 If you've filed the channel for any amount of time, you know that I've been on a browser journey over the last three years. And really the way it goes is this, I used Firefox for a while, I guess sick of Firefox, I switched to something else, I guess sick of what I switched to, I go back to Firefox, rinse and repeat. It's basically I go to something else, I always return to Firefox. Now there are a few reasons for this and we don't really need to get into them, but the primary one is that I like customization, I prefer to use an open source browser and for the most part, Firefox is the best open source browser because it has actual extension support, it doesn't have crypto nonsense. So it's actually really good. So if you are a Firefox user like I am, and perhaps you're the type of person who actually doesn't ever switch away or maybe you're new to the Firefox experience, what I wanted to talk about today is 10 things you can do to make Firefox better. So I'm not necessarily saying faster, mind you. I'm just saying better. So let's go ahead and jump in. Okay, so the first thing that you can do to make Firefox better is more of a superficial thing. And that is to enable user Chrome.css. Now, this is a process that I'm not going to get into how you should do this because I actually already have a video on how to do this. But basically what user Chrome CSS does is allows you to customize the Chrome around Firefox, specifically things like the URL bar and the bookmarks bar. And you can see what I've done is made it kind of look completely different than what you'd expect Firefox to look. I have this single bar along the top that has the URL bar and the tabs and on the side I have my bookmarks. You can do many different things. And like I said, I already have a video on how to do this. So I will link that in the cards above me somewhere and in the video description if I remember. But you can do it. It takes maybe five minutes to actually enable this feature and set it up because it's just a matter of copying somebody else's CSS and putting in there. Or if you want to get into the rabbit hole, you can do it yourself. But there's a really cool cheat sheet on how to do basically everything. So the next one is that you should enable tab groups. Now tab groups are something that, again, I've covered on the channel before and I will again link that video above. But there is a plugin that you can use that looks like this and will allow you to create tab groups. So like you can, as you can see, I have several tabs open, like many, many tabs and they're all in groups so I can switch to whatever group I want to and it will enable me to keep some of my stuff separate so that I don't just have 30 different tabs all open in the same window. And what's great about this is that this plugin will actually back itself up once week. So if you are the type of person and I've become this person that just keeps tabs open forever and ever. I just, I have an ideas group that has tabs in it that have been there for months. Like their ideas for videos, I just keep them there. It's easier than taking a note for some reason. I don't know why, but it's just the way I've started to do things. But the point is, is that this thing will back itself up and then will allow you to transfer it to other computers if you want to, because those tabs will sync to different computers if you use a Mozilla account. But the groups won't sync. So you can set up some kind of Samba share if you want to do something like that and share those backups if you want to do that. So I love the grouping simply because it does allow me to keep multiple tabs open or many tabs open and still seem somewhat organized. The next one is that you should use a dark reader type plugins. So the one that I'm going to suggest is one that's actually called dark reader. And basically what this does is it turns every website that you visit into a website that has dark mode. So by default, OMG Ubuntu does not have dark mode. It should have dark mode because seriously, this looks fantastic. But this is what it looks like with dark mode. Now this is what it looks like usually. And this is what it looks like with the dark reader enabled. Honestly, I think every website should have a dark mode. And because that's not the case, this plugin will allow you to do that. And again, I will link this in the video description so you can check it out. Okay, so the next one is one that is probably already enabled for you. But I think you should definitely check. And that is to enable your spell checker. So for the longest time, it wasn't something that browsers actually built in. They relied on the operating system to provide a spell checker. But now Firefox provides a spell checker. And I think they have for quite a while. But like I said, you'll want to go into settings about colon preferences. And you'll want to scroll down on the general tab and just make sure that this right here is checked by default. Sometimes it is for me, sometimes it isn't. And I'm not sure why. I think it is default for most other people for whatever reason it goes back and forth for me. But the point is that you can enable it here. And if you speak multiple languages or you type in multiple languages, you can also set up so that it will allow you to have your spelling checked from multiple languages. So if you speak Spanish or German or whatever else you speak other than English or whatever, you can go in here and make sure that all of the dictionaries are being checked as you type. So the next one on the list is that you should turn off sponsored nonsense. So I call it sponsored nonsense because it's actually multiple different places. So what you need to do in order to do this is go into privacy and security here and scroll all the way to about the middle of the page. And you'll see these two boxes right here. So you'll see suggestions from sponsors and improve Firefox suggest experience. But both of these are on by default. You want to turn those off. And that will keep Firefox from sending you basically ads in your search results up here in the bar. So you want to do that. You'll also want to go to the general back up here again at the top and turn off recommend extensions as