FirefoxHelp.com Blog

Dee Owens asked:


So you have decided to download Firefox and are wandering what the advantages it could have over the famous Internet Explorer? The first advatage is obviously the fact you can download and save the instalelr anytime you need to use it. Another advantage is the actual file size and amount of time it takes to install Firefox. There is also the fact that when you choose to install Firefox you can either allow it to transfer all of your favorites, saved web pages, cookies, plus much more. However if you’re not sure what you want installed then you also have the choice not to set them up at that time.

Another advantage to Firefox is the Firefox Safe Mode feature, with this feature you can decide whether or not to disable add-ons, reset toolbars and controls, reset bookmarks to firefox defaults, reset all user preferences to Firefox defaults, and restore default search engines.

When this happens you will notice that tabs button is gone, and you will have a selection of choices. The first is customize links, then Free Hotmail, My Yahoo, Windows Marketplace, Windows media, Windows at Microsoft.com, and Yahoo Bookmarks. At the top of the browser you will see the basic File, Edit, View, History, Bookmarks, Tools, and the Help menus, however what you might not notice is that the Help menu has Help contents, For IE users, Release notes, Report Broken Websites, Report Web Forgery, Check For Updates, and about Mozilla Firefox. It is the Help Contents and For IE Users that I want to talk about though. The Mozilla Firefox Help is an extensive and extremely useful help menu. Yes IE has a help menu but once you have looked around in the Mozilla Firefox Help menu you will see that there is a huge difference. While the For IE Users breaks down how to use Firefox as easily as you once did IE and hopefully even easier than that in the near future.

Firefox also supports the following standard softwares; CSS, DOM, DTD, ECMAScript (also known as JavaScript), HTML, MathML, PNG, SVG, XHTML, and XML. You can also use the WHATWG program.

Chad Kiser asked:


With the advent of computers and Internet technology, you can communicate with speed and efficiency as well as obtain information on any subject from the Internet by just a click of the mouse. You can even shop on the Internet using a credit card for all kinds of goods and services. While this is all very well, there is the likelihood of your privacy being at peril through unscrupulous users of the same technology.

For all its advantages, there is a downside to this advance in technology. Identity thieves actively use the Internet to steal personal data and use it for their benefit. Your vital data such as banking information, credit card data and email records could be at rish if they gain entry to your information.

There are two main methods used to achieve this criminal act. One is to install spyware software in your computer and the other is to hack into your computer to look at your Internet search records. It is therefore essential that you take such steps as necessary to protect your Internet search history and to delete search information.

Mozilla Firefox is a very popular Internet browser used today. Compared to other browsers, it offers a more convenient and simpler browsing experience. Like all other browsers, this too will however record your every move on the Internet. Every time you visit and exit a website the history will be recorded. Keywords used for searches too will be recorded. These records are dangerous as they can be accessed by others who use your computer or hackers to gain knowledge of your Internet activities.

To maintain your privacy, you should delete your Internet activity history and also delete all search information. There’s a simple method to do this with Mozilla Firefox. You just open the Tools menu and then hit the clear private data button. A new window will appear. Clicking all of the boxes and then hitting clear private data now will instantly clear your search history and data.

For complete erasure however, you will still need to clear the files in your hard drive. If this too is to be cleared, and it must, you will need to install a special software program for it. These are called Hard Drive Cleaners and these will completely get rid of all the information. Even the use of data recovery software will not be able to recover the data erased by this software as all Internet search history records would have been deleted permanently

To prevent your Internet search history from falling into the wrong hands, you could either delete it by using the built-in clearance tool of Mozilla Firefox browser or use a third party software program that will permanently delete all data about your Internet activities and search records.

Andres Berger asked:


The Mozilla Firefox Browser is hugely popular and for this reason many people misspell its name while searching for it on the search engines. Really funny combinations of searches appear when you take a look at what people type.

The confusion with the movie

A lot of searches include the word Foxfire, a movie where Angelina Jolie appears. It is possible that many people are searching to download this movie off of the Internet, but when you take a closer look at other similar searches, you will see things like: Foxfire Browser, Foxfire Internet. Such searchers obviously are looking to download the Firefox Browser.

