Have you made the switch from Internet Explorer to Firefox or Mozilla? These tips will help smooth the changeover and introduce you to some of the advantages of your new browser and email program.

View in Internet Explorer

If you've abandoned Internet Explorer because of its woeful lack of security, you'll be chagrined to discover that some sites are viewable only in IE, while on others many features are disabled if you don't use IE. Chief among these sites—no surprise here—is Microsoft's own Windows Update site.

The easiest way to work around this is to use Mozilla or Firefox as your default browser and install the IE View extension. It lets you right-click any page displayed in your browser and choose View This Page In IE from a pop-up menu to launch Internet Explorer and load that page. It also lets you right-click a link and select Open Link Target In IE to display a link in Internet Explorer. Once you're done with the IE-only page, close Internet Explorer and get back to the relative safety of Mozilla/Firefox.

Download IE View. Once it's installed, close down and restart your browser.

Extend your browser

You can expand the capabilities of Firefox, Mozilla and Thunderbird by installing extensions. If there's something about Firefox you don't like, chances are there's an extension which ameliorates the annoying behaviour. If there's a feature in Internet Explorer you miss after making the switch to Firefox, there's probably an extension which mirrors the IE function.

You can install as many extensions as you like, but keep in mind that extensions are written by programmers with widely divergent skill levels and, given the number of extensions out there, it's simply not possible for programmers to test their extensions in conjunction with all the others. So don't be surprised if installing one extension causes another to stop functioning. You may even find that some extensions disable standard features in Firefox. Simply uninstall that extension if problems result.

Use the Extensions dialog to adjust extension options

Adjust Firefox extension options via the Extensions dialog.

 

step-by-step: how to install firefox extensions
Before you install any extensions, set Firefox to save all downloads to your Desktop:
  1. Click Tools -> Options -> Downloads.
  2. Click Save All Files To This Folder and select Desktop in the dropdown list.Click OK to save this setting.

This makes it easier to keep track of extensions you download. Now, you're ready to install extensions:

  1. Click Tools -> Extensions -> Get More Extensions.
  2. Browse through the offerings, click the extension you want to install and click Install Now.
  3. A dialog box will appear. Click Save To Disk. This will save the extension (which has a filename extension of .xpi) to your Desktop.
  4. Extensions from trusted sources have a digital certificate attached and are marked as signed. Most extensions, though, are unsigned. That doesn't mean you shouldn't install an unsigned extension, but you should exercise caution. If you recognize the author you're probably safe installing the extension; for example, the Googlebar extension comes from Google itself. You're also pretty safe installing extensions hosted on the Mozilla Update site. Beware of unsigned extensions you find elsewhere on the Net. If you have any doubts, click the Cancel button; otherwise click Install.
  5. To install the downloaded extension, in Firefox click File -> Open File and look for the downloaded extension on your Desktop. Click the file and then click Open.
  6. In the dialog box, click Install Now.
  7. In the Extensions list window that opens, you'll see a note beside the new extension, "This item will be installed after you restart Firefox." Close the Extensions list and restart Firefox to enable the extension's features.
  8. Many extensions are adjustable, although there's no standard way to adjust the options. Take a look in Tools -> Extensions, click an extension and, if the Options button is enabled, click it to adjust the options.
  9. If you can't adjust an extension through the Extensions dialog, look for additional options on your menus or even within the standard Firefox Options dialog. The Tabbrowser Preferences extension, for example, adds a completely new section to the Firefox Options box.

 

More viewing room

Want more surfing space and less clutter? One way to achieve that is to hide some of your toolbars: In Firefox, click View -> Toolbars and click a toolbar to remove the checkmark beside it; in Mozilla it's View -> Show/Hide and click a toolbar to remove the checkmark.

But what if you want to keep all your toolbars while maximizing your surfing window? Firefox provides a way.

