I treated Firefox's about:config like a room that I'm never supposed to enter. I may cut myself some slack considering that it holds hundreds of settings with names that sound like source code elements and a warning button that reads "Accept the Risk and Continue."
But this changed when I investigated and learned which of those settings I could change without creating a problem I didn't understand. The goal wasn't to convert my browser into a supercharged privacy machine. I just needed to know which changes were low-risk and useful to me, and I found three I now keep enabled.
It only takes a few switches and your privacy goes through the roof.
When the address bar on Firefox displays URLs, it cleans them up by default. The browser.urlbar.trimURLs configuration is the part that controls this behavior, and it's set to true by default. Once you set it to false, Firefox shows more of the URL in the address bar.
One reason I liked this is that the change is small; it clearly shows what the browser is doing with this preference. For HTTP websites, this affects how parts of the address are displayed. It doesn't change the website you visit, and it doesn't make the connection more secure.
However, it's useful for me in two distinct ways. First, it reduces the guesswork when I'm looking at an address. I like the bar feeling a little less tidy when I need to check a redirect, compare links, or just understand what Firefox is showing me.
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