[Firefox Tip] Restore Old Classic Options (About:Preferences) Page

We told you earlier that Mozilla has introduced absolutely new and refreshing Photon UI in Firefox 57.0 and later versions which features square tabs, modern user interface and many new features and changes. You can read our exclusive review of the new Photon UI in following article:

[Review] The New Photon User Interface (UI) of Mozilla Firefox

Photon UI comes with many changes such as redesigned Firefox main menu, enhanced new tab page, etc. Along with these changes and improvements, Photon UI also comes with redesigned Options (about:preferences) page.

If you open the Options page using Firefox Menu (Hamburger 3-lines button) -> Options or by typing about:preferences in address bar, it looks like as following:

As you can see Mozilla has changed categories names and grouped some tabs in new categories. Previously there were 8 main categories but now the number of categories has been changed to 4.

Read More: Firefox Gets New Updated UI for Options (About:Preferences) Page

Mozilla has merged several options and sections present in different tabs into a single tab in this new Options page UI. In my opinion, the new Options page looks more organized and is easy to browse.

But if you are not comfortable with the new Options (Preferences) page, you can restore the old classic Preferences page with the help of this tutorial.

There is a built-in preference present in Mozilla Firefox’s hidden advanced configuration (about:config) page which can be used to toggle between new and old preferences page. You can disable new preferences page and restore classic preferences page with the help of this preference.

Following screenshot shows the old classic preferences page in action:

If you also want to get classic preferences page back, check out following steps to learn how to bring back classic preferences page in Firefox:

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and type about:config in the addressbar and press Enter. It’ll show you a warning message, click on “I accept the risk!” button.

2. Now type organization in Search filter box and it’ll show result in the window.

3. Double-click on browser.preferences.useOldOrganization preference and it’ll change its value to true. Alternatively, you can right-click on the preference and select Toggle option.

That’s it. Now open options (preferences) page and you’ll get classic preferences page containing 8 main categories.

In future, if you want to restore new modern preferences page, double-click on browser.preferences.useOldOrganization preference and change its value to false.

Thanks to our reader “Kay” for sharing this tip…

Also Check:

[Firefox Tip] Remove Search Box from Options (About:Preferences) Page

[Tip] How to Restore Classic UI in Mozilla Firefox (Sort of)