Take a look at the menu bar at the top of the window. There's a lot of empty real estate between the Help menu and the Firefox logo—known as the throbber—on the right. Here's how you can reclaim that space:

  1. Click View -> Toolbars -> Customize to open Firefox's non-standard-looking toolbar palette.
  2. Notice in the Menu bar of the main Firefox screen that there's an outlined rectangle between the Help menu and the throbber. It's known as a flexible space. Click-and-drag that flexible space from the Menu bar into the toolbar palette. When you do so, the throbber will jump leftwards to cuddle up near the Help menu.
  3. Drag the Bookmarks Toolbar Items in the main window onto the Menu bar, placing it between the Help menu and the throbber, then click Done in the toolbar palette box.
  4. Click View -> Toolbars and click to remove the checkmark beside Bookmarks Toolbar. This closes the now-empty bookmarks toolbar.

Better tab control

Firefox's tab control is not particularly powerful, and certainly not as powerful as Mozilla's. But with the installation of a couple of extensions, you can beef up tab control considerably.

The easiest way to install extensions in Firefox is to click Tools -> Extensions -> Get More Extensions. This opens the Extensions page at Mozilla.org. From there, you can browse through the available extensions and click an extension's link to read more about it. Click Tabbed Browsing in the Categories list on the left of the page to view a list of tab extensions. Click the Install Now link followed by the Install Now button in the Software Installation dialog to install the extension, then close and re-open Firefox to activate the extension. To adjust an extension's options, click Tools -> Extensions, click the extension in the list and then click the Options button. (Note, the Options button will be grayed out if there are no options for that extension.)

To improve your tabbing experiences, make sure you grab Tabbrowser Preferences. It adds a variety of options to control many aspects of tabbed browsing.

New tab button

Mozilla displays a very handy New Tab Button on the tab bar, but Firefox doesn't. Clicking the Mozilla button makes a new tab spring open immediately. There's a Firefox extension called Basics which, among other things, adds such a button. Currently it doesn't work with Firefox 1.0, but it may do so by the time you read this, so check for it via the Mozilla.org extensions page.

In the meantime, you can add a similar button to your Bookmarks toolbar instead, which is almost as convenient:

  1. Click View -> Toolbars -> Customize.
  2. Scroll through the toolbar palette to locate the New Tab button.
  3. Drag the New Tab button and drop it to the left of the Bookmarks Toolbar Items, then click Done.

Make a splash

You can change the excruciatingly uninventive splash screen displayed when Mozilla starts by creating your own image. Save the image in bitmap (.bmp) format, name it mozilla.bmp and place it in the same folder as Mozilla.exe—usually C:\Program Files\Mozilla.org\Mozilla.

The original Mozilla splash screen is 320 by 240 pixels, but your custom splash screen may be a different size if you wish.

Auto-complete deletions

When you start typing a URL into Firefox's address box, the auto-completion feature kicks in and lets you pick from a list of previously typed addresses that match what you've typed so far. It's a handy shortcut, but sometimes that drop-down auto-complete list gets infested with unwanted sites. To delete existing auto-complete entries, highlight the entry in the drop-down list and press Shift+Delete.

Tab groups

Both Mozilla and Firefox let you bookmark groups of tabs, so you can re-open that set of pages at any time with a single click.

Mozilla makes it particularly easy:

  1. Open up a number of tabs.
  2. Rght-click any of the tabs and choose Bookmark This Group Of Tabs.
  3. Type in a name for the tab group and click OK.

Now, you'll be able to open the entire tab group by opening the Bookmarks menu and clicking the name of the group.

Mozilla's tab groups

Mozilla's tab groups make it easy to launch related sites en masse.

To do the same thing in Firefox:

  1. Open a number of tabs.
  2. Press Ctrl+D to open the Add Bookmark dialog box.
  3. Type a name for the group of tabs and enable the Bookmark All Tabs In A Folder box. Click OK.

When you want to open a group of related sites, open the Bookmarks menu, select the folder containing the sites, and then select the Open In Tabs option.

Importing to Thunderbird

When you first run Thunderbird, it lets you import account settings, address books and mail folders from your current e-mail program. The import process works well, but can be exceedingly slow if you have a lot of e-mail in your current program. You may find it better to skip this process and then, once Thunderbird has loaded, select Tools -> Import and then choose only those things you want imported, such as your address book and account settings.

Importing contacts into Thunderbird

Get more control when importing settings into Thunderbird by bypassing the initial import wizard.

© 2005  Rose Vines

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