Taming the 14th Fox again: the correct default settings

After upgrading to Firefox 14 (Windows), a good impression of the improvements was replaced by confusion, and then by awareness of the problem: the prefs.js settings file in defaults \ pref, which previously worked with all versions from 4th to 13th, stopped loading. A variety of experiments were made - and all was unsuccessful: antiphishing, auto-update, and other bad taste signs were turned on.

I search the string “defaults” for all files, there are a lot of files, but first attention falls on xul.dll. I open it in Olly, looking for the same. And now - I see curious details.

... 100196C2 MOV ECX,xul.10BE1CF0 ASCII "greprefs.js" 100196D5 PUSH xul.10BE1CFC ASCII "defaults/pref/*.js$" 10019744 PUSH xul.10BB0D28 ASCII "PrfDef" 10019799 PUSH xul.10BE1D10 ASCII "defaults/preferences/*.js$" 10019849 PUSH xul.10BB0EF4 ASCII "PrefDL" ... 

and another:

 1073043C MOV EDI,xul.10BE1B94 ASCII "defaults/preferences/*.(J|j)(S|s)$" 

I try to create preferences directory in defaults and move my prefs.js there. Running ... there are! All settings are in place. So: our js configuration file should be in Mozilla Firefox \ defaults \ preferences . It is curious that defaults \ pref in the distribution kit is still there, but it seems that channel-prefs.js does not work there. But not the essence, left as is. Then I looked in Linux - it turns out that there already is a preferences directory (not prefs) in defaults already in the 10th Fox! Here is the answer to the question of why Mozilla is breaking (already for the 2nd time) the usual, well-established order of things - for the sake of unity of the layout under different platforms.

And here is my settings file, created on the basis of well-known recommendations, their critics and my own research. And yes, I use the imglikeopera plugin against ads, some of the appropriate settings are for it.

 # Mozilla User Preferences pref("browser.shell.checkDefaultBrowser", false); pref("app.update.enabled", false); pref("browser.cache.memory.max_entry_size", 4096); pref("browser.display.show_image_placeholders", false); pref("browser.download.useDownloadDir", false); pref("browser.feeds.showFirstRunUI", false); pref("browser.places.importBookmarksHTML", false); pref("browser.rights.3.shown", true); pref("browser.safebrowsing.enabled", false); pref("browser.safebrowsing.malware.enabled", false); pref("browser.search.update", false); pref("browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers", 1); pref("browser.startup.page", 0); pref("browser.tabs.animate", false); pref("config.trim_on_minimize", true); pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5); pref("extensions.shownSelectionUI", true); pref("extensions.update.enabled", false); pref("extensions.update.notifyUser", false); pref("extensions.pendingOperations", false); pref("toolkit.telemetry.prompted", true); pref("gfx.direct2d.force-enabled", true); pref("layers.acceleration.force-enabled", true); pref("imglikeopera.default.policy", 1); pref("imglikeopera.experimental.options", true); pref("imglikeopera.expiration.time", 604800); pref("imglikeopera.flash.block", true); pref("imglikeopera.policy.patterns", "yandex.net/ 1 yandex.st/lego/ 1 "); pref("imglikeopera.policy.switchModes", "1,2"); pref("intl.charsetmenu.browser.cache", "windows-1251, UTF-8"); pref("network.cookie.prefsMigrated", true); pref("network.dns.disableIPv6", true); pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8); pref("network.http.pipelining", true); pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true); pref("privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs", true); pref("privacy.sanitize.timeSpan", 0); pref("security.warn_entering_weak", false); pref("security.warn_viewing_mixed", false); pref("ui.submenuDelay", 0);