10 Hacks Every Firefox User Should Know

I’ve used Firefox as my default browser for over two decades now, and in that time I’ve learned a thing or two about getting the most out of its many features. There are some features enabled by default that I would recommend turning off, as well as some simple tweaks you can make that will significantly improve your privacy and security. Here are all the Firefox hacks I use to improve my browsing experience, so you can try them yourself.

Really personalize your home screen

Firefox displays the Firefox home screen by default every time you open a new tab. There’s nothing particularly wrong with this, but it comes with unnecessary sponsored content, which you can get rid of. To do this, go to Firefox Settings, clicking the three-line icon in the upper right corner of an open Firefox window and selecting Settings. Now click on the Home in the left pane and scroll to Firefox Home Content. Disable Firefox support to remove sponsored content and add delete Shortcuts if you prefer a cleaner look to quick links to frequently visited sites. My home screen just Web Search enabled, which looks good with a nice wallpaper.

Use the built-in task manager

Credit: Pranay Parab

If your Firefox is slow or unresponsive, you can use the built-in task manager to identify which tabs or extensions are causing the slowdown. This feature is also great for periodically monitoring browser performance. You can access it by clicking on the three-line icon at the top right and going to More tools > Task Manager. Alternatively, you can open Firefox and press Shift-Escapeor type about:process in the address bar.

Once the Task Manager is open, you can use it just like you would use the Task Manager on your PC or Mac. It allows you to quickly close unresponsive tabs, disable all extensions at once, and also monitor RAM and CPU usage.

You can open any web page in Firefox and use the built-in screenshot tool to take a quick photo of the web page you’re on. This is the fastest way to take a screenshot of an entire page without showing the rest of your screen, or to capture just a small section of a web page. Simply right-click anywhere on a web page and select Take a screenshot. You will see the two options (capture a selected part of the page or the entire page) and you can choose one to take a quick screenshot.

Disable unwanted AI features

Like every other app in the world, Firefox added AI features to the browser that I never asked for. One of them appears in the context menu, so you can easily delete it. Right-click on any web page and in the Ask the AI ​​chatbot section, select Remove AI chatbot to get rid of this feature. You can also go to Firefox Settings > General > Tabs and deactivate Use AI to suggest tabs and name for tab groups.

Stop Firefox Collecting Data (and Generally Protect Your Privacy)

Credit: Pranay Parab

Unfortunately, Firefox collects a lot of data about your browsing habits by default, and I highly recommend turning this feature off to improve your privacy. Go to Firefox Settings > Privacy & Security > Firefox Data Collectionand disable all options in this section.

While you’re at it, let’s prevent non-Firefox people from seeing your browsing data as well. Firefox may automatically switch to a more secure HTTPS page if you accidentally open an unencrypted HTTP link (these are mostly phased out, but you might stumble upon them from time to time). Below Firefox Settings > Privacy & Security > HTTPS Only Modesimply activate Enable HTTPS only mode in all windows. The browser will take care of the rest.

You can also further encrypt your web traffic by enabling DNS over HTTPSwhich is below the option I just mentioned. On the same page, in the section titled Enable DNS over HTTPS using:scroll down a little and choose Increased protection Or Maximum protection (Maximum protection is a bit stricter, but can break some websites, so I only recommend it to experienced users). The default DNS provider is Cloudflare, but you can also use NextDNS or custom DNS if you want. This feature makes it more difficult for third parties to see which sites you visit.

For even more privacy, try the advanced settings of about:config.

Don’t let sites use your location

Every time I visit a website these days, I feel like I’m bombarded with permission pop-ups asking if they can send me notifications, use my location, and who knows what else. Firefox lets you easily disable most of them. Go to Firefox Settings > Privacy & Security > Permissions. Click Location and select Block new requests for access to your location. While you are there, you can click on the available options and activate other blocks as well. You can use them to block notification requests and automatic video playback. Some sites may still use special tricks to bypass autoplay blocks, but it doesn’t hurt to make them work.

Install a few good extensions (but don’t overdo it)

Credit: Pranay Parab

A Firefox installation simply isn’t complete without a few good browser extensions. I keep seeing fun new extensions that I want to install, but having too many can slow down your browser. So it’s best to install a few good ones and remove all redundant extensions. To find out where to start, check out my list of the best Firefox extensions.

Use a good ad blocker

There are many pros and some cons to using an ad blocker, but it’s a recommended tool these days, both to protect your privacy and to protect you from scams. A good ad blocker will remove junk from web pages, block trackers and speed up browsing. I’ve been using uBlock Origin for a decade now, and it’s still the one I recommend the most to anyone who asks. Once the extension is installed, you need to change a few advanced uBlock Origin settings to get the most out of it.

Consider using vertical tabs

It’s a bit of a controversial approach, but it works for me, so there you go: vertical tabs are better than horizontal tabs. I really like my browser window to take up as much space as possible, and using horizontal tabs goes against that idea. Once I switched to vertical tabs, my browser window started looking much cleaner. On my Mac, I always use horizontal tabs, but that’s because I keep the dock on the left side of the screen. On my Windows PC, however, the vertical tabs look much nicer. If you want to try making the change, go to Firefox Settings > General > Browser Layout. Take Vertical tabs and enjoy it.

Try Firefox Labs to see what the future looks like

No, this is not a time travel trick. Firefox Labs is where the browser releases new experimental features before making them public (or curating them). If you’re ready to play the role of guinea pig, Firefox Labs is your chance to try out these experimental features without downloading the full beta version of the browser. You can enable these features by going to Firefox Settings > Firefox Labs.