PC World Documents

Editing Edit Firefox's about:robots Page

There is a Firefox easter egg accessible by typing about:robots in the Location Bar. It is, as with so many aspects of Firefox, customizable.

1. Close Firefox.

2. Copy C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\browser.jar to a backup location.

3. About:robots is located in the compressed file called browser.jar. Rename C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\browser.jar to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\chrome\browser.zip.

4. Open browser.zip\content\browser\ and copy aboutRobots.xhtml to a convenient location for editing.

5. Open aboutRobots.xhtml with a simple text editor such as Notepad.

6. Make and save the desired edits.

7. Copy the new version of aboutRobots.xhtml and paste it to its original location, browser.zip\content\browser\.

8. Rename browser.zip to browser.jar.

Possible Edits

(ignoring silly ones like repeating the robot icon all over the description box)

Change Title in Tab Bar

Replace

<title>&robots.pagetitle;</title>

with

<title>MY NEW TITLE</title>

Move "Try again" button and "And they have a plan." Text

Replace the first directional text after the float: with "left," "right," or "center."

Replace "Welcome Humans!"

Replace

<h1 id="errorTitleText">&robots.errorTitleText;</h1>

with

<h1 id="errorTitleText">MY NEW WELCOME TEXT</h1>

Replace "We have come to visit you in peace and with goodwill!"

Replace

<p id="errorShortDescText">&robots.errorShortDescText;</p>

with

<p id="errorShortDescText">MY NEW SHORT DESCRIPTION</p>

Change the Bullet Points

<li>

</li>

Replace "And they have a plan."

Replace

<p id="errorTrailerDescText">&robots.errorTrailerDescText;</p>

with

<p id="errorTrailerDescText">MY NEW PLAN</p>

Change "Try Again" Button

Replace

label="&retry.label;"

following

id="errorTryAgain"

with

label="NEW BUTTON"

Change "Do not press this button again." Button

Replace

label2="&robots.dontpress;"

with

label2="NEW BUTTON AGAIN"