Firefox Tweak Guide

[Page 7] Features, Tips & Tricks (Pt.2)

Bookmarks

Your bookmarks are web pages whose URL addresses you have stored so that you can return to these pages quickly and easily just by clicking on their bookmarks. This is identical to the Favorites feature in Internet Explorer. However there are a range of neat things you can do in Firefox to make using and managing your bookmarks far easier.

Bookmarks File: New to Firefox 3, unlike previous versions of Firefox, the browser no longer keeps all your bookmarks in a single Bookmarks.html file under your profile directory, it holds them in a database format as the file places.sqlite under your profile directory. The bookmarks.html file is now simply used to update the database with changes. To import your previous bookmarks from Firefox 2, or to restore previous versions of your bookmarks, or to export your current bookmarks in .JSON or .HTML format (e.g. for backup purposes), you will need to go to the Bookmarks menu, select 'Organize Bookmarks' and then click the 'Import and Backup' button. Details of all the changes to Bookmark files, how to correctly backup and restore bookmark files, and the differences in bookmark file formats are explained in greater detail at the start of the the Advanced Tweaking section.

Bookmark Star: New to Firefox 3, you can now view the bookmark status of a web address just by looking at the small star at the end of the address in the Awesome Bar. If it's white, that means you haven't bookmarked that page; if the star is yellow, the page is already part of your bookmarks. You can also add bookmarks with just one click - just left-click once on a white star to make it yellow, meaning it is now added to your bookmarks, under the 'Unsorted Bookmarks' folder. If you want to edit the bookmark and its location before adding it, instead double-click on the white star or click again on the yellow star, and a dialog box opens underneath, allowing you to edit the bookmark's name, it's target folder, and whether you want to remove it by clicking the 'Remove Bookmark' button.

Tags: New to Firefox 3, you can add a tag to a bookmark by entering text in the Tags field for that bookmark - visible when you click on a yellow star. A tag is an additional property you add to a bookmark purely for organisational purposes. Tag any bookmarked site with a particular word, and you can then either search for all sites with a particular tag by entering that tag word in the Awesome Bar, or by going to the Bookmarks menu in Firefox, selecting 'Organize Bookmarks' and then selecting the Tags item.

Saved Searches: New to Firefox 3, if you go to the Bookmarks menu and select 'Organize Bookmarks', in the Bookmarks Manager window which opens, you can now search your entire bookmark collection by entering a word or phrase in the Search box at the top right. When the results of a search are shown, you also have the option of clicking the 'Save' button which appears, saving your search result as a new folder with the search's name as the title. Furthermore any time in the future you bookmark a site which has a name, URL or tag that is relevant to that search, it will automatically be added to this custom saved search folder as well.

Sorting Bookmarks: To quickly sort your bookmarks at any time, go to the Bookmarks menu of Firefox, right-click on any folder name, select 'Sort By Name', and the contents of that folder will be alphabetically sorted by the name of the bookmark, with folders first, and standalone bookmarks below them.

Keywords: If you want to rapidly access your bookmarks, you can always use the Awesome Bar's search functionality (See previous page). However there's an even faster way - go to the Bookmarks menu, right-click on the relevant bookmark and select Properties. In the Properties box which opens, you can assign a shortcut to this bookmark in the Keyword box. For example, if you have TweakGuides.com bookmarked, enter "t" (without quotes) in the Keyword box, and click OK to close the box. Now the next time you want to quickly load up TweakGuides.com, go to the Awesome Bar and simply type the letter "t" (without quotes) and press Enter - TweakGuides.com will load up straight away. You can assign custom keywords - whether a single letter or an entire word - to each of your favorite bookmarks and use them in the Awesome Bar in a similar way. If you assign a Keyword to a search engine search result, you can use it to speed up searches as well - see the Faster Searching tips on the previous page for details.

Bookmarking Multiple Tabs: If you want to bookmark several open tabbed pages at once, open all the tabs you want to bookmark, then go to the Bookmarks menu in Firefox and select 'Bookmark all tabs', and give the new folder a name. The next time you want to open all the sites listed in that or any other folder all at once, right-click on the folder and select 'Open all tabs'.

