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Installation

Please see security considerations before installing

1. Install the Sideberry Extension

Install Sideberry from Firefox Add-ons.

2. Install CSS

Option A: Automated (recommended)

macOS / Linux:

curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tompassarelli/palefox/main/install.sh -o /tmp/palefox-install.sh && bash /tmp/palefox-install.sh

Windows (PowerShell):

irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/tompassarelli/palefox/main/install.ps1 | iex

LibreWolf: add --librewolf to either command, or select LibreWolf when prompted interactively.

The script does the following:

  • Detects Firefox or LibreWolf profile directories (including Flatpak and XDG paths on Linux)
  • Copies core files (palefox.css) into your profile — always updated
  • Creates userChrome.css (entry point) and user.css (your customizations) if they don't exist — preserved on update
  • Writes prefs to user.js: disables vertical tabs, disables the sidebar revamp, enables custom stylesheets, sets palefox.* defaults
  • Use --force to overwrite all files (e.g. clean reinstall)
  • Use --no-backup to skip the backup

The entry point wires everything together:

@import url("palefox.css");
@import url("user.css");

Palefox updates chrome/. Your tweaks live in chrome/. userChrome.css just wires them together — advanced users can edit it to add extra imports. Toggle features in about:config by typing palefox. to see all options.

Option B: Manual

Enable required Firefox settings:

Note: only toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets requires about:config; the rest can be changed in Settings.

  1. Go to about:config in the address bar
  2. Set toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets to true
  3. Set sidebar.verticalTabs to false (or turn on Horizontal tabs in Settings)
  4. Set sidebar.revamp to false (or turn off Show Sidebar in Settings)

Locate your profile directory:

  1. Go to about:support in the address bar
  2. Under "Application Basics", click Open Profile Folder
    • Flatpak: ~/.var/app/org.mozilla.firefox/.mozilla/firefox/<profile>
    • LibreWolf: ~/.librewolf/ or ~/.config/librewolf/librewolf/

Copy the CSS files:

  1. Inside the profile folder, create a chrome directory if it doesn't already exist
  2. Copy userChrome.css, the palefox/ folder, and the user/ folder from this repo's chrome/ directory into your profile's chrome/ directory
  3. Put your personal customizations in user.css — it won't be overwritten when palefox is updated

3. Restart your browser

Note: if the sidebar is invisible, you might have it toggled off. Try Ctrl+H to toggle history, then activate the Sideberry tabs menu from there by clicking on the extension icon.

Upgrading

If you had a monolithic userChrome.css, the install script will back it up to userChrome.css.legacy and install the new modular entry point. Move personal tweaks into user.css.

Uninstalling

Delete the chrome folder and remove the Palefox lines from user.js in your profile directory (or delete user.js entirely if Palefox created it).