Hidden Preferences

Settings your grandmother wouldn’t approve of.

Camino’s interface is designed to be simple, with easy access to the most useful options. However, you might want to gain more control over your browser behavior.

This page only lists hidden preferences we think are useful to Camino users. For more esoteric hidden preferences, visit this MozillaZine Knowledge Base article, containing the most extensive list of preferences for Mozilla-based applications. Not all of the preferences listed there apply to Camino, however, and many can cause Camino to malfunction.

This page contains a list of “hidden” preferences which can be activated by adding a plain text file called user.js to your Camino profile folder (in your home folder ~/Library/Application Support/Camino). If you use TextEdit, create a new document and choose Make Plain Text from the Format menu to ensure the file will be saved as plain text. Camino should not be running when you edit this file.

Hidden Preferences

 

Disable Bookmark Icons

You can disable the display of “favicons” (a.k.a. site icons) by adding the following code to your user.js file:

// Disable Bookmark Icons
user_pref("browser.chrome.favicons", false);

Note that after setting this preference, you will also have to remove Camino’s site icon cache to prevent the display of already-stored icons. The site icon cache is located in in your home folder’s ~/Library/Caches/Camino/IconCache folder.

Tweak “single-window mode” behavior

Camino includes support for forcing links that would open in new windows to open in new tabs instead (“single-window mode”). The Links that would open new windows option in the Tabs preference pane only enables a limited portion of this feature. When activated, this feature applies to links with targets and links opened by JavaScript that do not specify changes to the new window. To adjust this behavior, add the following code to your user.js file:

// make all JavaScript links obey the single-window mode pref:
user_pref("browser.link.open_newwindow.restriction", 0);

The default behavior also makes pages open in a new tab instead of reusing the current tab. To adjust this behavior, add the following code to your user.js file:

// make single-window mode reuse the same tab instead of opening new tabs
user_pref("browser.link.open_newwindow", 1);

By default, pages opened by clicking on a link without any modifier keys, including pages that “single-window mode” opens in new tabs instead of new windows, always open in the foreground. To make pages that “single-window mode” opens in new tabs always open in background tabs instead of becoming the active tab, add the following code to your user.js file:

// make single-window mode links always open in the background
user_pref("browser.tabs.loadDivertedInBackground", true);

Note: Changing any of these settings from the Camino defaults may break some websites.

Disable “tab jumpback” behavior

When creating a new foreground tab via cmd-click, forcing links that would open new windows to open in new tabs, or the “Open in New Tab” context menu item, Camino will remember the launching tab such that when the new tab is closed, Camino will return to the launching tab if the user has not manually changed tabs. To disable this behavior, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Disable tab jumpback
user_pref("camino.enable_tabjumpback", false);

Allow links from other applications to reuse the current tab or window

Camino only exposes two options for handling links sent to it from other applications, such as email clients, opening new windows or opening new tabs. To have links from other applications reuse the current tab, add the following code to your user.js file:

user_pref("browser.reuse_window", 2);

Note: Changing this setting may cause data loss.

Tweak Find-As-You-Type

Find-As-You-Type has a few hidden preferences that can be changed to better fit your needs. Add the following code to your user.js file:

// Find-As-You-Type configuration:
// Set this pref to false to disable Find-As-You-Type:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind", true);

// If you set this pref to true, typing can automatically start Find-As-You-Type.
// If false (default), you must hit / (find text) or ' (find links) before your search.
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.autostart", true);

// Set this pref to false if you want Find-As-You-Type to search text and links:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.linksonly", true);

// Set this pref to true if you require that the link starts with the entered text:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.startlinksonly", false);

// This is the time in milliseconds for the Find-As-You-Type to stop watching for keystrokes:
user_pref("accessibility.typeaheadfind.timeout", 3000);

For information about Find-As-You-Type, read its documentation.

