Cleaning a FireFox profile

I'm an avid user of FireFox. I've set my installation up to sync across dual-boot, mainly as part of the Widows-to-Ubuntu crossover process. I can't pinpoint the exact date I started using FireFox, but it's been years...and in those years, I've certainly gathered a fair bit of junk.

Most of that junk is leftover configuration data and files from extensions that I've tried and subsequently gotten rid of. For some reason, the uninstall process of most (if not all) extensions leaves all the about:config preferences. In the case of GreaseMonkey (yes, I do not use GreaseMonkey), it leaves a gm_scripts directory in your profile, containing all the script files you've installed. At the worst, this is simply developer oversight. "Why would they want to uninstall this great extension?? They don't need an uninstall routine!"

At any rate, I've found a short and simple way to clean your FireFox profile. The only things I did differently was 1) leave my bookmarks.html file behind (I use Netvouz :D ) and 2) copy over various tweaks from my old prefs.js to my new prefs.js. A final note: You don't want to copy the entire prefs.js file over; it'll contain all the about:config junk mentioned earlier. Either open both old and new prefs.js files and copy over specific tweaks, or google them up again and re-apply them in the new profile.

Cleaning a FireFox Profile