5 Great Firefox Tips

April 27th, 2008 | firefox

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There are three software applications that I use most on my computer: Windows XP, MS Word, and Firefox. By far my favorite application is Firefox.

Yesterday, I was talking to some friends about how I think that we are living in the most exciting times. I used to envy my grandparents who saw the first cars, airplanes, and rockets. But now, I think that the creation of the Internet has trumped these prior innovations. Okay, I am sure that I will not get universal consensus on this, but you have to admit that the Internet is pretty darn great.

Since one of my favorite past times is surfing the Internet, I am always looking for Firefox tips and tricks. Here are 10 great firefox tips. For you power users I hope there is at least one in this list that you did not know about before. If there is, then I am going to consider this article a success.

Customize your firefox toolbars - If you right click next to the Help menu, you can select customize. From this screen you can totally customize your toolbars. You can add items to toolbars and move items from one toolbar to another. This is a great way to regain valuable real estate with Firefox by getting rid of buttons you never use. You can consolidate two or more toolbars into one.

FoxMarks Extension - If you work on more than one computer, this firefox extension is awesome. FoxMarks allows you to sync you firefox bookmarks on multiple computers. I hate when I bookmark something during the day at my work computer, and then go to read it at night on my home computer.

Restore Closed Tabs - Have you even closed a tab by accident? I am sure you have. We all do it. I usually swear a few times. Well, now I won’t get yelled at by my wife for swearing. If you hit Ctrl + Shft + T you can restore your closed tabs.

Use Pipeline - Increase your page load speeds by turning on Firefox’s pipeline function. You turn pipeline on by going into Firefox’s about:config screen. To do that just type in about:config into the address bar. From this screen enter true for network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining. Then set the network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to 8. This will allow you to open up to 8 pages at one time.

Delete the Go Button - Who uses the Go Button? I don’t. In fact it ticks me off that it is even there. Well, I figured out how to delete it. Again, go into the about:config screen and set the browser.urlbar.hideGoButton to true.

I hope that at least one of these tips was new for you. The one that has significantly increased my love for Firefox is FoxMarks. Maybe I will do a separate post just on this. I hope you enjoy these firefox tips. If you have any favorite firefox tips, share them in the comments.

20 comments ↓

#1 fire » Blog Archive » 5 Great Firefox Tips on 04.27.08 at 8:43 am

[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]

#2 Niche Blogging on 04.27.08 at 8:12 pm

I have to agree with you on Foxmarks…I have 5 different computers I use between my real “job” and the computers around my house. Foxmarks has made it so easy to keep my bookmarks and bookmark toolbar synced.

Thanks for the tips on consolidation of the toolbars too, I definitely need that!

#3 Fred on 04.28.08 at 6:33 am

Hi Elliot,

Thanks for stopping by and leaving a comment. I really love FoxMarks. It is a must have firefox addon for anyone who uses more than one computer.

#4 Rob on 04.29.08 at 1:08 pm

Thanks for the tips — especially Foxmarks. I’ve downloaded it at work and can’t wait to sync up with my home computers.

#5 Zia on 05.02.08 at 4:58 am

Say, Iike your blog!

#6 free stuff on 05.03.08 at 12:19 am

I prefer Opera for browsing the mails and some heavy sites. I think firefox needs some attention to these points.

#7 Jug on 05.03.08 at 3:07 am

Hey, thanks for the tips! I never knew about CTRL+SHIFT+T. Thanks again Fred!

#8 Beth on 05.16.08 at 4:56 pm

Ha, right on about the “go” button. Who is using that? Anyone? I really like Firefox. Thanks for some new tips!

#9 When Buying A Tom Tom GPS System on 05.20.08 at 10:49 pm

I currently use a few custom firefox plugins as they seem to be useful. One of them is the search engine rank checker by seo.book as it is a great tool that I love to use.

#10 Blogempire on 05.21.08 at 1:21 pm

I will email this post to a few of my online friends who are always asking about things you answer. I really like your blog I actually found you in a blog directory after doing a search. Currently working on a project I will contact you about in a week or so, until then keep up the great work just what we need more valuable content and less junk in the blog-o-sphere.

#11 Clara-G on 05.28.08 at 4:06 pm

I found a very useful plugin for firefox - it creates thumbnails of your often visited sites for every new inset.
download here - https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/4810

#12 RealWebToday.com on 05.29.08 at 8:13 pm

I still use IE around 75% of the time. Slowly making the switch to FF. Super post. Thanks,

#13 Michael on 06.03.08 at 9:36 pm

Thanks for the tips. I know about some of the things that you covered but like the pipeline, I’ll give it a try.

#14 PPC Search Engine Internet Marketing on 06.04.08 at 3:35 am

Yeah. i totally agree with you, ctrl + shift + t is really useful to me, i don’t need to restore the page with history toolbar. I don’t know about firefox extension but now i realize that it will be useful to me, to keep my bookmarks and bookmark toolbar synced.

#15 Mesothelioma Attorneys California on 06.07.08 at 1:54 am