Firefox’s hidden settings menu

This article first appeared on November 29th, 2012.

Today’s tech trick is a little like knowing where the security exits are in a cinema. Hopefully, it’s a piece of knowledge you never need, but in case things go really badly awry, it’s handy thing to know.

If you use Firefox, you will probably be familiar with the settings menu – in the Windows version, you’ll find it by clicking Tools, then Options.

However, Firefox has another hidden settings menu. You reach it by typing “about:config” in the navigation toolbar where you’d normally type the website you want to visit.

If you do it correctly, you’ll get a warning screen that says “Here be dragons!” They’re not kidding – you have the potential to do a lot of damage if you don’t know what you’re doing. That said, you now know where it is if you’re ever advised to change something in here by tech support.