Firefox Featuregate: Hidden Secret Key to Turn On/Off New Features

Mozilla Firefox is one of the most popular and widely used web browsers for computers. The developer team behind Firefox works hard and keeps adding new features and functionality to the web browser to improve and enhance the user experience.

Sometimes users like the new features and sometimes they find the new features unnecessary or bloatware. For example, Mozilla team recently added rich search suggestions feature to Firefox which displays search suggestions using image thumbnails and short description in the address bar.

People who want extra features and modern UI, like and welcome these newly added features but many people who want a basic and fast web browser to surf the Internet, never like extra unnecessary features and search for ways to get rid of the new features as soon as possible.

Following screenshot shows the new weather forecast information feature added to Firefox address bar:

Weather_Widget_Mozilla_Firefox_Addressbar_Suggestions.png

What is Featuregate Tool in Mozilla Firefox?

Featuregate is a secret preference/flag which allows Firefox users to turn on or off new features quickly and easily. Featuregate is a boolean preference which can be either set to true or false. Most of the times, when the Mozilla team introduces a new feature to Firefox, a corresponding Featuregate preference is also added to the web browser to control the availability of the new feature.

If a user wants to test drive the new feature in Firefox in early stages, he can modify the Featuregate preference and change its value to true and it’ll activate and enable the new feature in Firefox.

Similarly, if a user doesn’t like a new feature and wants to disable it, he can change the value of Featuregate preference to false to deactivate or remove the new feature from Firefox web browser.

So basically Featuregate is a control switch to forcefully enable or disable new features in Firefox web browser.

PS: A Featuregate preference is only available if the developer team wants to allow users to control a particular new feature in Firefox.

How to Modify Featuregate Preference to Enable or Disable New Features in Firefox?

Now the question comes how to find and modify the Featuregate preference in Firefox to enable or disable a new feature? The answer is about:config page. Mozilla Firefox web browser comes with a hidden secret advanced configuration page which can be accessed using about:config URL in the address bar.

We posted an exclusive article long time regarding these hidden secret configuration pages in all popular web browsers. You can read the article at following link:

[Tip] Access Hidden Secret Advanced Configuration (Experiments) Page in Your Web Browser

Users can open about:config page and modify the Featuregate preference to turn on/off the new features. You’ll find separate or dedicated Featuregate preferences to control all available new features in Firefox.

Following steps will help you in modifying Featuregate preference in Firefox web browser:

STEP 1: Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the address bar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “Accept the Risk and Continue” button. It’ll open Firefox’s hidden secret advanced configuration page i.e. about:config page.

STEP 2: Now type featuregate in Search filter box and you’ll see several preferences in the results window.

Following are the Featuregate preferences available in the latest version of Firefox web browser at the moment:

browser.urlbar.addons.featureGate (set to True by default)

browser.urlbar.clipboard.featureGate (set to True by default)

browser.urlbar.pocket.featureGate (set to False by default)

browser.urlbar.richSuggestions.featureGate (set to True by default)

browser.urlbar.showSearchTerms.featureGate (set to False by default)

browser.urlbar.weather.featureGate (set to False by default)

browser.urlbar.yelp.featureGate (set to False by default)

places.frecency.origins.alternative.featureGate (set to False by default)

places.frecency.pages.alternative.featureGate (set to False by default)

Hidden_Secret_Featuregate_Preference_Controls_New_Features_Mozilla_Firefox.png

STEP 3: All preferences/flag names are self-explanatory and will give you a clear idea about which feature is controlled by which preference. Now you just need to modify desired preference to enable/disable the associated feature in Firefox.

If you want to deactivate and disable a particular feature in Firefox, set the associated preference to False.

If you want to activate and enable a new feature in Firefox, set the responsible preference to True.

To change a preference value, double-click on the preference and it’ll toggle the preference value.

That’s it. Now whenever a new version of Firefox is released, you can check the Featuregate preference list using above mentioned method and can easily enable or disable the new feature in your web browser.

Also Check:

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[Tip] Disable or Remove “Firefox View” Tab Icon from Toolbar

Fix UI Scaling and Large Fonts Issues in Firefox 103 and Later Versions

[Tip] New Working Method to Restore Classic Theme and UI in Firefox