Gaia · kaynaktan · classic settings
Firefox OS Settings: forty Gaia panels, generated from the code Mozilla left behind
Firefox OS was Mozilla's web-based phone system, and its Settings app, part of the Gaia layer, survives in source. The simulator's trees are generated from that source, so the forty-odd panels here are the ones a 2015 phone showed. This page walks them as they stand in Firefox OS 2.5 and links every panel to a screen you can open.
- Newest release here
- Firefox OS Firefox OS 2.5
- Versions you can open
- 2
- Top-level sections
- 39 (8 of them plain switches)
- Rows in the tree
- 259
How Firefox OS organises its Settings
The list is long because Gaia gave almost everything a panel of its own. Airplane Mode and Geolocation are switches at the top, then Wi-Fi, SIM Manager, Call Settings, Messaging Settings and Cellular & Data, which reaches down into APN, A-GPS and FOTA settings most phones hide. Bluetooth, NFC and Internet Sharing follow, then Sound, Display, Home Screens, Search, Navigation and Notifications.
Date & Time, Language and Keyboards form the locale group; Themes, Add-ons and Achievements are the web-platform ideas Firefox OS tried. Firefox Accounts and Find My Device come next, then Screen Lock, SIM Security, App Permissions, Do Not Track and Browsing Privacy. Storage is three panels. Device Information, Downloads, Battery and Accessibility follow, and Developer sits before Improve Firefox OS and Help.
What changes between versions
Two releases are here, Firefox OS 2.2 and 2.5, the last versions Mozilla shipped before ending the phone project in 2016, and both trees come from the Gaia source of their release. 2.2 lists Homescreen and Homescreens as two panels and has a Privacy Controls panel; 2.5 merges the first two into Home Screens, drops Privacy Controls into Browsing Privacy and adds Add-ons and Achievements. The simulator reads the version string to pick the tree, since both parse to the same major number.
Three settings worth knowing the path to
- Settings > Developer > DevTools via Wi-Fi
Remote debugging of the whole phone from desktop Firefox, over the network. No other phone system put this in the consumer Settings app.
- Settings > Find My Device > Enable Find My Device
Mozilla's answer to Find My iPhone, tied to a Firefox Account and find.firefox.com. It shows how far the platform got before it closed.
- Settings > Screen Lock > Passcode Lock
A passcode with a lock delay from Immediately to After 1 hour, a good example of Gaia's habit of one setting per screen.
Questions people ask about Firefox OS settings
What was Firefox OS?
Mozilla's phone operating system, built on web technologies and sold on low-cost devices from 2013 to 2016. Gaia was its interface layer, and the Settings app here is Gaia's.
Why does Firefox OS have so many settings panels?
Gaia gave each concern its own panel rather than grouping them, so storage is three entries and developer tools have one of their own. The list runs to about forty.
Are these the real Firefox OS menus?
They are extracted from the Gaia source for 2.2 and 2.5, so the panels, rows and wording are Mozilla's own. Network names and device values are samples.