Using
Firefox or Mozilla
Firefox
Search Box
You'll find a handy search box in the top right corner of your Firefox
window.
* Clicking the little drop down arrow lets you
select from several different search engines. Click the one you want
then enter your search text in the box.
* Here is how to add more search engines to
your list
* If you use Google Desktop Search, you'll want this plugin to allow
you to add GDS as one of the search engines. Additionally, this little
plugin will help you get around the current 10 results per page that
GDS imposes on you.
How to remove search engines from the Firefox search box (this tip is
for Windows users. Others should be able to find similar files in their
program directory):
* Go to C:\Program Files\Mozilla
Firefox\searchplugins
* Delete the two files (there will be .png or .gif
and .src) for the search engine you want to remove (for example
google.src and google.gif) and restart Firefox.
Ad Block
* With Ad
Block installed you can stop all kinds annoying ads on web pages.
Blocking them speeds up your browsing as well.
* By default, Ad Block doesn't block anything. You
add filters as you browse by clicking the Ad Block link that gets
installed in the lower right corner of your browser or pressing
Ctrl+Shift+A or going into Tools - Ad Block - Preferences.
* More great tips are available from Mozilla for Ad Blocking
BetterSearch
* BetterSearch
uses the wonderfulness of Firefox to enhance search engines. You get a
thumbnail picture link to the site and you can choose an inline
preview. Try out the BetterSearch extension
* It enhances Google (all international versions,
too), MSN Search, Yahoo Search, A9, AllTheWeb, del.icio.us and
Simpy.com.
* I've put to gether a screen shot of how a Google
results page is enhanced. Have a look here: Better Search
Screenshot
| Keyboard Shortcuts |
| CTRL
+ A |
Select
all text on a webpage |
| CTRL
+ B |
Open
the Bookmarks sidebar |
| CTRL
+ C |
Copy
the selected text to the Windows clipboard |
| CTRL
+ D |
Bookmark
the current webpage |
| CTRL
+ F |
Find
text within the current webpage |
| CTRL
+ G |
Find
more text within the same webpage |
| CTRL
+ H |
Opens
the webpage History sidebar |
| CTRL
+ I |
Open
the Bookmarks sidebar |
| CTRL
+ J |
Opens
the Download Dialogue Box |
| CTRL
+ K |
Places
the cursor in the Web Search box ready to type your search |
| CTRL
+ L |
Places
the cursor into the URL box ready to type a website address |
| CTRL
+ M |
Opens
your mail program (if you have one) to create a new email message |
| CTRL
+ N |
Opens
a new Firefox window |
| CTRL
+ O |
Open
a local file |
| CTRL
+ P |
Print
the current webpage |
| CTRL
+ R |
Reloads
the current webpage |
| CTRL
+ S |
Save
the current webpage on your PC |
| CTRL
+ T |
Opens
a new Firefox Tab |
| CTRL
+ U |
View
the page source of the current webpage |
| CTRL
+ V |
Paste
the contents of the Windows clipboard |
| CTRL
+ W |
Closes
the current Firefox Tab or Window (if more than one tab is open) |
| CTRL
+ X |
Cut
the selected text |
| CTRL
+ Z |
Undo
the last action |
| F1 |
Opens
Firefox help |
| F3 |
Find
more text within the same webpage |
| F5 |
Reload
the current webpage |
| F6 |
Toggles
the cursor between the address/URL input box and the current webpage |
| F7 |
Toggles
Caret Browsing on and off. Used to be able to select text on a webpage
with the keyboard |
| F11 |
Switch
to Full Screen mode |
Control
animations with about:config
If you’ve never used about:config, you’re missing out. Type
about:config into your Firefox address bar and hit Enter. One easy
configuration change is limiting animated images. Double-click
image.animation_mode and change it to ‘none’ to stop all animated
images, or ‘once’ to let them run through once. You can revert to the
default behavior with ‘normal’
Several
Tips
Tip: Double Clicking empty space on the
Tab Bar will open a 'New Tab'
Tip: Middleclick/MouseWheelClick on a Bookmark on your Personal
Toolbar will open it up in a New Tab
Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a folder will open all the
bookmarks in the folder in a new Tab(s)
Tip: holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when you RightClick
to "View Image" or "View Backround Image"will open the image in a New
Tab or New Window.
Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click
on a Tab will close that Tab.
Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on a History item will open
the page in a new Tab
Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Back and Forward
buttons will open the last/next page in a new Tab
Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Home button will open
your homepage in a new Tab(s)
Tip: MiddleClick/MouseWheel Click on the Throbber (the 'busy'
icon at the top-right) will open the Firefox homepage in a new Tab
Tip: For those without middle mouse buttons or mousewheels,
ctrl-click will also open new tabs for links, bookmarks, bookmark
folders, history items, and toolbar buttons
Tip: Ctrl+TAB you can navigate in the tabs to the right
Tip: Ctrl+Shift+Tab you can navigate in the tabs to the left
Tip: Many Laptops mimic the MiddleClick/MouseWheelClick function
if you click both right/left pads at the same time.
Tip: Set mutliple Home pages :
Tools---->Options--->General and seperate each page with the pipe
| symbol
(eg http://forums.mozillazine.org/|http://www.google.com|http://www.y...
Tip: Clear your Download history to make the download manager
more responsive : Tools---->Options--->Privacy
Tip: Rearrange add/remove Icons on Toolbars:
View--->ToolBars--->Customize....
Tip: Drag any link to the Download Manager Window to add &
download the link
Tip: Pressing ctrl+enter will add http://www.
before and .com after the text in the toolbar and load the resulting
url. Similarly, shift+enter will add http://www. and .net, and
ctrl+shift+enter will add http://www. and .org
Tip: You can work offline like in IE by clicking
File>Work Offline. This means that you can browse your previously
visited pages even when you're offline.
Tip: If you wish to remove an item from your Address Bar Drop
down menu, Highlight it WITHOUT CLICKING and use Shift+Delete
Tip: A bookmarks's position Dragged & Dropped (ie.
change position in a Folder or move from one folder to another or move
to another position on the toolbar) by highlighting it & clicking
on it (WITHOUT LETTING GO) and Dragging it to your desired position
Tip: If u accidentally delete a
bookmark
and want to recover it, if it is not already open then, open the
"Bookmarks Manager" (Bookmarks--->Manage Bookmarks) and either use
Ctrl+Z or Edit--->Undo (in The Bookmarks Manager)
Tip: DoubleClicking a file entry in the Downloads Manager will
open/launch the file (provided u haven't moved it yet)
Tip: You can also directly download anything from a page by
drag and dropping it onto the 'download' icon in your toolbar (provided
you put it there in 'right-click > customize')
Tip: You can bookmark the current page by dragging the icon
from the location bar to your Bookmarks folder. You can also drag it to
the desktop to make an icon for that page
Tip: You can save all open tabs in
a bookmark folder. Ctl-D, select the "bookmark all tabs in a folder"
select or create a folder.
Tip: To stop animated gifs from moving, press the ESC key.
Tip: Instead of clicking the Back or Forward buttons, hold down
the Shift key and turn the scroll wheel to back or forward
Tip: you can give "keywords" to your bookmarks by
right-clicking the bookmark and then Properties. If you put a string in
the keyword field now you can type that keyword in the address bar and
it will go to that bookmark. For example, if I have a bookmark for the
firefox website, I might give it the keyword "ff". Now, when I type
"ff<Enter>" in the address bar, it goes to the firefox site. I
find it is often faster than going through your bookmarks to find it
Tip: Ctrl and a number key will go to the tab indicated by the
number. (e.g. Ctrl+3 will go to the third tab from the left)
Tip: CTRL+F5 refreshes the page without accessign the file cache
Mouse and Keyboard Images
Holding down the Shift or Ctrl key when you RightClick to "View
Image" or "View Background Image" will open the image in a New Tab or
New Window.
Quick
Google search from Address Bar
1. Go to the "Bookmarks" drop-down menu and select "Manage
Bookmarks..."
2. Select "New Bookmark..."
3. A Properties for New Bookmark will appear
4. Under Name, give it a name like, "google search"
5. Under
location, put this address, "http://google.com/search?q=%s" but without
the quotation marks.
6. Under Keyword, put something very simple like the letter "g"
(without quotes)
7. Hit OK then you are done.
Once you have done this go to the address bar, type the letter "g"
(without quotes), hit the spacebar and type any word you want to search
for like "afterdawn", hit enter and you have done a quick search. For
example type, "g afterdawn". press enter and a google search for
afterdawn will turn up.
Sure
Way to Block ALL Ads from Firefox
There is a Extension Called Adblock] that most people use, but
there is a second extension that goes with it called Adblock Filter
Set G
that pretty much disables all third party ads, but still keeps the
browser functional without disabling the banners that come from the
host site.