Prevent delete from navigating to the previous page in History

Camino emulates other browsers and allows the delete key to act as the Back command when the focus is not in a text field. To make delete only delete text, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Make delete only delete text!
user_pref("browser.backspace_action", 2);

Enable Search from the Location Bar

When you enter an incorrect URL, Camino will display an error page. However, some users prefer for Camino to search (using the default search engine) for what they incorrectly entered. This can be done by adding the following code to your user.js file:

// Enable Location Bar Search.
user_pref("keyword.enabled", true);

To change the search engine used by this preference, modify the value of the keyword.URL preference.

You can also search from the location bar using bookmark shortcuts. For information on bookmark shortcuts, see the Bookmarks documentation.

Disable image loading

People using a dialup internet connection might not want images to load due to the costs. To stop images from loading, add the following code to your user.js file:

user_pref("permissions.default.image", 2);

Note that more options are available: 1=accept all images, 2=block all images, 3=block images from third party hosts.

For information about image blocking and permissions, read the MozillaZine Knowledge Base documentation.

Disable all plug-ins

Some users like to disable all plug-in content and only enable plug-ins when on a page will not work without a plug-in. To disable all plug-ins, add the following code to your user.js file:

user_pref("camino.enable_plugins", false);

Note that changes to this setting will only have an effect on new windows created after making the change.

You probably find the blinking above annoying. To stop it, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Put an end to blinking text!
user_pref("browser.blink_allowed", false);

Force frames to be resizable

Many sites use frames to display their contents, and sometimes the frames are too small. To force all frames to be resizable, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Force frames to be resizable
user_pref("layout.frames.force_resizability", true);

Note that this will also make the frames appear with a fixed-width border and thus may make the pages look funny.

Delete all cookies when quitting

By default Camino keeps a cookie for as long as the site tells Camino to keep it. If you add the code below to your user.js file, Camino will automatically accept all cookies and then delete them when you quit Camino. Note: this does not apply to cookies you have already accepted or to sites present in the Exceptions List in the Privacy preference pane.

// Expire all new cookies on quit
user_pref("network.cookie.lifetimePolicy", 2);

For information about this preference, read the MozillaZine Knowledge Base documentation.

How can Camino pretend to be another browser (by “spoofing” the user-agent string)?

Some websites have a “browser check” which allows them to only let certain browsers enter a website. In most cases Camino is perfectly capable of entering the websites and displaying them properly and would do so without any problems if the sites did not implement their browser checking poorly. This poor browser detection can sometimes be worked around by changing, or “spoofing,” the user-agent string that Camino reports to websites. Changing the user-agent string is also dangerous and will break many sites, and in some cases it may cause sites to ignore Camino because the site’s owners cannot tell that they are getting any visitors using Camino.

For those reasons, the Camino Project recommends against user-agent spoofing. If you feel you must spoof the user-agent string to access a site, there are third-party utilities that allow you to do this. Make sure you change the user-agent string back to Camino when you are done visiting the site, and consider complaining to the site’s webmaster or filing a Tech Evangelism bug against the site.

Override automatic accept-language determination

Some web servers can send content in multiple languages, and Camino automatically determines which languages to tell a server you understand by reading the list of languages in the International pane of the System Preferences. In some cases you may wish to specify the languages manually (for instance, when you cannot put your preferred language at the top of the list in the System Preferences due to Mac OS X bugs). To set the accept-language header manually, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Manually specify the accept-language header
user_pref("camino.accept_languages", "nb,nn,no,en");

List the languages in the order in which you’d prefer them if a server can send content in multiple languages; in this example, you want Bokmål first, then Nynorsk, then generic Norwegian, then English if none of the other three languages are available.

Prevent each download from focusing the Downloads window

When a download begins, Camino will bring the Downloads window to the front if the window is already open. To allow the Downloads window to remain in the background when a new download begins, add the following code to your user.js file:

// Only bring the Downloads window to the front when opening it
user_pref("browser.download.progressDnldDialog.bringToFront", false);

View web page source in tabs

By default Camino opens a new window when viewing the source of web pages even when tabbed browsing is enabled. To have the page source appear in a new tab in the current window, add the following code to your user.js file:

user_pref("camino.viewsource_in_tab", true);

Wrap long lines in source view

When viewing the source of some pages you might have a horizontal scrollbar because the HTML document contains very long lines. To stop this from happening, add the following code to your user.js file:

user_pref("view_source.wrap_long_lines", true);

