en-au");
user_pref("network.cookie.prefsMigrated", true);
user_pref("network.proxy.ftp", "rhema.lan");
user_pref("network.proxy.ftp_port", 3128);
user_pref("network.proxy.gopher", "rhema.lan");
user_pref("network.proxy.gopher_port", 3128);
user_pref("network.proxy.http", "rhema.lan");
user_pref("network.proxy.http_port", 3128);
user_pref("network.proxy.share_proxy_settings", true);
user_pref("network.proxy.ssl", "rhema.lan");
user_pref("network.proxy.ssl_port", 3128);
user_pref("network.proxy.type", 1);
user_pref("security.warn_submit_insecure", false);

Similar rules apply to Linux and Mac systems running Firefox.  On Mac OSX the location of the prefs.js can usually be found under /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/defaults.

For more parameter options, go to the web address about:config in Firefox.
For more information on preferences, go to http://preferential.mozdev.org/preferences.html