Today, I decided to write about webrowser Mozilla Firefox. Evethough firstly I thought this may be boring to some of you, I still decided to give it a try simply because I think many people fail to realize the extent to which mozilla firefox can be customised and become more efficient and usable… So, folks read this one.
Firefox and Internet Explorer are two most popular browsers on the internet. Firefox is relatively new browser but the adoption rate for it is very high and it is an only browser that was able to challenge long term domination of internet explorer in the browser market. While initially it was expanding only in geek community today people from many fields use it. Below you can check out the adoption table for firefox browser.
|
Date
|
Number of days
|
Downloads (millions)
|
|---|---|---|
|
November 10, 2004
|
1
|
1
|
|
February 16, 2005
|
99
|
25
|
|
April 29, 2005
|
171
|
50
|
|
July 26, 2005
|
259
|
75
|
|
October 19, 2005
|
344
|
100
|
|
March 3, 2006
|
479
|
150
|
|
July 31, 2006
|
629
|
200
|
Some cool things firefox 1.5 offers that IE6 does not:
1. Tabbed Browsing:
This feature let’s you have several pages within one browser window,this is especially useful when you like to work with several browser windows open. For instance, I always use it when I work on multiple tasks at the same time. I use one firefox window for one taskand open all related resources to this tak in the tabs withing that window. And for another task do the same in another firefox instance. This procedure keeps things organized and desktop do not seem overwhelmingly crowded.
2. Extensions/Plugins:
This is very nice feature of firefox. It can be acceessed through: Tools -> Plugins. This feature let’s you add various features to your borwser. For example, you can add wikipedia (profiled here) as search option right into firefox’s default search field which comes with google search as a default option. Later on when you conduct search you simply type your search term and select where the browser should look. Default choice is google however you can easily select wikipedia from drop-down list as well. If you are a delicious (profiled here) user you can install plugin that would let you store favourites to delicious account within seconds without leaving page you are on. These are just couple of my plugins, there are many more. Depending on your interests you may find several useful ones. PLugins vary from such like NBA Scoreboard to Plugin letting you use your Gmail account as an online storage device.
Mozilla Firefox - Extensions/Plugins3. Theme Manager:
Theme managerallows you to change the way firefox looks. This is useful when you simply tired with the way your broowser looks and feel like switching it. Theme manager can be accessed through: Tools -> Themes. Press on ‘get more themes’ and you will be taken here, where you can choose,view and install themes you like.
To summarise, I have both Internet Explorer 6 and Mozilla Firefox1.5 installed, however I give my preference to firefox mainly due to features outlined above. However, microsoft in response to success of Firefox is soon releasing IE 7, it would be worth checking it out, as well.
Filed Under: Browser
Tags: browsers, firefox tips
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