document updated 15 years ago, on Jul 29, 2009

Often, one wants to change some Firefox setting (ie about:config) from an external program. Ways to do this:

use AHK to send keystrokes to open up about:config and change the preference
change the prefs.js file, but only after Firefox is closed

Allow outside programs to inject ANY javascript command into the browser

MozRepl
JsShellServer
JSSH (more)
- FireWatir
jsbridge

MozRepl example

// enable the BlockSite addon
Components.classes["@mozilla.org/preferences-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIPrefBranch).setBoolPref("BlockSite.enabled", 1);

// disable the BlockSite addon
Components.classes["@mozilla.org/preferences-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsIPrefBranch).setBoolPref("BlockSite.enabled", 0);