Put Firefox to Work for YOU...

I absolutely LOVE Firefox....
Trevor has shared some information and details with me...
and has given me permission to share all of it with you...

(thank you Trevor Bauknight)

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -



Downloaded Firefox? Good. Now Put It To Work For You

So you've read the glowing press and you're sick of the
gaping security holes Internet Explorer opens into your
personal computer and the personal data it manipulates.
You've gone to http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox
and you've downloaded the latest and greatest in Web
browser technology. What next?

You could be content to use it just like you use any other
browser. It'll happily import all your Internet Explorer
preferences, bookmarks, etc. and let you interact with
them the way you always have. You can set Firefox as your
default browser and it will pop up when you click a link in
your e-mail.

You can do everything you can do with Internet Explorer
except run ActiveX controls (this is a feature, not a bug!),
so you'll still need to use IE if you want to run Windows
Update manually (though if you have Windows XP, we suggest
turning on Automatic Updates and not fooling with manual
updates anymore.)

Check Your Prefs

The first time you run Firefox, you will be given the option
to import your current settings and bookmarks from Internet
Explorer. This makes it easy to give Firefox a try without
investing a lot of time tweaking it to your liking; and,
let's face it, if you try it, you're probably going to keep
using it. You'll also be asked at some point if you want to
make Firefox your default web browser. We think that's a
great idea.

Under the Tools menu, select Options... to open the Firefox
preferences manager. We'll briefly walk through a few of
them you may not have thought about. The manager organizes
the preferences into five categories: General, Privacy, Web
Features, Downloads and Advanced.

The General tab is highlighted automatically, but there isn't
much new here. You might find the automatic proxy configuration
option under Connections useful.

The Privacy tab contains lots of options dealing with how
your browser stores information from your sessions and how
it presents it to websites to which you return. Each option
gives you the ability to clear all stored information quickly
and conveniently. Firefox will offer to save your passwords
internally and type in a master password each time it's
necessary to access some web content. This feature works
flawlessly and is even able to handle multiple logins for single
pages. You also have fine-grained control over cookies, those
relatively harmless bits of information websites leave behind in
your browser to help them recognize you next time you come around.

Under the Web Features tab, there are all kinds of features
that make old-time Web purists like me almost giddy. You may
already have downloaded some sort of pop-up blocker for IE, but
Firefox has this built in, and it's easy to gain control over
which sites are allowed and which aren't allowed to spawn new
windows all over your screen. You can choose to allow websites
to load images or not, or to load them from their server and not
allow off-site images that may carry tracking bugs to load.

The Advanced tab is where most of the fun is with Firefox. Here,
you can adjust all kinds of default browser behaviors. The best
feature of Firefox is tabbed browsing. This enables you to open
multiple websites each in its own individual tab in a single
browser window. These preferences allow the user to control when
new tabs are created and when they come into focus.

We recommend unchecking the box that hides the tab bar when there
is only one site open because the visual reminder that you can
add tabs instead of opening new windows. You can also right-click
in the tab bar to create new tabs quickly and right-click existing
tabs to bring up a contextual menu of options for dealing with
them.

There is also a handy Software Update section that allows you
to have Firefox automatically check for updates to both itself
and to any extensions you have installed. The Advanced tab is
also where heavy-duty secure certificate manipulation is handled.

Make Firefox Yours

Our next favorite thing to do with Firefox is to customize the
main browser toolbar and select which toolbars are visible.
Under View > Toolbars > Customize... you can drag and drop the
browser's control icons as you like. You can also control the
appearance of the Status bar at the bottom of the browser and
the main Navigation and Bookmarks toolbars at the top. Don't
forget that the main Navigation toolbar includes its very own
search box that you can associate with any search engine you
prefer and that takes you straight to your results.

We wholeheartedly recommend turning on the Status bar because
it's often handy to see where a link will take you before you
click it, and that's one of the things you'll see in the Status
Bar. The Sidebar is a special toolbar where you can see your
bookmarks and History arranged hierarchically. Each bookmark's
properties includes a selection you can use to specify that the
bookmark opens in the Sidebar instead of in the main browser window.
This feature is great for bookmarking pages that are long lists
of links that you'd like to open in the main window. In addition,
the Sidebar comes with its own Search box tied to its current
contents.

Extend Firefox

The most powerful feature of Firefox is undoubtedly its
ability to be extended by third-party developers using XUL,
the extensible framework developed by the Mozilla team as an
answer to Microsoft's ActiveX. There are already dozens of
excellent extensions designed for all kinds of purposes.
You can see all the available extensions by selecting
Extensions from the Tools menu and then choosing Get More
Extensions at the bottom of the Extensions Manager. Here are
some of our favorites:

Chatzilla - Here at Cafe ID (www.cafeid.com), we use Internet
Relay Chat to communicate in real-time with our far-flung developer
staff. There are lots of IRC clients out there, but none are quite
as straightforward for use in a serious environment as Chatzilla.
It allows you to open a multi-tabbed window containing all your
IRC activity and supports most IRC commands. Best of all, it's free
while many Windows IRC clients are shareware or commercial applications.

SearchStatus - this one does an excellent job of replacing both
the missing functionality of the Google Toolbar and the Alexa
Toolbar used heavily in website marketing to monitor traffic and
inbound links.

Adblock - lets you filter out website content by source address,
simply by pointing and clicking.

Checky - opens up an interface between Firefox and numerous website
validation and analysis tools, this is an essential tool for web
developers.

Sage - a lightweight RSS and ATOM feed aggregator, used for
viewing your collection of incoming RSS and ATOM feeds into
a single, easy-to-use view.

Abe Vigoda Status - checks on and displays the status of Abe Vigoda
in the Status bar.

More To Come

We can't recommend Firefox heartily enough. It's an excellent
browser with a perfect collection of features that doesn't succumb
to the bloat that was starting to drag down Netscape while at the
same time allowing you to browse a bit more freely without worrying
about running into a site that will allow the site owner to take
control of your computer for her own nefarious ends. The Firefox
developers aren't resting on their successes. They want to help
you take back the Web, and they're going to stay ahead of the browser
technology game. Go ahead and give it a shot if you haven't already.
We don't think you'll look back.


-----
About the Author
Trevor Bauknight is a web designer and writer with over 15 years
of experience on the Internet. He specializes in the creation
and maintenance of business and personal identity online and can
be reached at trevor@tryid.com. Stop by http://www.cafeid.com
for a free tryout of the revolutionary SiteBuildingSystem and
check out our Flash-based website and IMAP e-mail hosting solutions,
complete with live support.

.