With Firefox 3.6, Mozilla has changed the way users can override the default add-ons compatibility check. WARNING: Bypassing the built-in add-ons compatibility check thus forcing Firefox to allow the installation of incompatible add-ons can cause Firefox to become unstable and/or run erratically. In some instances, could cause Firefox not start at all. In the event forcing an add-on to install has lead to Firefox perpetually crashing upon startup the browser can be run in Safe Mode, which will allow for the removal of the problematic add-on. Bypassing the compatibility check can be done via an about:config entry. However, this will…

I came across these tweaks while searching for a solution on how to fix my issue with autoscrolling (which turned out to be a software issue, not Firefox). I’ll admit that I never really use the mousewheel (scroll wheel) in Firefox for any other purpose other than scrolling. The default behaviors when holding down certain keys and using the scroll wheel: Scroll Wheel Only – scrolls per wheel notch by six lines ALT+Scroll Wheel – scrolls per wheel notch by one line SHIFT+Scroll Wheel – navigates forward (up) or back (down) through the history CTRL+Scroll Wheel – increases (up) or…

I actually was looking for information on how to enable this feature as I had thought it had become disabled with the newer Firefox releases. For those who are not familiar with autoscrolling, it allows you to quickly scroll through a page by clicking the mouse scroll wheel and then moving the mouse up or down. When autoscroll is activated, the mouse cursor changes to this: For those who use their middle button for other uses and can not control the behavior via their mouse software (more on this shortly), the autoscrolling can be chnaged in most all versions of…

Here’s an interesting feature that was planned for Firefox 3.6, but not all the kinks have been worked out so it is disabled by default. The idea behind this feature is if you have already scrolled through a page a couple times before you are more than likely looking for something in particular or trying to reach a particular part of the page. By default, the scroll speed via the mouse wheel is the same no matter how many times before you have successively scroll through the page prior. This tweak will allow you to set a minimum number of…

With the release of Firefox 3.6 earlier this month Mozilla will be ending support for both Firefox 3 and Firefox 3.5 soon. While I have not seen anything official, Firefox 3 support will likely end with the release of Firefox 3.0.18 on February 16th. Mozilla has indicated on the Firefox 3.5 download page that support will end in August 2010 (which is about the time Firefox 3.7/4.0 could be released).

In the early days of development of Firefox 3.1/3.5 there was a planned ‘Tab Preview’ feature for displaying thumbnails when switching between tabs similar to the Windows Vista/7 Alt+Tab interface. For whatever reason this feature ended up being scrapped from the final Firefox 3.5 release in June 2009. This feature has been included in Firefox 3.6, but most users don’t know it is even there. Good reason too, it is disabled by default. To enable the Tab Preview feature: In a new tab type about:config in the address bar Filter for browser.ctrlTab.previews Double-click the entry to set the value to…