you browse and recommend features as you browse. I don't know if those will be done by different or not. I don't actually remember turning these off. But the point is that if they are on you'll want to uncheck, make sure they're checked off. Otherwise Firefox will occasionally give you extension suggestions as you browse. I don't like them doing that. So I turn them off. The next one on the list is actually something that is right here. And again, I'm not sure if this is on by default or not, but you'll want to make sure you smooth scrolling should be checked on. That'll make sure as you scroll that it's a smooth experience. It just makes it nicer to scroll around pages without seeing jumpy. Okay, so the next one is one that is going to be a little weird because it's going to kind of go against the whole privacy aspect. But I do highly recommend going in to your Firefox and setting up a Mozilla account. And the reason why I suggest this is because it allows you to sync certain things. Now, by default it syncs everything and I don't particularly like that. But being able to sync bookmarks, open tabs, add-ons and the settings makes it easier to set up Firefox one time and then use that same setup on multiple computers. So I have those four things enabled. You can obviously enable all the things as well. I turn off the history. I turn off the login and passwords. I turn off the addresses and I turn off the credit cards because never have them save any of those things anyways. But this way I can have these things that I do care about syncing, actually sync across different platforms. Now, the thing is that this is not a necessity for me, but I do use it just because I do like that convenience of having my setup on multiple different computers. So the next one is something that is basically enabling a feature that Firefox has taken out. So for many years when you clicked customize toolbar here and then you clicked density, you'd have the option of a compact mode. If you open up yours now without actually enabling that now, you only get normal and touch which are huge mungus. So I don't particularly like that Firefox has just these two that just take up so many different spaces. So if you want the compact mode, which it looks like this enabled, you open up a new tab, like so you do go to about colon config. I know it's a little hard to read. This theme does not do a very good job of contrast on the font, but that's okay. And you may get a warning saying, hey, are you sure you want to go into this? Just go ahead and hit click yes. And then you want to search for compact. The result you're looking for should be the very first one. It'll be false by default. Just hit this button over here and it'll turn true. And then you can go back to customize toolbar and you'll see compact as an option. Now the next one on the list is one that is probably mostly for just keyboard enthusiasts or tiling window manager users, because a lot of people use alt as your super key or you have a lot of key bonnings that are using the alt key. And by default, if you press the alt key, and it's not going to do it for me because I've turned it off. By default, if you press the alt key, the file menu comes up here at the top. So if you go back to the advanced preferences thing that we were just at about colon config and you type in menu, you'll get a whole bunch of results. But the one you're looking for is UI key menu access key focuses. Great name. But by default, this is true. So if we turn that true and we hit alt, you'll see that the menu comes up here by default. It's really knowing if you're never going to use that and you want to be able to use the alt key with key bindings other than, you know, in Firefox. So you just want to make sure the UI key menu key menu access key focuses. Hard to say. This one right here is turned to false. And then if you press alt, that menu won't come up. Okay. So the last one is also in the settings. So about corn preferences. And this one here is in privacy and security here along the side. So you want to click privacy and security scroll almost all the way to the bottom. And you'll want to see this section here. That's called Firefox data collection and use. Now, if you don't mind telemetry at all, that's fine. You can just leave this section as is. But if you don't want Firefox to collect things about you at all, unclick all three boxes and it will keep them from collecting any data and sending it back to Mozilla. Now, I believe that most of the stuff they send, if not all the stuff they send is going to be anonymized. So it's not that big of a deal. But if you're not interested in telemetry, Firefox enables these things by default. So go into this, change it, turn those things off, and you won't be enrolled in their program anymore. They will also delete your data after 30 days. So those are the tips to make Firefox better. I'm sure that there's many more that I could have covered. And if you Google how to make Firefox faster, you'll find many different tips. I'm not sure if any of those actually work or not. I've never tried any of those tips because frankly, Firefox is fast enough for me. It does seem to have developed quite a memory leak, but then I do have multiple, many millions of tabs open. So that's probably more of the problem that I'm experiencing. Though I did have one tab that was taking up eight gigabytes of RAM yesterday, which is just absolutely bonkers. But that's beside the point. So if you have other tips that you can give people that make Firefox better, you can leave those in the comment section below. If you have questions, you can leave comments down in the comment section below. You can follow me on Twitter and master down those links will be in the video description. You can support me on Patreon at patreon.patreon.com. I'd like to thank my current patrons, Robert, Sid, Devon, Patrick, Fred, Kramer, Megalyn, Jackson, even tools, D-Vay, Sebrega Linux, Gary, Saint El KB, TGB, Keith, Annie, Uncle Bonehead, TriDevil, Gary, Mitchell, J-Dog, Carbon Day, DeGeneres, Sean, Odin, Marni, Ross, Eduardo, ArcCenter, Elliott, Merritt, Cam Joshly, Peteray, CrucibleDark, Benes, Experiments, and PM. Thanks everybody for watching. I'll see you next time.