Both extention can be found here:
Adblock -> http://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10&applicati...
Filter Set G -> http://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1136&applica...
Opening,
Closing and Switching Tabs
Whether you use tabbed browsing or not is up to you, however there are
some basic things you can do to make better use of this feature. To
start with, to open any link as a new tab you simply need to click your
center mouse button while pointing to a link. If you don't have a
center mouse button, hold down the CTRL key then left-click on a link
to get the same result. This opens the link up as a new tab with the
contents hiding behind your currently displayed page by default. To
switch to this new page, simply click on its tab. If you want to force
a link to open as a new tab in the foreground, you need to hold down
the SHIFT key and use the relevant methods above. If you want to close
a tab quickly, simply click the center mouse button on the tab, or
press CTRL + W or CTRL + F4 while viewing the tab. To switch quickly
between open tabs, press CTRL + Tab to go to the next open tab, or
SHIFT + CTRL + TAB to go to the previous open tab. If you want to go to
a specific open tab, press CTRL and a number key (e.g. CTRL + 2) to
jump to that tab.
In fact, if you click your middle mouse button on a range of things in
Firefox, they will typically open up in a new tab (substitute CTRL for
middle-click). For example, click the middle button on the back or
forward arrows at the top of Firefox, and the previous or next pages
you've visited will open in a new tab. Middle-click on an item in your
history and it will open in a new tab. Middle-click on the Homepage
toolbar icon and your home page will open in a new tab.
Using the
about:config Option
config.trim_on_minimize [Boolean] (False) - This setting only
works in Windows, and determines whether Firefox - much like other
Windows applications - reduces its memory usage when minimized to the
Taskbar. If set to true (the default), it will use less memory when
minimized, which is useful for systems with low RAM and multiple open
applications. However if set to false it will speed up
minimizing/maximizing Firefox, as it will not constantly attempt to
reduce and reclaim RAM - thus I recommend a setting of false for most
people.
dom.disable_window_open_feature.* [Boolean] - There are 11
settings which begin with this tag (and end with one of the following:
.close, .directories, .location, .menubar, .minimizable, .personalbar,
.resizable, .scrollbars, .status, .titlebar, .toolbar). These 11
settings control the elements of popup windows which you can force to
be displayed. For example, if you set the dom.disable_window_open_feature.close
setting to True, it will force all popup windows which open up to have
a close button in the top right hand corner of the popup window. This
is useful since many popup windows (mainly ads) deliberately remove
such elements to prevent easy resizing/closing of their content. For
that reason I recommend you set at least the .close and .resizeable
settings to true.
dom.popup_maximum [Integer] (2) - This setting determines the
maximum number of simultaneous popup windows which can be open at any
time. The default is 20, but I recommend a very low value such as 2,
since most of the time users will only ever have 1 or 2 open legitimate
popups on their screen at once, and this also helps prevent websites
from flooding your screen with lots of popups.
image.animation_mode [String] - This setting determines how
animated GIF images behave in Firefox. If set to None, animated images
will never play; if set to Once animated images will only play through
once then stop; and if set to the default of Normal animated images
will play as they normally do. I personally prefer Once so I can see
the animation a single time, but it doesn't loop over and over.
network.http.max-connections [Integer] (24) - This setting
determines how many simultaneous HTTP connections can be made by
Firefox. The default is already 24, however for most people on moderate
to fast Internet connections you can try raising this to a value like
48 or even 96 to allow for more open connections, thereby speeding up
browsing multiple pages. The maximum is 65535, but remember that by
raising this setting you are only raising the maximum possible
number of connections. You aren't forcing Firefox to increase the
actual number of connections it makes every time; if your system
actually attempted to force 300 connections to open at once for example
it would likely slow down to a crawl.
network.http.max-connections-per-server [Integer] (8) - This
setting determines how many simultaneous connections can be made to a
single server. The default is 8, however you can increase the value for
broadband connections to something like 16 or 32 to attempt to increase
browsing speed. The maximum is 255, however note that raising this
setting to a high value (in conjunction with a high value for the network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-.*
settings below) may be construed as a DDoS (Distributed Denial of
Service) attack by some servers and your connection may be refused.
Aside from that, it may actually slow down your browsing and it's also
poor netiquette to hammer people's servers with dozens of connections
from a single machine, so I strongly suggest that you keep this value
sane (e.g. 8 or 16).