The features of Mozila Firefox distinguish it from other web browsers such as Internet Explorer. It lacks many features found in other browsers, in an effort to combat interface bloat and to allow the browser to be shipped as a small, pared-down core easily customizable to meet individual users’ needs. Instead of providing all features in the standard distribution, Firefox relies on the extension system to allow users to modify the browser according to their requirements.
Tabbed browsing
Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple pages in the same window. This feature was carried over from the Mozilla Application Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla.
Firefox also permits the “homepage” to be a list of URLs delimited with vertical bars (|), which are automatically opened in separate tabs, rather than a single page.
Firefox 2 supports more tabbed browsing features, including a “tab overflow” solution that keeps the user’s tabs easily accessible when they don’t fit horizontally, “session store” which lets the user keep the opened tabs across the restarts, the “undo close tab” feature, etc.
Pop-up blocking
Firefox also includes integrated customizable pop-up blocking. Firefox was given this feature early in beta development, and it was a major comparative selling point of the browser until Internet Explorer gained the capability in the Windows XP Service Pack 2 beta. This blocks pop-ups from all web sites by default, but can be configured to allow individual sites to show pop-ups. It can also be turned off entirely to allow pop-ups from all sites. Firefox’s pop-up blocking can be inconvenient at times — it prevents JavaScript-based links opening a new window while a page is loading unless the site is added to a “safe list” found in the options menu.
In many cases it is possible to view the pop-up’s URL by clicking the dialogue that appears when one is blocked. This makes it easier to decide if the pop-up should be displayed.
Download manager
An integrated customizable download manager is also included. Downloads can be opened automatically depending on the file type, or saved directly to disk. By default, Firefox downloads all files to a user’s desktop on Mac and Windows or to the user’s home directory on Linux, but it can be configured to prompt for a specific download location. The download manager currently does not support cross-session resuming (stopping a download and resuming it after closing the browser). Another issue with the download manager is that it fails to close if small files or files already in the cache are downloaded. One advantage of the Firefox download manager is that the user can view the full source URL and destination path of the file being downloaded via the Properties box; Internet Explorer only shows the file name and source domain name.
Live Bookmarks
Powered by RSS or Atom feeds, “Live Bookmarks”, another feature of Firefox, allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, there were a few worries that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features and that it was beginning to bloat the browser much like the Mozilla Suite. However, these worries have largely abated.
Instead of treating RSS-feeds as HTML pages like most news aggregators do, they are treated as bookmarks that are updated in real-time with a link to the appropriate source. Live bookmarks are updated automatically, however no browser option exists to prevent or control the automatic Live Bookmark updates.
Add-ons
There are 3 types of add-ons in Firefox: extensions (for additional browser functionality), themes (modified browser appearance), and plugins (to view additional web content). Firefox add-ons may be obtained from the official Mozilla Add-ons web site or from other sources.
Extensions
Firefox users can add features and change functionality in Firefox by installing extensions. Extension functionality is varied; such as those enabling mouse gestures, those that block advertisements, and those that enhance tabbed browsing.Features that the Firefox developers believed would be used by a small number of its users have not been included in Firefox and left to be implemented as extensions. Many Mozilla Suite features, such as IRC chat (ChatZilla) and calendar have been recreated as Firefox extensions. Extensions are also often a testing ground for features that are eventually returned to the main codebase. For example, MultiZilla was an extension that provided tabbed browsing when Mozilla lacked that feature.
While extensions provide a high level of customizability, PC World notes the difficulty a casual user would have in finding and installing extensions as compared to their features being available by default.
Most extensions are not created or supported by Mozilla. Extensions have the same rights to the user’s system as Firefox itself, and malicious extensions have been created. Mozilla provides a repository of extensions that have been reviewed by volunteers and are believed to not contain malware. Since extensions are mostly created by third parties, they do not necessarily go through the same level of testing as official Mozilla products, and they may have bugs or vulnerabilities.
Themes
Firefox also supports a variety of themes/skins for changing its appearance. Themes are simply packages of CSS and image files. Many themes can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site.
The change of default theme from Qute to Winstripe in Firefox 0.9 was subject to vocal debate. The Winstripe theme was created by heavily modifying Pinstripe, a theme designed with Mac OS X in mind. Prior to that, Firefox and its predecessors had used the Qute theme, designed by Arvid Axelsson. Due to licensing issues, the theme was prevented from being released under the Mozilla Public License. Axelsson was upset about being notified about the theme change only a few days before it took place, and posted the transcript of his dialogue with Ben Goodger, who had informed him of the change, on the MozillaZine forums, breaking the news before it was formally announced. Although many people criticized the new theme when it was rolled out, eventually the tension subsided. Axelsson continues to produce Qute privately. Axelsson still makes Mozilla Thunderbird’s default theme.
