Discovering Mozilla Firefox: an introduction

by Hamish Taylor

Thursday, 04 September 2008

Page 1 of 3 ! During last week, I overheard someone fairly technically-savvy saying that he didn't want to switch to an alternative web browser, such as Mozilla Firefox, as he didn't know where things were and how to do basic things, such as setting his Home page. He said that learning something new was all too difficult and he'd just stick with Internet Explorer. I found this very disappointing, so whilst in my last article I talked about using Linux Virtual Desktops and how they can improve your productivity, in this article we'll go back to basics and discover and de-mystify Mozilla Firefox.   I realise that there are a vast array of web browsers which can be installed and used in any Linux distribution. Examples of which are the proprietary Opera, the open source Konqueror and the open source text-based Lynx browsers to name just three.    What I want to do is introduce the basics of Firefox and then discuss a few of the more advanced features and functionality.   What is Firefox? Just like Internet Explorer (IE), Mozilla Firefox is a web browser. You use it to display and interact with web pages. However, as you'll see when we explore add-ons, Firefox can be extended to be so much more than "just" a web browser.   Setting your home page Many people like to have a specific website appear when they open up their web browser. This is known as a Home page. Setting this in Internet Explorer 7 (the current version), is pretty straight forward and there are a few ways of doing it, either directly through IE itself via the Tools, Options menu or via Internet Options in the Control Panel.   Setting a Home page in Firefox is pretty straight forward too. Open Firefox up, go to Edit, Preferences. Make sure the Main tab is displayed at the top, and type in what you'd like the Home page to be in the Home Page box. Alternatively, if you are on that page, just click on Use Current Page and it will set the page you are on as your Home page.   Additionally, in the "When Firefox starts" drop down you can choose to have Firefox display either a blank page, your Home page or the pages you had open when you used it last time. The last option is particularly useful if you open up the same few pages each time you use the web browser.   Please read onto Page 2 for more on Firefox   << First page <   1 2 3 Next page > Last page - Post your comment >>

 

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