Making the Most of FireFox

[Daeval]

I've been pretty lazy about it in the past, so I went scouring for stuff to make the most of FireFox 1.0 and just thought I'd share. There are a lot of people who don't yet know the virtues of the greatest browser on the net, so part of this is an attempt to show them the light, as it were. If anyone has anything to add, that would be cool. Particularly, I've heard a lot about mouse gestures and some kind of tabbed browsing extension, but didn't look into those too much. Enjoy!

 

 

New Users & New Features:

The Search Bar & Integrated "I'm Feeling Lucky" Search:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/search.html

 

Tabbed Browsing:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/tabbed-browsing.html

 

Live Bookmarks & RSS Feeds:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/live-bookmarks.html

 

 

 

Tips and Tricks:

Smart Keywords:

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/smart-keywords.html

If there isn't a Search Bar for the site you want, you can make a smart keyword for it instead.

 

Opening Links in new Tabs:

You can hold CTRL and click, or press your middle mouse button or mouse wheel button to open a link in a new tab. Firefox won't automatically switch to this tab unless you check this checkbox:

Tools -> Options... -> Advanced -> Tabbed Browsing -> Select new tabs opened from links.

 

Set Your Home Page:

Go to Tools -> Options... Click on General and your homepage is the first option. If you have multiple tabs open and click "Use Current Pages," FireFox will open all those same tabs whenever you start it up.

 

Language Support for other Languages and Character sets:

FireFox makes this really easy. Go to Tools -> Options... Click on General and then Languages... Just choose the language you want from the "Select a language to add..." drop down list and click "Add". Hit OK and you're done.

 

The Master Password:

If you'd like FireFox to save your passwords, but don't want other miscreants who use your computer to have access to them, set a Master Password from the

Tools -> Options... -> Privacy -> Saved Passwords -> Set Master Password... panel. This way, you will still have to enter one password per session, but FireFox will then use any of the ones you have saved.

 

Enable / Disable Java:

Go to Tools -> Options... -> Web Features to enable or disable Java or JavaScript. You can click on Advanced... to disable specific features of JavaScript, such as the ability to resize or move windows.

 

More Tips & Tricks from Mozilla:

http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/tips

 

 

 

 

Plugins:

Macromedia Flash & Shockwave Players

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/welcome/

Click on the green plugin icons and Firefox will handle the rest.

 

Java

http://www.java.com/en/download/

Firefox should handle everything here.

 

QuickTime Alternative

http://home.hccnet.nl/h.edskes/finalbuilds.htm#quicktimealt

This lets you view imbedded Quicktime files in FireFox without the bloated Quicktime player. Click on the link for a description, click on the first link you see there and scroll down to the QuickTime Alternative links to download.

 

 

 

 

Extensions:

IE View:

http://ieview.mozdev.org/#content

For the rare instance when you come accross an IE only page (such as one using Active X), this will make life that much easier.

 

GMail Notifier:

http://nexgenmedia.net/extensions/

This adds an unobtrusive icon that will alert you if you have new mail at your GMail account.

Edited November 11, 2004 by Daeval

[Gryph]

Might as well add this tweak to this list:

 

1. Type "about:config" in the address field.

2. Set the value of network.http.pipelining to "true".

3. Set the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to "100".

4. Set the value of network.http.proxy.pipelining to "true"

5. Set the value of nglayout.initialpaint.delay to "0"

 

 

The last line, "nglayout.initialpaint.delay", this entry needs to be created as it doesn't exist by default.

To create a new entry, right-click the other entries in the window, select "New" > "Integer", and paste in "nglayout.initialpaint.delay".

Set the value to zero -- "0".

Edited November 12, 2004 by GryphonKlaw

[Daeval]

Might as well add this tweak to this list:

 

1. Type "about:config" in the address field.

2. Set the value of network.http.pipelining to "true".

3. Set the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to "100".

4. Set the value of network.http.proxy.pipelining to "true"

5. Set the value of nglayout.initialpaint.delay to "0"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not seeing nglayout.initialpaint.delay.. ?

[Gryph]

Might as well add this tweak to this list:

 

1. Type "about:config" in the address field.

2. Set the value of network.http.pipelining to "true".

3. Set the value of network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to "100".

4. Set the value of network.http.proxy.pipelining to "true"

5. Set the value of nglayout.initialpaint.delay to "0"

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Not seeing nglayout.initialpaint.delay.. ?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Oops, forgot to add this part:

 

 

The last line, "nglayout.initialpaint.delay", this entry needs to be created as it doesn't exist by default.

To create a new entry, right-click the other entries in the window, select "New" > "Integer", and paste in "nglayout.initialpaint.delay".

Set the value to zero -- "0".