Dictionaries
Another type of XPI add‐ons for Firefox — dictionaries for spell checking of input fields.
Plugins
Firefox supports plugins based on Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface (NPAPI), i.e. Netscape-style plugins. As a side note, Opera and Internet Explorer 3.0 to 5.0 also support NPAPI.
On June 30, 2004, the Mozilla Foundation, in partnership with Adobe, Apple, Macromedia, Opera, and Sun Microsystems, announced a series of changes to web browser plugins. The new API will allow web developers to offer richer web browsing experiences, helping to maintain innovation and standards. The new plugin technologies are expected to be implemented in the future versions of the Mozilla applications.
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and later versions include the Java Embedding plugin, which allow Mac OS X users to run Java applets with the latest 1.4 and 5.0 versions of Java (the default Java software shipped by Apple is not compatible with any browser, except its own Safari).
Security
Firefox includes many features designed to improve security. Key features include a sandbox security model, same origin policy, external protocol whitelisting, a phishing detector (in Firefox 2.0), Clear Private Data, and master passwords.
Firefox is open source software, and thus, its source code is visible to everyone. This allows anyone to review the code for security vulnerabilities, whether their intentions are good or malicious. It also allowed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to give funding for the automated tool Coverity to be run against Firefox code.
Additionally, Mozilla has a security bug bounty system – anyone who reports a valid critical security bug receives a $500 (US) cash reward for each report and a Mozilla T-shirt.
Posted by admin on 3 Jul 2010 10:01 am. Filed under intermediate.
The Find As You Type feature is another handy timesaver. Rather than using the “find” bar to search for a word on page, just click anywhere on that page and start typing the word you want. Your cursor will immediately jump to the first instance of that term.
You can use it for links, too. For example, instead of moving your mouse across the page to a “learn more” link, just start typing the word and when the cursor finds it, press enter.
Posted by admin on 3 Jul 2010 9:59 am. Filed under advanced.
If you’re an advanced Web surfer who frequently needs to save and track a variety of specific sites, here’s a useful time-saver: using Firefox 3’s Library, you can create and save searches into folders that are then automatically updated as you add sites to your bookmarks and history.
First, open the Library by selecting the “Organize Bookmarks” option from the Bookmarks menu. Then, enter your search terms in the search box. Then click the Save button to create a Smart Folder.
What’s improved?”Firefox 3.6 is built on Mozilla’s Gecko 1.9.2 web rendering platform, which has been under development since early 2009 and contains many improvements for web developers, add-on developers, and users. This version is also faster and more responsive than previous versions and has been optimized to run on small device operating systems such as Maemo.
Notable Firefox 3.6 features include:
Available in more than 70 languages – get your local version.
Support for a new type of theme called Personas, which allow users to change Firefox’s appearance with a single click.
Posted by admin on 3 Jul 2010 9:52 am. Filed under firefox tips.
#1 SEARCH SITES WITH KEYWORDS…
Go to any site with a search field, right click search box and select ADD a keyword for this search.
The add book mark box will open.
Give it a name and short keyword-’BAY’ for eBay, for example.
If you wanted to search for, say, CDs on eBay you can now do so buy typing
‘bay CDs’ into the firefox address bar.
#2 ASSIGN KEYWORDS TO BOOKMARKS…
To speed up locating a bookmark, go to bookmarks/manage bookmarks, right click the one you want and select properties.
Enter a short text string in the keyword field
(’warrior’ for the warrior forum site for example)
and click OK.
To access the site simply type the string (’warrior’) into the address bar and hit enter.
#3 NAVIGATE TABS…
Press ctrl+tab to jump from tab to tab (left to right), or ctrl+shift+tab (right to left).
When you get to the last tab it will jump back to the first one.
Alternatively, you can press ctrl and a number that corresponds with the tab you want-so ctrl+3 will jump to the third tab.
#4 TYPE QUICKER URLs…
Type the name (not the address) of a site you want to visit in the address bar and press ctrl+enter.
This will add http://www. before the text and .com after it and automatically load the site.
Shift+enter adds http://www. and .net, and ctrl+shift+enter adds http://www. and .org.
If you hold down ALT at the same time it will load the site in a new tab.
#5 QUICK WORD SEARCH…
If you want to search for a word or phrase you found on a website, select the text then drag and drop it into the Firefox address bar.
Alternatively, you can highlight the phrase, right-click it, and select search web for.
If you set the search bar for Amazon or eBay you can use this method to quickly look up products.
