Recovering the content of your computer after a hardware failure can be a nightmare especially when you do not have a good back up system, but you can make the job a lot easier by properly backing up your Firefox profile.
To perform this task, we'll use FEBE, a Firefox add-on for backing up your Firefox configurations. It's got a number of backup options, from a full profile to a selective backup that lets you choose between extensions, bookmarks, cookies, history, etc. It can even backup Firefox periodically.
Using FEBE to Backup Firefox
Once you've installed the extension, FEBE is accessible from Tools --> Febe on the menu.
We can customize the configuration that FEBE backs up from the Febe Options menu.
Press the i icon to show information on the different options in FEBE.
The 'Schedule' tab allow us to configure FEBE to back up our Firefox configuration periodically.
We advise you to use an external media such as external hard drive or an online back up tool to back up their Firefox configuration. This way you can easily recover your Firefox configuration in case your computer hardware fails.
FEBE chooses Box.net as its default online back up tool, but it's probably better to use something else like your Dropbox folder.
Performing a BackUp
Perform the backup by selecting Tools --> FEBE -> Perform Back Up.
It may take some time to backup your items.
FEBE will show a backup report if the backup is successful.
Restoring Firefox
FEBE stores our extensions as .xpi files and our Firefox profile as an .fbu file. Click on Tools --> FEBE --> Restore.
We can restore our extensions by selecting one or more *.xpi file in our back up folders.
Or select our *.fbu file to restore our Firefox profile.