The Fox connection

Fox has many searches online maybe because of the Fox channel, but a lot of them relates to the Firefox Browser when you take a closer look at other similar searches and find: fox browser, fox fire browser, www.mozilla fox.com (maybe these guys probably thought that the Mozilla browser is owned by Fox, which is not true).

Some write it without an “L”, others add some letters.

Mozila is a very common misspelling and it is obviously related to Firefox since it is Mozilla without and “L”. You will also find: Motzilla, Morzilla, Monzilla and the very funny Monzalla (maybe confused by the Ben Hur Film?). Some omit the “L”, but add a “Z” as Mozzila, but others don’t want to miss a thing and type: Mozzilla.

The ones that change letters.

All the people that type these: Nozilla, Moxilla, Mozella, Mozalla are searching for the same thing: The Firefox browser. The Moxilla and Nozilla misspellings are understandable because the wrong letters are near on the keyboard, but the others were on purpose because the correct spelling and the actual letter typed are very far from the keyboard.

The terrifying searches

The most terrifying searches for Firefox are: Modzilla, which is some mixing between Mozilla and Godzilla (the Japanese movie monster), Godzilla Download. Although Mozilla sounds similar to Godzilla and Mozilla was the name of the Netscape creature which still could be seen on dmoz.org, Firefox isn’t that terrifying.

The burning searches.

A lot of people type Firebox on the search engines to find the browser. While this is written on the search engines, most people really want to get the Firefox web browser.

If you combine this with the word download, you will be very sure that these people are looking to download the browser and not for a system to be warm.

The amusing ones

The funniest ones are: Mozella, Mosilla (typed by Spanish searchers) and the winner: Mozarella Firefox.

Use the Firefox browser no matter how you misspell it because it is the best software available to surf the web.

Dee Owens asked:


Do you have Internet Explorer and are frustrated with the hanging, or the constant updates, or possibly all the different toolbars you need to make it work. Maybe you are like me, need a better way to surf the net, and cannot get the hang of the newest version of IE? Well if any of these pertain to you then I have a web browser for you, Firefox by Mozilla.

Firefox was designed to replace the Mozilla Suite in 2003. Firefox was once known as the Phoenix and Firebird, however both of these names were associated with other applications and so the name finally became Mozilla Firefox in 2004 better known as Firefox for short.

The original Firefox was released on February 9th of 2004 the first version was 1.0. Mozilla then released the more secure and stable version 1.5 on November 29, 2005 with version 2 to follow shortly behind in 2006.

When you go to the Firefox website for your download, you need to scroll down to the bottom of the screen where you will find your language. Once your Language is chosen you will then be directed to the user agreement page, after accepting the rules, after which the download page will load up. Here if you have not already noticed you will see that it comes with the Google Toolbar. The toolbar is your choice, and can be bypassed during the easy installation process.

Yes, IE may come installed on your PC when your Windows was but I have found Firefox to be an easier and definitely more reliable way to search and save web pages both online and off.

Firefox comes with a few Key Features as mentioned on their web page. The first feature is Tabbed Browsing, which allows you to view multiple pages in one browser, a feature that IE does not have unless installed with a toolbar, Pop-up Blocking, Higher Security standards, and the Google toolbar. Another security feature you may or may not notice depending on where you surf on the Internet is the Alert to let you know you have visited an unsafe web page. With all of these safe features and the ease of use, Firefox will become your new way to look as it has mine.

Tim Childree asked:


Mozilla Firefox is an excellent web browser that does a much better job than Internet Explorer when it comes to protecting your privacy and computer security. Unfortunately, Firefox can sometimes be slower than Internet Explorer. The speed difference between the two browsers is one of the main reasons why most people do not change their browser from the quicker yet more vulnerable Internet Explorer to the slower but more secure Firefox browser, the other reason being that Firefox introduces many new features that simply take more time to learn than some users are willing to invest. To get the best of both worlds – speed and security of browsing – you can download Mozilla Firefox and speed it up with these tips.

Pipelining

This tweak is very easy to accomplish. On your Firefox web browser address bar, type about:config, then press Enter. Scroll through the list of values and look for these three crucial pipelining settings: network.http.pipelining, network.http.proxy.pipelining, and network.http.pipelining.maxrequests. You can use the filter to easily find each of these entries.

