Surely it has ever happened to us that, while using the browser, (Chrome, Firefox, Edge or whatever), it has suddenly stopped working. Or it has started to malfunction. This can be due to a lot of reasons (a complete corrupt, cache issues, bad settings etc). And generally, it is usually even difficult to fix. Luckily, if we are Firefox users , we will be able to use an internal panel that, with a click, will allow us to solve almost any problem that we may encounter while using this browser.
Firefox offers users a complete panel through which we can solve all kinds of problems that may appear while using the browser, or at least try. This panel, hidden under the ” about: support ” URL, will allow us to access a detailed report on the state of the browser and, in addition, will allow us to solve different types of problems with just one click.
How to open this Firefox panel
This panel is part of the advanced Mozilla browser maintenance options. To access it, all you have to do is type in the address bar of the browser “about: support” and press the Enter key.
In a moment we will see a page like the following:
On this page we will find a lot of useful information to solve possible problems that have appeared in our browser. For example, we will be able to see a table with all the basic configuration of the program, detailed reports of the errors that have occurred to the browser, remote processes, advanced features, installed extensions, used security software, and much more. Thanks to this information we will be able to know the state of the browser and the PC so that, if something is giving problems, we can solve it.
In addition to all this information, Firefox offers us 3 buttons that will allow us to easily solve, and without having to do anything more than a click, many problems that may be causing our browser to not work properly.
What options does it offer to repair Firefox?
Reset browser
The first of the options that we can find here is the “Reset” option . This button will allow us to revert all the options and settings of the browser to be able to start from scratch. Clicking on this button we will see a confirmation window that will indicate that all the add-ons, personalizations and personal settings will be deleted from the browser.
If we confirm the window, our browser will restart and reopen without any data or custom settings, only with the default settings. Now we only have to re-synchronize the browser with the cloud, or configure it from scratch.
Restart in safe mode
We may have located the cause of an error, but because of that error we cannot fix it. The previous button will help us to repair all the problems, but it is still too radical. This is where the second button that we can find in the about: support panel of Firefox comes into play.
This will allow us to restart the browser in Safe Mode , that is, disabling the installed plugins and extensions and loading the browser as is, without any third-party component enabled.
The browser will restart automatically, and when it starts again, it will restart with all these add-ons disabled. Now if we know what the problem was, we can solve it. And, if not, we can always resort to the previous option to reset the browser completely.
Clear the cache when opening Firefox
Web browsers generate a large amount of cache and temporary files while browsing the web. Normally these files do not usually cause problems, and the most common is that after a while they are marked as obsolete and are automatically deleted to generate new ones. However, if one of the files gets corrupted for some reason, the browser may start to malfunction. And even if it doesn’t open. And this is what Mozilla wanted to solve with this new option.
The third button that we can find in the panel: about: support of Firefox will allow us to clear all the browser’s startup cache , but without removing the browser’s settings or any extensions. Just the browser cache.
This is very useful, for example, when we run the browser from its icon but we don’t see the browser window. However, the processes still work. Thanks to this third option, when you cleared the Firefox startup cache completely, they should have disappeared.