Fun with Firefox Chrome URLs

December 23rd, 2005

Firefox’s user interface is written using XUL and Javascript. The Gecko engine which renders the webpages also renders the user interface. This means you can enter chrome URLs into the Firefox address bar and do some really cool things.

I wouldn’t recommend trying out any of these "tricks" if you have any important websites open. Everything has been tested with Firefox 1.5 on Windows.

chrome://browser/content/browser.xul

This is awesome. Type this in the address bar and you can have a nested copy of Firefox running inside Firefox. You can even open up several tabs at this URL and have tabbed windows. You can even nest Firefox inside itself several times. Most things seem to work.

 browser.xul

chrome://global/content/alerts/alert.xul

Notice: This will make your Firefox window disappear under the taskbar. Before loading this URL, make sure you have at least one other tab open. The Firefox window should do a crazy dance in the corner of the screen. If your Firefox window disappears, right click Firefox in the taskbar and select maximize. Press Control+W to stop Firefox from moving around.

chrome://browser/content/preferences/preferences.xul

Opens the Options window. In Firefox 1.0 use chrome://browser/content/pref/pref.xul

chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksPanel.xul

Opens a list of your bookmarks.

chrome://browser/content/history/history-panel.xul

Opens a list of websites in your history.

chrome://global/content/console.xul

Opens the Javascript console.

chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul?type=extensions

Opens the Extensions window.

extensions

chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul

Opens the Themes window.

chrome://mozapps/content/profile/profileSelection.xul

Closes the current tab in Firefox; or the window if there is only one tab open.

chrome://global/content/finddialog.xul

Opens the old Firefox "Find" dialog (non functional)

chrome://global/content/printdialog.xul

Opens the Firefox Print dialog (non functional)

chrome://global/content/filepicker.xul

Seems to open a Linux style file picker on Windows for me. Non functional on Windows.

You can use the DOM Inspector and inspect windows to find cool URLs. Let me know if you find something neat. 

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12 Responses to “Fun with Firefox Chrome URLs”

  1. # Tommyon 30 Mar 2006 at 12:43 pm

    Nice find. This is also how Flock has the faves manager. I wonder could this be expanded to open an RSS reader.

  2. # Wayne Newstonon 03 Jul 2006 at 5:22 am

    Thanks for the info, will definetely use this to impress the friends!

  3. # Georgemoneyon 28 Jul 2006 at 9:41 pm

    Like you, I’ve also been interested in chrome:// urls, and when I found how to unzip a jar file, I found all these chrome urls that you can put up

    I also suggest that you put "if you want to open the chrome in it’s own window like a program instead of as a firefox page, open FF with -chrome "chrome://url" after the path to the file (windows)" on your blog

    Here are the links:

    chrome://browser/content/aboutDialog.xul
    chrome://browser/content/credits.xhtml - which is a scrolling list of names
    chrome://browser/content/metaData.xul
    chrome://browser/content/openLocation.xul
    chrome://browser/content/pageInfo.xul
    chrome://browser/content/pageReport.xul
    chrome://browser/content/pageReportFirstTime.xul
    chrome://browser/content/safeMode.xul
    chrome://browser/content/sanitize.xul
    chrome://browser/content/searchDialog.xul
    chrome://browser/content/setDesktopBackground.xul
    chrome://browser/content/viewSourceOverlay.xul - not really anything special
    chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/addBookmark2.xul
    chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/addBookmark.xul
    chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksManager.xul
    chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksPanel.xul
    chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksProperties.xul
    chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/selectBookmark.xul
    chrome://browser/content/history/history-panel.xul
    chrome://browser/content/migration/migration.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/advanced-scripts.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/changeaction.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/colors.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/connection.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/cookies.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/downloadactions.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/fonts.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/languages.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/permissions.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/preferences.xul
    chrome://browser/content/preferences/sanitize.xul

    BTW, I got those out of c:\program files\mozilla firefox\chrome\browser.jar

    Also, there is a whole ton of chrome in toolkit.jar in the same directory as browser.jar. I am to lazy to list them all. If you want to go to toolkit.jar and list them, I will tell you how to unzip a jar file if you don’t know how. Rename the .jar to .zip and you’re done :)

  4. # Khloon 28 Jul 2006 at 9:55 pm

    Fixed the line breaks in the above comment.

    Thanks for the info!

  5. # Kurdton 17 Aug 2006 at 6:30 pm

    Nice WOrk !

  6. # Manuon 09 May 2007 at 10:30 am

    http://kb.mozillazine.org/Dev_:_Firefox_Chrome_URLs

  7. # Tux3on 16 May 2007 at 3:28 pm

    Me entero de esto al tratar de cargar un agregado en Firefox a travez de Synaptic. Luego de resetear la PC leo un cartelito que menciona que el agregado inteligente no se pudo cargar por no estar registrado en Chrome. Adems que avise en la pgina del autor. Uso Xubuntu 6.06.1 con Firefox y Thunderbird con atualizaciones antiguas. No consigo el 2.03 de Firefox y el 2.0 de Thunderbird sucesivamente. Gracias.

  8. # Michael Syncon 23 Sep 2007 at 9:21 am

    Thanks… I like it..

  9. # Stevnewbon 01 Nov 2007 at 5:58 pm

    stevnewb@comcast.net

    Anti Firefox Virus

    I need some feedback from other Firefox users on the Comcast access to internet.

    I’ve picked up some kind of disabling virus which prevent Firefox from reaching

    ANY  servers, and I don’t know how to get rid of it.

    HELLLLLLP!

    stevnewb

  10. # Dwight Stegallon 31 Jan 2008 at 8:06 pm

    I haven’t been able to find any info on the web on how to unlock the
    Flock Browser sidebar so I could load my favorites in there like you
    can in Firefox 2 and Netscape 9.

    So I opened about:config and there it was plain as day.

    flock.favorites.loadPageInSide

    bar set to true

    Now when you right-click a favorite and click on properties the "Load
    this bookmark in the sidebar" is there with a checkbox. It was there
    all the time, but turned off.

    I loaded these two in the sidebar.

    chrome://mozapps/content/downloads/downloads.xul
    chrome://mozapps/content/extensions/extensions.xul

    In Netscape 9 and Firefox 2 you can easily extend the width of the
    sidebar to full screen width. This doesn’t help in Flock

    #sidebar {max-width:none !important;}

    So for now we are still stuck with max-width:400px;

    Don’t try to load AllInOneSidebar into Flock or Flock will freeze and
    you will have to go into the Safe Mode to uninstall it.

    One of the things I load in the sidebar is http://www.google.com/ie

    Dwight Stegall
    East Moline, Illinois, USA

  11. # zachon 22 Jul 2008 at 10:56 pm

    Great!
    Thank you for the info.

  12. # timekeeperon 29 Aug 2008 at 1:46 pm

    is there a way to create hyperlinks that utilize these. I am looking to use the IETabs automatically for certain links and find that if i use

    Link

    it does not work.

    Any guidance is appreciated. thanks

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