Disable the dotted focus ring that appears when clicking on a link

When clicking a link (text and images), a dotted ring appears around it. (Note that this feature is needed when using full keyboard access.)

user_pref("browser.display.focus_ring_width", 0);

Disable automatic resizing of large images

When an image is displayed directly (not in a web page) and the image is too large to fit in the browser window, Camino will automatically scale the image down to fit in the window. Clicking on the image will toggle the image between actual size and scaled size. To disable automatic image resizing and force image always to be displayed in their full sizes, add the following line to your user.js file:

user_pref("browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing", false);

Log JavaScript and CSS errors to the Console

Camino can create a log of JavaScript and CSS errors it encounters in web pages. By default Camino will not perform any logging, but you can have Camino log these errors to your Console.log by adding the following line to your user.js file:

// Enable logging of JS and CSS errors to the Console
user_pref("chimera.log_js_to_console", true);

Navigate web pages using the cursor (caret)

Gecko-based browsers have a feature called “caret browsing” that allows you to move about on web pages using only the arrow keys, by moving a cursor around like in word processing documents. You can enable this browsing mode in Camino by adding the following line to your user.js file:

// Enable caret browsing
user_pref("accessibility.browsewithcaret", true);

Disable spell-checking in web page text fields

Some users have expressed a dislike for the spell-checking feature in web page text fields in Camino. You can disable spell-checking in these text fields by adding the following line to your user.js file:

// Disable spell-checking
user_pref("layout.spellcheckDefault", 0);

For information about this preference, read the MozillaZine Knowledge Base documentation. If Mac OS X does not include a spelling dictionary for your preferred language, see our FAQ for information on adding a dictionary for your language.

Disable Quartz font smoothing

On Mac OS X it is possible to give fonts a smooth edge instead of the rough, pixelated edge you see on Windows. By default this is turned on in Camino. You can stop this by adding the following line to your user.js file:

// Control font smoothing
user_pref("browser.quartz.enable.all_font_sizes", false);

Disable Bonjour

Camino supports discovery of websites and other Camino bookmarks using Apple’s Bonjour technology and lists any sites or bookmarks it finds in the Bookmarks menu and the Bookmarks Manager. You can stop this by adding the following line to your user.js file:

// Disable Bonjour support
user_pref("camino.disable_bonjour", true);

Complete URLs “inline”

When Camino completes a URL you are typing from History, it only does so when you arrow downward to select the URL. You can make Camino complete the URL “inline” like Safari by opening Terminal and entering the following command, all on one line:

defaults write org.mozilla.camino "Autocomplete While Typing" -bool YES

Note: Unlike the other hidden preferences on this page, you do not edit the user.js file to enable this preference. You should use the terminal command above, and Camino should not be running when you enter the command.

Hide the status bar

Camino provides useful information about links and loading progress in a bar at the bottom of the browser window. Some users like to hide this information and lose the ability to use the bottom scroll arrow in return for slightly more space for displaying web pages. You can make Camino hide the status bar by opening Terminal and entering the following command, all on one line:

defaults write org.mozilla.camino "Hide Status Bar" -bool YES

Note: Unlike the other hidden preferences on this page, you do not edit the user.js file to enable this preference. You should use the terminal command above, and Camino should not be running when you enter the command.

Launch Camino using a custom profile location

By default Camino uses ~/Library/Application Support/Camino to store its preferences and other profile data. For some specialized purposes, such as running multiple copies of Camino at the same time using different profiles, it might be useful have Camino use a custom profile location. To run a copy of Camino with a profile in a custom location, open Terminal and enter the following command, all on one line, replacing ~/Documents/MyTestProfile with the path to your desired profile:

export CAMINO_PROFILE_DIR=~/Documents/MyTestProfile; open Camino.app

Note: Unlike the other hidden preferences on this page, you do not edit the user.js file to enable this preference. You should use the terminal command above.

Other Documents

If there are any questions, tutorials, or preferences that would be helpful if they were explained in these pages, don’t hesitate to contact us, and we will add them as necessary.