Firefox

From HelpDeskWiki

Mozilla Firefox, previously known as Phoenix and Firebird, is a Gecko (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gecko_%28layout_engine%29)-based browser that is not built around Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) or WebBrowser control (as many "alternative" browsers are). The Mozilla suite (browser + email program) and modern versions of Netscape Navigator are also Gecko-based. For more information, see the Wikipedia's Mozilla Firefox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox) article. Firefox has been very rapidly gaining in popularity in recent months. Note that some of its popularity is hype, since there are other non-IE third-party web browsers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers) that are configurable, extendable, and reasonably secure (see comparison (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers)). Part of its popularity is due to its being free. Firefox can be downloaded from Mozilla.org (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox). Extensions are available from within the browser (Tools / Extensions), which takes one to the official Mozilla Update (https://addons.update.mozilla.org/extensions/showlist.php?application=firefox&version=1.0&os=Windows&category=All) site, or from Extension Room (http://extensionroom.mozdev.org) and The Extensions Mirror (http://www.extensionsmirror.nl). For details about many of the various settings that can be seen on the About:Config page, see Preferential (http://preferential.mozdev.org) and About:config Entries (http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=About:config_Entries).

Firefox is reasonably secure (http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/faq#mozvsie), usable, etc., as-is. However, there are some changes that you may want to consider making:

  • Go to Options on the Tools menu
    • Go to the Privacy page. Open the Saved Passwords item and click Set Master Password.... Setting a password here keeps others from logging on to pages with your stored passwords.
    • After installing all of the extensions that you want, you may want to go to the Web Features page and uncheck "Allow web sites to install software" as there are some Firefox spyware extensions circulating the Internet. These, to reassure (http://kb.mozillazine.org/index.phtml?title=Firefox_:_Issues_:_Can%27t_Install_Themes_or_Extensions), cannot be installed without first being granted permission via the "OK, Cancel" extension installation dialog, which has a two-second delay before you can select "OK". Making the change will keep children or visitors from casually installing extensions.
    • Go to the Advanced page.
      • For convenience, you may want to enable Begin finding when you begin typing option in the Accessibility section.
      • To reduce jerkiness that may make it difficult to follow text while scrolling, you may want to enable Use smooth scrolling in the Browsing section.
      • You may wish to change the settings in the Tabbed Browsing section. Specifically, you may want to change Open links from other applications in to a new tab in the most recent window. Also, see the paragraph below on hidden tab options.
      • For consistency, you may want to uncheck Hide the tab bar when only one web site is open in the Tabbed Browsing section.
      • In a managed environment, you may wish to disable periodically check for updates in the Software Update section.
  • If your screen resolution is at least 1024x768, you may want to merge the menu bar and navigation bar into a single bar, to give you more space for pages. You can do this by right-clicking on one of the bars and selecting Customize.... Then drag the address bar to the blank spot on the menu bar, drag the search bar to immediately before the throbber, and drag each of the buttons to in front of "File". You may also want to check "Use small icons", at the bottom of the Customize Toolbar window. Then, turn off the now-empty navigation toolbar by clicking View / Toolbars / Navigation Toolbar.
  • Consider getting the IEView extension (http://ieview.mozdev.org), which allows you to right-click on a link to open it in IE or another IE-based browser if you run into pages that you trust but which don't display correctly in Firefox (because they do not conform to current Web standards).
  • Tabs are one of the main features of Firefox, compared to IE. However, some of the most useful tab options are hidden by default. To show these options, navigate to about:config, look for browser.tabs.showSingleWindowModePrefs, and change the value to true by double-clicking on it. Then, go to Options on the Tools menu, go to the Tabbed Browsing section of the Advanced page, and enable Force links that open new windows to open in:. You can then enable the a new tab selection. If you want to open a group of bookmarks after the current tabs and not to replace them, see about:config for "browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace" and set it to false.
Retrieved from "http://www.local.nu/HelpDesk/index.php/Firefox"