For the pipelining entry, you should change the value to true. Just double click the false value to make this change. For the maxrequests entry, the default setting is four. Change the value to your desired number. This value determines how many page requests Firefox is capable of making. You can go as high as 8 to speed up your tabbed browsing. Finally, go to proxy.pipelining and change the value from false to true.

Doing the above steps will give you greater browsing speeds by allowing Firefox to process and send requests simultaneously instead of waiting until a response has been received from a previous request. This will also reduce network bottlenecks by packing multiple requests into a single data packet.

Increase Your Firefox Memory Cache

Your computer will automatically allot a memory cache for your Firefox browser. Increasing your browser cache will actually increase the amount of objects that your browser can retain, which cuts down on time spent retrieving information from your hard disk or a web server. As a result, your frequently visited pages will load much faster.

You can modify the cache settings by going to the Firefox tools menu and clicking on Options. From here, click on the “Advanced” tab, then the “Network” tab. On the network tab, you can specify any cache size you like, but it is doubtful you will need more than about 32 Megabytes of cache.

Block Unwanted Advertisements

One of the best ways to speed up Firefox is by using an Ad Removal extension, such as AdBlock Plus. AdBlock Plus can be installed at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865, and it works to block annoying banner ads. AdBlock Plus also features a “learning” feature, meaning you can right-click on unblocked ads and set them to be blocked, as well. Even with no other optimizations, Firefox will load most pages much faster than Internet Explorer when using AdBlock Plus, because it does not have to worry about downloading all of the annoying, unwanted ads that clutter up so many webpages.

Another plugin, called FasterFox, implements a large number of tweaks based on increasing the speed of your browsing. FasterFox is available from: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269.

With these tips, you can speed up Firefox considerably, so don’t let the slow performance you may have experienced deter you any longer. Firefox works to provide a much safer browsing experience than Internet Explorer, and its plugin interface allows for unprecedented levels of customization and convenience.

Jim Edwards asked:


Copyright (c) 2008 Jim Edwards

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Web browser still rates as the most popular and widely used browser for one simple reason: it rides along with every Windows installation.

But in response to security scares over the last few years, another browser took a bite out of Microsoft’s monopoly.

FireFox often represents the browser of choice for those who either dislike Microsoft (for whatever reason), or want more flexibility and functionality in their browser, specifically in the area of add-ons (also know as “plugins”).

Add-ons (little programs that enhance a web browser’s functionality) can trick out your browser to help you do everything from upload website files to speed dialing your favorite websites.

The overwhelming majority of add-ons for FireFox come free of charge (though donations are appreciated). Just log on to http://addons.mozilla.org and check out the free add-ons you can snag.

Note that once you get to the page, the little programs you can run with FireFox are under the “extensions” link. Here are a few of our favorites here in my office – just search for them by name once you log on to the Mozilla site (or use the links below).

** Forecastfox ** “Get international weather forecasts from AccuWeather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable and unobtrusive extension.” That’s a fancy way of saying you can always know what the weather reports say just by glancing down at your browser’s lower right corner.

This makes very handy tool to keep an eye out for thunderstorms or remind yourself that a sunny day awaits when you finish up a marathon session on your computer. http://tinyurl.com/yqv54y

** SpeedDial ** Everyone uses bookmarks or “favorites” at one point or another. But those who use them frequently create a problem for themselves. Every time you want to log on to your favorite sites, you must wade through dozens, hundreds, even thousands of links to find what you want.

Enter the “SpeedDial” add-on that helps you organize your most frequently used websites into a “dashboard” you can customize. You can even organize multiple speed dial directories around groups of web pages (business resources, shopping sites, etc.). http://tinyurl.com/2hhn7a

** FireFTP ** Anyone who owns a website needs the ability to upload files to their hosting account. You can either install a standalone FTP program, or you can use this nifty little browser add-on that turns FireFox into a neat little FTP utility.

“FireFTP is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.” I really found this add-on helpful in my own business when it comes to fast access to the files on my websites. http://tinyurl.com/yv56ru

** Download Statusbar ** One annoying feature of Firefox involves the download window that opens up every time you download a file from the web. This can get in the way and actually disrupt your activity.

Enter the “Download Statusbar” add-on, which promises “View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.”

Even though this add-on does make downloading more convenient, make sure to read the instructions before using it just to make sure you don’t get frustrated. http://tinyurl.com/29a456