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kj_sh604

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Firefox "about:config" Flags That I Like ๐Ÿ”ฅ๐ŸฆŠ

UPDATED [11/17/2024]: added new flags

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This article was originally posted on my ad-free blog. For more content, including extra downloadables and resources, visit my website for more good reads.

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Here are some Firefox about:config flags that I have enabled. Most of these are for hardware video acceleration on Linux and personal "web viewing" preferences. Hope that some of you find them useful as well.

Hardware Video Acceleration for Linux

Option Value
gfx.webrender.all true
gl.require-hardware true
layers.acceleration.force-enabled true
media.av1.enabled false
media.ffmpeg.vaapi.enabled true
media.hardware-video-decoding.enabled true
media.hardware-video-decoding.force-enabled true
media.rdd-ffmpeg.enabled true
media.rdd-ffvpx.enabled true
media.rdd-vpx.enabled false
media.utility-ffmpeg.enabled true
widget.wayland-dmabuf-vaapi.enabled true

The following is specifically for Nvidia Machines using libva-nvidia-driver (from elFarto/nvidia-vaapi-driver)

Option Value Reason
gfx.x11-egl.force-enabled true Required, this driver requires that Firefox use the EGL backend. It may be enabled by default. It is recommended to test it with the MOZ_X11_EGL=1 environment variable before enabling it in the Firefox configuration.
widget.dmabuf.force-enabled true Required on NVIDIA 470 series drivers, and currently REQUIRED on 500+ drivers due to a Firefox change. Note that Firefox isn't coded to allow DMA-BUF support without GBM support, so it may not function completely correctly when it's forced on.

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Compact Mode Interface

Option Value
browser.compactmode.show true

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Faster Content Painting

I prefer web pages to "paint" as early as it can, even if I am going to see some page breakage initially. I don't recommend this if you like good UX.

Option Value Comment
content.notify.backoffcount 5 This can be kept at the default value (-1), but I've just always had it at 5
nglayout.initialpaint.delay_in_oopif 0
nglayout.initialpaint.delay 0

Firefox 130+ Disable Tab Hover Behaviour

Option Value
browser.tabs.hoverPreview.enabled false
browser.tabs.hoverPreview.showThumbnails false

Force System Emoji Font on Linux ๐Ÿ™‚๐Ÿง

Option Value Comment
font.name-list.emoji emoji default value is Twemoji Mozilla
(if things break for some reason)
gfx.font_rendering.fontconfig.max_generic_substitutions 127
gfx.font_rendering.opentype_svg.enabled false

These flags disable the usage of the built-in Twemoji Mozilla Emoji font.

(workaround retrieved from Archwiki - Firefox#Font troubleshooting)

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