Live Bookmarks: If you visit websites which have RSS feeds, you can bookmark them as 'live' bookmarks. To do this, just click on the orange RSS icon in the right side of the Awesome Bar. From there, you can select the type of RSS subscription, and the bookmark will be added with a sub-folder which has all the latest articles from that site as a live feed. For more details go here. By default Firefox has one such bookmark under the 'Latest Headlines' folder.

Bookmark Add-ons: If you want to do more with Bookmarks, you can get various Bookmark Add-ons which can help you do just that.

For further important tips on bookmarks see the Advanced Tweaking section.

Spell Checker

One of the useful features of Firefox, first introduced in version 2, is the integration of a spell checker. This might seem confusing at first, however the aim of the spell checker isn't to check the spelling on web pages you're viewing, it's to check the spelling of any text you enter in various text boxes. For example, if you're posting on a Forum, or entering text into an online form or search box, by enabling the spell checker ('Check my spelling as I type' option found under Tools>Options>Advanced>General>) any spelling mistakes you make will be underlined in red. Right-clicking on these underlined items will show you suggested alternative spellings which you can click on to use instead, or if the word is correct, you can ignore the spell check, or select 'Add to Dictionary' and it will be stored and not flagged as being misspelled in the future.

Some text entry boxes however do not have spell checking enabled by default. To enable spell checking in any text entry box on a web page temporarily, right-click in the box and select 'Check Spelling'. To enable spell checking in all text boxes permanently, see the layout.spellcheckDefault preference in the Advanced Tweaking section. Furthermore, ideally you should have downloaded the correct language version of Firefox for your region (see page 3), as this affects the specific dictionary that Firefox uses by default. For example if you downloaded the English US version of Firefox and you live in Australia, it will falsely pick up some Australian spellings as incorrect. Furthermore dictionaries for certain regions are not automaticaly built into Firefox. To add new dictionaries to your existing version of Firefox, right-click in a spell-checked field and select Languages>Add Dictionaries. You can then install a new dictionary, and select which to use under the Languages menu item in the spell checker.

The spell checker generally does not affect performance, however note that on pages which have multiple editable text boxes containing a very large amount of text, this can cause a slowdown as Firefox checks for errors. To reduce this problem see the extensions.spellcheck.inline.max-misspellings preference in the Advanced Tweaking section. In general though there should be no real reason to disable the spell checker.

Download Manager

The Download Manager starts by default whenever you initiate a file download within Firefox. While its basic functionality is obvious, it has a range of useful features you may not know about, some of them quite new.

Pause and Resume Downloads: New to Firefox 3, you can now pause an active download by either double-clicking on it in the Download Manager, or by pressing the pause button at the right of the individual download you wish to pause. You can similarly resume the download at any time. In fact you can exit Firefox, come back and reopen the Download Manager and still resume a download - click on the 'paused download' text in the Status Bar, go to the Tools menu and select Downloads, or just press CTRL+J to reopen the Download Manager and resume the download. Note however that some file servers may not allow resumption of downloads, such as Rapidshare.

Download Progress in Status Bar: New to Firefox 3, you can now minimize an active download and if you have the Status Bar visible (can be enabled using the View>Status Bar menu item), while the Download Manager itself will disappear, the progress of the download will still be shown in the bottom right corner of the status bar. You can also click on the progress text to re-open the Download Manager box at any time.

Managing Downloaded Files: New to Firefox 3, if you often find yourself wondering where or when you downloaded a certain file, then firstly make sure that the 'Remember what I've downloaded' option is ticked under the Privacy section of the Firefox Settings. This will keep all the details of each download, including the filename, site it was downloaded from, and date of download, all shown in the Download Manager and able to be scrolled through if you so wish. This allows you to use the new Search functionality in the Download Manager. You can also open any file at any time by double-clicking on it. If you want to revisit the download page for a particular file, right-click on its filename and select 'Go to Download Page'. Of course you can clear this list at any time by clicking the 'Clear List' button, particularly if you have no further need of the existing download history.