Add uk-specific sites to the search bar at
HTTP://MYCROFT.MOZDEV.ORG.
#6 DROP DOWN BOOKMARKS…
You can bookmark multiple open tabs in a single folder by going to bookmarks, then bookmark all tabs.
If you save this folder to the bookmarks toolbar, clicking on the link will display all the bookmarks in a drop down list.
You can do the same with a folder created from existing bookmarks.
#7 DELETE ADDRESSES…
Click on the down arrow in the address bar and you will see a list of recently accessed sites.
To remove a particular site from the list, highlight it and press shift+delete.
#8 GET INSTANT DOWNLOADS…
Right-click the navigation toolbar (above the address bar) and select customize.
This will bring up a box containing icons.
Drag and drop the downloads icon to the toolbar.
Now whenever you want to download something simply drag the link to the button to begin.
#9 LAUNCH MULTIPLE HOMEPAGES…
Firefox can be set to open multiple pages (in individual tabs) when it starts up, or if you click the home icon.
Load all the pages you want the browser to open, go to tools/options and select use current pages.
#10 CARET BROWSING…
Press F7 to toggle caret browsing on or off.
This places a cursor where you click, letting you select text from a website using your keyboard-So you can give the mouse a rest.
#11 SAVE AUDIO AND VIDEO CLIPS…
If you want to save a picture or a video/audio clip but cant because it protected, right-click the page you are viewing and select view page info.
Click the media tab , find the file you want and click on save as .
#12 QUICK GOOGLE SEARCH…
If you type a search query directly into the firefox address bar (’warrior forum’ for example ) and press enter, firefox will perform an ‘I’m feeling lucky’ search and take you straight to the first page found by Google.
#13 VIEWING IMAGES…
You can view a picture from a website on its own by right-clicking it and selecting view image.
Hold down shift when you do this and the graphic will open in a new window.
Hold down ctrl (or click the mouse wheel) and it will open in a new tab
#14 SPEED UP FIREFOX…
There are various ways to tweak a programme to make it faster, but the easiest way is to use a programme to do everything for you.
Try FIRETUNE from…
WWW.TOTALIDEA.COM/FREESTUFF4.HTM
Or FASTERFOX from
HTTP://FASTERFOX.MOZDEV.ORG.
#15 MAKE A LIVE BOOKMARK…
Firefox makes use of RSS feeds to create live bookmarks, which change dynamically and show the latest links and stories.
You can create a live bookmark from any site with an RSS feed by clicking the orange icon that appears in its address bar.
#16 STOP ANIMATION…
Some websites have animated GIF images on them-small pictures which loop the same animation endlessly.
To stop a GIF file from moving just press esc.
#17 OPEN NEW TABS…
There are lots of ways to open a new tab, you can go to file/new tab, press ctrl+t, click a link while holding down ctrl or right-click a link and select open link in new tab.
You can also drag a link to the tab bar
#18 CLOSE TABS…
You can close any open tab by clicking on it with the mouse wheel.
Ctrl+F4 will do the same thing, as will ctrl+w.
#19 CUSTOMIZE FIREFOX…
Type ‘about:config’ into the address bar and hit enter to bring up firefox’s internal configuration options.
These can all be tweaked to change how the browser behaves.
To find out more about this go to
HTTP://KB.MOZILLAZINE.ORG/ABOUT:CONFIG.
#20 FIND WORDS AND LINKS…
You probably know that pressing the / key brings up the find box in firefox-at the bottom left of the page.
Enter a word or words into this box and it will search as you type.
If you press ‘ instead, it will open up the find box but only search for keywords in links.
so there you have it, a new concept of Firefox.
I hope you have learned some new tricks and tips from my guide,
I bet you didn’t get to this last page without trying a tip first : )
Mozila Firefox is a free web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox had about 15% of the recorded usage share of Web browsers as of January 2008 making Firefox the second-most popular browser in current use worldwide after Internet Explorer. Firefox has been considered a “rival” to Internet Explorer.
Firefox includes tabbed browsing, a spell checker, incremental find, live bookmarking, a download manager, and a search system that uses Google. Functions can be added through more than 2,000 add-ons created by third party developers; the most popular include NoScript (script blocker), FoxyTunes (controls music players), Adblock Plus (ad blocker), StumbleUpon (website discovery), DownThemAll! (download functions) and Web Developer (web tools).
Firefox runs on various versions of Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, and many other Unix-like operating systems. Its current stable release is version 2.0.0.12, released on February 7, 2008. Firefox’s source code is free software, released under a tri-license GPL/LGPL/MPL.
