In Google Chrome, Where is about.config (firefox) settings?

👤 Diwas Poudel 🕒 13 Sep 2023 📁 TECH

Firefox has advanced settings that can be accessed by typing about:config into the address bar. It has all of the experimental hidden features.
If you try to access the same in Chrome then you will end up with the following message: "The webpage at chrome://config/ might be temporarily down or it may have moved permanently to a new web address." This is because Chrome lacks hidden and dedicated configuration features at about:config

So, I'm going to show you how to get to those advanced hidden features settings in Chrome.

You can access the Google Chrome Settings page by clicking on the three dots in the upper right corner and then selecting Settings. This setting will provide you with limited features such as Autofill, Security and Privacy, Appearance, Search engine, Default Browser settings, and On startup.

Reminder: If you're uncertain about the changes you're making to the settings, it's advisable to refrain from making any adjustments. If you're unsure about your actions, consider creating a backup of your Chrome settings as a precaution.

If you want more advanced hidden experimental features with more options, then follow the steps below:

1 Open Chrome browser and type about:flags or chrome://flags in Chrome’s address bar and press Enter.

This will take you to Chrome's advanced configuration or Experiments page. You have two tabs: one that says Available and one that says Not Available. We can only make changes to the features listed under the Available tab. You have the option to enable or disable experimental browser features.

Warning: These are advanced features; changing them may result in the loss of browser data or compromise your security or privacy.

Enable feature applies to all users of this browser.

Some features are :

Allow invalid certificates for resources loaded from localhost.
Temporarily unexpired M97 flags.
Closed Tab Cache
Enable Reader Mode
Disable Google Chrome Incognito Mode Detection
Sharing Web Page via QR Code.
Heavy Ad Intervention
Enable Smooth Scrolling
Password Import feature
Share Clipboard Across Devices.
Enable /Disable Dark Mode
Parallel Downloading

What are the risks of modifying about:config settings in Chrome?

Here are some risks of modifying about:config settings in Chrome:

Firstly if you make any change in settings and those changes are made incorrectly can crash your Chrome Browser.
Secondly, you may make changes to settings that disable security features which might make your computer vulnerable to attack.

Also Read: How to turn off Chrome notifications Windows 10?

How to change Experiments Features from Chrome Config?

To enable these features, go to chrome:/flags the URL and click the Dropdown next to the feature. You can enable and disable it, as well as set it to default.

Enable Disable Default Feature Chrome — **fig. Enable or Disable or Default Experiment Feature Chrome**

How to Reset Experiments Features of Chrome?

You may have made changes to those settings at random and would like to restore them to their default state. Then, in the URL, type chrome:/flags and click the Reset All button in the top right corner.

How to access the location of Experiments Features of Chrome?

You can access these features under the following location:

They are saved in the Browser block of the plain-text file Local State in the User Data directory.

You can navigate to the following path to access it.

In Windows:

%LOCALAPPDATA%\Google\Chrome\User Data

Then find out the Local State file.

**fig. Local State File Chrome Location**

When you open this file by right-clicking it and selecting Open with, then Notepad, you will find the data; just look for the enabled_labs_experiments key and anything inside enabled_labs_experiments:[ ... ] Google Chrome has these features enabled.

In my case, "enable-webassembly-baseline@1", and "enable-webassembly-lazy-compilation@1" are two features enabled by me.

In macOS:

~/Library/Application Support/Google/Chrome

Then find out Local State file

In Linux:

~/.config/google-chrome

Then find out the Local State file.

Also read: Best Google Chrome Extension For Full Page Screen Capture

FAQ:

How to Reset Experimental Settings in Google Chrome?

Ans: Open Chrome browser and type about:flags or chrome://flags in Chrome’s address bar and press Enter. Then at the top right corner, you will find out "Reset all" button. Click on it to reset.