Anti-virus Scanning: New to Firefox 3, the Download Manager now works with your anti-virus/anti-malware package(s) to trigger a scan of downloads before they can be finalized. This integrated anti-malware scan can be useful to some, however it can also add quite a bit of time to the end of large downloads. If you wish to turn it off, see the browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone setting in the Advanced Tweaking section. I recommend manually scanning any untrusted downloads with multiple scanners rather than relying on a simple automated scan in the browser.

Vista Parental Controls: New to Firefox 3 If you are using Vista's Parental Controls feature to block certain content, the Firefox Download Manager will now provide an appropriate error message indicating why certain content is being blocked from being downloaded.

For more details of how to customize the Download Manager, see the browser.download.manager-related preferences in the Advanced Tweaking section. For alternatives to the built-in Download Manager in Firefox, see the Add-Ons section.

Add-on Manager

The Add-on Manager handles all the components of Firefox which are added by users depending on the functionality and appearance they need. This includes Extensions - which add new functionality; Themes - which alter the appearance of the browser; and Plugins - which handle content that Firefox cannot handle natively.

Get Add-ons: New to Firefox 3, the 'Get Add-ons' tab in the Add-on Manager is a new feature which provides users with the ability to quickly find the add-on they need for the functionality they desire. When it is opened, the tab lists several recommended add-ons that you don't already have, which are compatible with your current version of Firefox, and which you may wish to consider. Regardless, if you're after a particular type of functionality, enter an appropriate phrase in the Search box here, and all the add-ons which match the search criteria, whether Extensions, Themes or Plugins, will be shown. Only the first few results are shown within the tab, the remainder can be seen in a new browser tab when you click the 'See all results' link.

Plugins: New to Firefox 3, the Plugins tab of the Add-on Manager provides a straightforward location to view currently installed Plugins for Firefox. The two most common Plugins include Java and Flash Player. Other plugins may be installed depending on your particular OS and which websites you visit, however if any Plugin appears dubious, click the Disable button. Importantly, Firefox now automatically disables any insecure versions of particular plugins, as these can pose a significant security threat. Firefox will warn you about these and prompt you to update to a newer version if necessary.

To customize the Add-Ons Manager see the extensions.getAddons-related preferences in the Advanced Tweaking section. More details of specific Add-ons, including recommended Extensions and Themes, can be found in the Add-Ons section of this guide.

Removing Traces of Private Data

If you're particularly paranoid, or you're sharing a machine with others, especially a public machine, you can quickly and easily use the 'Clear Private Data' feature of Firefox to instantly remove a range of personal data and traces of your browsing history from Firefox in one go. For details of how to configure it, see the Firefox Settings section on the previous pages. Aside from accessing it from within the Firefox Options, you can also access it on your Firefox menu, under Tools>'Clear Private Data', or by pressing CTRL+SHIFT+DEL at any time. If you use this function often, untick the 'Ask me before clearing private data' box. Now whenever you use the menu option or press the keyboard shortcut for this function, it will occur instantly without asking you to confirm any options. If you just want to automatically clear relevant private data each time you close Firefox, that too is possible if the 'Always clear my private data when I close Firefox' option is ticked in the Firefox Options screen.

If you want to remove all traces of anything even remotely related to Firefox from your system, whether due to any problems or because you want to reinstall Firefox afresh, or cleanly install a newer version, see the Uninstalling Firefox section earlier in this guide. If you want to prevent any traces from being placed on your drive in the first place, consider using Firefox Portable Edition, as detailed in the Conclusion section of this guide.

Keyboard and Mouse Shortcuts

There are a range of keyboard and mouse shortcuts you can use to speed up browsing and to access special features in Firefox, some of which have already been mentioned. Whether you use them is up to you, however I often find that there are a handful of shortcuts which are very useful in any program. To see a complete list of various keyboard and mouse shortcuts you can use in Mozilla, see this Keyboard Shortcuts List and Mouse Shortcuts List.

That covers our look at the more prominent features, tips and tricks in Firefox. In some ways this is just the tip of the iceberg however, as there are a large number of ways in which Firefox can be customized and tweaked, and these are covered in the next two sections.