This is why I use nixos so I can easily deploy a configured firefox quickly
How does nixos solve Firefox configuration on MacOS and Windows? :-) I use all 3 OSes daily.
Readit Newsbxparks commented on Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features macrumors.com/2026/02/02/... · Posted by u/stalfosknight
bxparks commented on Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features macrumors.com/2026/02/02/... · Posted by u/stalfosknight
Is this just a matter of preference or is it something else?
"Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab""
I guess personal preference?
Image preview is slightly slower and has noticeable latency, compared to the text popup that is almost instantaneous.
And it is more visually distracting. I hate UI features that interfere with my workflow. I hate most UI animations. I turned animations off on my Android phone, and now the thing just flies.
bxparks commented on Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features macrumors.com/2026/02/02/... · Posted by u/stalfosknight
Or you could just use user.js and not have to change every setting manually each time you start from scratch.
Did not know about 'user.js', thanks! I guess creating a document that lists all my overrides was the first step. Now I have to figure out how to create a user.js that works on Linux, Macos, Windows, and maybe Android?
bxparks commented on Firefox Getting New Controls to Turn Off AI Features macrumors.com/2026/02/02/... · Posted by u/stalfosknight
I keep meaning to make a guide "how to make firefox not suck" but I never get around to it.
It's a great browser, but I always forget the default settings are super stupid. Myself and power users all have it customized to the hilt.
It takes some serious work to get a new new FireFox install working nicely.
No kidding. I had to create a Google Doc document to remember all the little things that I have to clobber in Firefox to make it behave reasonably. Here is an excerpt of how I clobber the defaults:
- Enable pixel-perfect smooth scrolling (Linux): MOZ_USE_XINPUT2=1 (why do we still have to do this??)
- Enable: Ctrl-Tab cycles through recent used order
- Disable: "Show an image preview when you hover on a tab"
- Disable: "Use AI to suggest tabs and a name for tab group"
- Disable: "Enable Picture-in-Picture video controls"
- Disable: "Control media via keyboard, headset, or virtual interface"
- Disable: "Recommend extensions as you browse"
- Disable: "Recommend features as you browse"
- Disable: "Enable link previews"
- Homepage and new windows: Blank page
- New tabs: Blank page
- Disable: Web Search
- Disable: Weather
- Disable: Shortcuts
- Disable: Recommended stories
- Disable: Support Firefox
- Disable: "Save and autofill payment info"
- Disable: "Save and autofill addresses"
- Disable: "Ask to save passwords"
- Locations: Select "Block new requests asking to access your location"
- Notification: Select "Block new requests asking to allow notifications"
- Autoplay: Select "Block Audio and Video"
- Virtual Reality: Select "Block new requests asking to access your virtual reality devices"
- Default Search engine: DuckDuckGo
- Disable "Suggest search engines to use"
- Disable "Quick actions"
- Disable "Suggestions from Firefox"
- Disable: "Title Bar"
- Default Zoom: 110%, 120%, depending on the laptop
And I install the following extensions:
- uBlock Origin
- Privacy Badger
- Facebook Container
- Firefox Multi-account ContainerI have never, in my 40 years of life, had an alkaline battery leak and destroy something. I'm aware that it can happen, but in practice it doesn't happen very often.
I don't know what to tell you. I'm older than you. I've seen it happen 20-30 times in my life. I've seen batteries leak in flashlights, clock radios (the backup battery), wall clocks, calculators, cameras, remote controls, thermostats, wireless mouse, and so on.
A few years ago, I had an unopened pack of 8xAA Duracell alkalines. They had expiration dates on them, and had 2-3 years left. Two of the batteries were leaking in the pack.
Over the past 15 years, I have gradually migrated almost everything to NiMH. I don't see leaking batteries anymore in my house. But go to a thrift store, e.g. Goodwill, and open up the battery compartments of things. Many of them will have been destroyed by the leaking batteries.
There are a handful of applications where alkalines are better. IR TV remotes run effectively forever on a couple of batteries and the slow self discharge on the alkalines makes them ideal for the task.
Great in theory.
In practice, the Duracell alkaline battery will leak caustic fluids inside the remote control and destroy it, and you will have to mortgage your house to buy a replacement on eBay, if it's even available. (I pick on Duracell because they are the worst. They leak if you look at them wrong, when they are brand new, inside the original packaging, before their "expiration date". But all alkalines are bad.)
All my remotes get NiMH batteries, no matter what. I don't care if one charge cycle lasts 10 years. It's cheaper than having the battery destroy the remote.
I believe I have zero Alkaline batteries left in my house and I'm relatively surprised that pretty much everything works fine. If anything, I suspect the only problem is that some devices have an inaccurate account of how dead the batteries are. But I use Eneloops on everything, even things surely not designed at all to run on them. (And I reckon you could probably make more devices work if you really wanted to; adding an additional cell or two in series would surely give you a voltage that's in range, if you can figure out a good way to do it.)
Of course not all rechargable batteries are the same; there are a few different rechargable battery chemistries in the AA form factor. I like Eneloop Pros, though; they've been very reliable for me. I've been using them for years and I've never had to throw one out yet; supposedly they last over a thousand cycles with most of their capacity.
Three things prevent me from eliminating all alkalines:
* smoke and CO detectors with low-battery voltage sensors calibrated to alkaline
* some older electronics (e.g. multimeters) using 9V batteries
* my non-contact voltage tester refuses to turn on using NiMH, for safety reasons presumably
bxparks commented on Mecha Comet – Open Modular Linux Handheld Computer mecha.so/comet... · Posted by u/Realman78
Ah, sorry, that's on me; some of the links are still not active. (It's been a mad week!)
Could you tell me which section it was? I'll fix it
Any chance you can prevent the left hand navigation floating widget of 10 bubbles (no idea what it's called) from rendering on top of the actual content? It obscures the text that I want to read, very irritating. [Edit: I see, it works at 100%. But my default zoom is 110% or 120%. Zooming seems to break your layout.]
You have to imagine a world without gestural control, and without the bandwidth or memory for high resolution content worth zooming in on, or the processing power to smoothly scale in real time.
Haha, so a trackpoint is the best thing ever, better than any trackpad, if you are stuck in the year 1992.