Ever wondered what is about:config ?

Ever wondered what is about:config ?
Ever wondered how to change default search engine of your browser ?
source:
http://vinodjayachandran.blogspot.com/
Iam a die hard fan firefox and google. As I simple love google, so do I with chrome too, inspite of many pit falls in it. See certain amazing features of chrome, such as speed dial, frequently visited websites , search from address bar etc, It attracted me more to chrome than firefox. But one of the most annoying part was, chrome used to hang quite often for me. I used to wonder, how firefox, could compromise on such special amazing features.

Although all these computer stuffs interests me as I am a computer science engineer, I am not a geek in it and often my laziness over rules me , which prevents me to explore new things. But fortunately always to my rescue, I have a computer nerd with me for the past 3 yrs.

This friend of mine is a lover of google too, but only difference between me and him is, he knows to use google better. He explored and let me know various Add ons in Firefox, which has just the same and equal functionality of that of chrome. I was amazed to have all those features in my all time favourite Firefox.

The other day, I installed Yahoo messenger and that crazy thing installed yahoo tool bar and changed various other settings in my browser and the most annoying part was, it made my default search engine as yahoo. So when ever , i used to type any search expression in my address bar, it started doing yahoo search. Atleast in search, i can't compromise google. It was very annoying and I literally felt handicapped. It reduced my productivity too to a real gr8 extent. I took all the pains to change the default search engine, explored all the menu options of the browser , but couldn't succeed. Then I had no other option , than to reach out to my computer nerd for help. In no time, he gave me a perfect solution, which solved lot other problems of mine and gave me a sense of relief.

I would like share with you all , the perfect solution which my friend gave me, which not only helps you to change the default search engine of your browser, instead lot other features of your browser.

1) On your address bar type about:config.
2) It will take you to a warning message. Accept it and proceed ahead to change the advanced settings of your browser.
3) On Top, you can find a Text Field named "Filter". Type Keyword.URL. You can see the value of this attribute in the right most column.
4) Double click on it to update the value. Initially it was yahoo for me and you can update it to http://www.google.com/search?q= for google.

This one is just one single example. Similarly one can play around with so many other attributes of browser to change the setting of browser through about:config.

I was impressed and it motivated me to share it with the Internet world too, for people who don't know. I whole heartedly dedicate this blog, to my friend. For those who know me , would quite obviously know my friend too, who has been sharing my room for the past 3 yrs.