Automating Firefox configuration settings

Question

Hi All,

During web development work, I need to be able to quickly switch various config settings in Firefox. In particular I need to be able to:

1) Switch off cookies 2) Switch off javascript 3) Switch my user agent (I have the user-agent switcher add-on installed)

and then back again.

Instead of doing this manually, it would be great if i could add a "macro" button to my toolbar that I could simply click to toggle the three settings above.

Anyone know if this is possible?

Btw - Firefox Profiles doesn't really cut it. You can't dynamically switch profiles within a specific Firefox instance, which I need to be able to do.

Btw2 - I got excited when i saw Greasemonkey, Chicken Foot, but it looks like these can only automate browsing/DOM tasks, and not with firefox configuration settings.

Thanks Richard.

Answer 1

There are other add-ons that I think will get all the functionality you're looking for (albeit, not all in one tool).

1. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2497
2. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6527
3. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/59

If you wanted to extend the functionality of any of these Add-ons, XPI files are just .zip files with a different extension. You can rename them and unpack them and find out how they do what they do, extending them, install your own customized version, etc.

Answer 2

The web-developer toolbar will do all the things you requested except switching the user-agent string, which can be accomplished through the UA switcher addon you already use. However it can't be macroed as far as I know, but it can be accomplished with a few mouse click.

Answer 3

Try iMacros.

From their site: "Whatever you do with Firefox, iMacros can automate it."

Answer 4

Because of your requirements, it'd probably best for you to make a simple add-on yourself. You could even have it add a button that goes back and forth between things.

You can disable cookies by setting the preference "network.cookie.cookieBehavior" to 2, you can turn off JavaScript by setting the preference "javascript.enabled" to false, and you can modify the user agent by changing the preference "general.useragent.extra.firefox".

To do these things, you'll need to use the preference API, which is documented here.