If you’ve ever been annoyed by the security features that Firefox has implemented with hopes of being the safer browser, here’s how to remove that annoying block for Control +V within many WYSIWYG editors. I’m trying to put this on a novice level, because it really is super-simple, so if I go too slow for you, my apologies.
1. Locate your Firefox Preferences folder. I am running Windows XP and mine is found by opening this series of folders:
Start–>My Computer–>C:–>Documents and Settings–>(user-specific name)–>Application Data–>Mozilla–>Firefox–>Profiles–>(profile name)–>prefs*(open with Notepad)
By the way, this is, by far, the hardest part of this trick. Locating your prefs file (it is a javascript file) is ornery at best, especially for the novice. In the documents and settings folder, there are several files that may seem right. The only way to know which is the right one is to open each one, click on Application Data*, and then see if there is a folder named Mozilla in it. If not, it’s not the right one. Backup and try again until you find the right one. Mine is named Owner.Your-tendigitnumbersequence.
*Note, you may have to choose the option to ‘see all files’ found in the left sidebar of your file explorer area to see the Application Data File.
2. Now, the easy part. Make sure Firefox is completely shut down. If you have any file that uses Firefox, it will have to be closed as well. I even had to remove the icon for Firefox from the QuickLaunch section of the toolbar to get it to work. In fact, that was a major stumbling block. That icon must be removed or closed to ensure Firefox is shut down, otherwise you will not save your changes to the prefs.js file.
3. Insert this snippet of code into the file:
user_pref(“capability.policy.policynames”, “allowclipboard”);
user_pref(“capability.policy.allowclipboard.sites”, “http://www.mozilla.org”);
user_pref(“capability.policy.allowclipboard.Clipboard.cutcopy”, “allAccess”);
user_pref(“capability.policy.allowclipboard.Clipboard.paste”, “allAccess”);
4. Save and close. Start Firefox and you should be all set.
**If you do not have a prefs.js file within the Profiles folder, you can create one with Notepad by opening Notepad and saving as prefs.js (be sure to change the ‘save as type’ to ‘all files’ rather than the default ‘.txt’ or you will end up with a file named prefs.js.txt. You can choose to save it into the folder from the beginning or you can create the file on the desktop and drag it into the Profiles folder.
If you need a hand with this, email me. robyn *at* sleepyblogger.com