kota's “memex”

I don't really like firefox anymore, but it's basically the only real option.

background tab color

Open about:config and set browser.display.background_color to a hex color code. Sadly, either blue or white will briefly flash when you open the tab.

reader mode font

In firefox's settings page, one of the few things normal users still have control over is there default font choises. Now, it's not actuallly all that useful since most websites ignore you're choises anyway, but for the few that don't I get to have my favorite fonts which is nice.

Believe it or not one of the "sites" that ignores these choises is firefox's own reader mode! It forces the use of "Georgia" or "Arial" if you happen to have either installed. The only way around this is with a userStyle; not one of the easy to use plugins either as they apparently cannot edit "internal pages" like about reader. The only way is with the old userStyle file in /home/kota/.mozilla/firefox/1zohpqhn.default-default/chrome/userContent.css or whatever you're firefox profile happens to be named.

@-moz-document url-prefix("about:reader") {
  body.serif {
    font-family: serif !important;
  }
  body.sans-serif {
    font-family: sans-serif !important;
  }
}

open link in the same fucking tab on click

Fuck web developers.

browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction = 0
browser.link.open_newwindow = 1

bitmap fonts

For some reason on void linux and probably other distros firefox will try to use some terrible looking bitmap fonts by default. I don't really know why this is an issue, but the quickest solution is to just disable them:

# ln -s /usr/share/fontconfig/conf.avail/70-no-bitmaps.conf /etc/fonts/conf.d/
# xbps-reconfigure -f fontconfig

extension publishing

  1. first cd into the directory for the extension
  2. install yarn
  3. run yarn with no options
  4. run the newly locally installed web-ext tool node_modules/web-ext/bin/web-ext run
  5. make sure it is working
  6. increment version in manifest.json
  7. commit and then tag with git tag -s v1.0.0
  8. push with git push origin master --tags
  9. build with web-ext node_modules/web-ext/bin/web-ext build
  10. upload zip to firefox addon website

android

Disable background tab unloading in about:config:

browser.tabs.expireTime = -1
browser.tabs.disableBackgroundZombification = true

useful extensions

Ublock Origin

A wide-spectrum-blocker that ships with many of the best privacy lists by default. Available in the android port.

Dark Reader

Nicely converts most webpages to dark mode, uses several different techniques and generally works pretty well. Available in the android port.

Privacy Badger

It learns about trackers as you browse and automatically blocks them.

uMatrix

The more advanced Ublock Origin. Gives you control over the requests that websites make to other websites.

NoScript

Disable js, java, and flash selectively.

Cookie Autodelete

Automatically removes cookies when they are no longer used by open browser tabs.

HTTPS Everywhere

Force https when possible.

Decentraleyes

Emulates Content Delivery Networks locally by intercepting requests, finding the required resource and injecting it into the environment.

Terms of Service; Didn’t Read: Be Informed

Grading websites based on their Terms of Service agreements and giving short summaries.

Greasemonkey

A userscript manager.

New Tab Override

Manually set the firefox new tab page.

Old Reddit Redirect

The new reddit design is awful. This enforces loading the old one.

Reddit Enhancement Suite

Misc tweaks to make reddit a bit more easy to use.

TabStore

My extension. Stores your tabs in a plain text file if you wish. Can also later restore from that file.

Wayback Machine

Archive pages quickly and view older versions of pages which have gone offline.