Effective surfing with Firefox 3.6

Firefox 3.6 is full of practical features to surf the Internet effectively. Like its smart address bar that allows you to quickly access pages directly drawn from your list of bookmarks or in your history.

A page you like? You can easily keep track of him and easily find it by marking a single click. Assign an alias and you can open it by typing a few letters. To refine the ranking of your bookmarks and quickly find one or more pages about a particular topic, you can assign them labels. You'll be able to quickly view all pages that share the same label.

With Dynamic bookmarks for Firefox, you can follow the latest news from your favorite sites published as RSS feeds, directly from the browser and without visit their pages. Also learn to configure and use the zoom feature of the browser's download manager and follow our top tips for using Firefox.

Harnessing smart address bar:

The address bar of Firefox 3.6 is very practical when it begins to enter a keyword, it displays a list of hits corresponding directly drawn from your list of bookmarks, which include the word or words before or in the URL, either in their title page, either in their labels. In addition, this research also explores the history of sites visited (and thus the search words you type in URLs and titles of pages already visited).

The order of occurrence follows the frequency of visits: the most visited sites appear at the top. By default, the list of hits returned by the smart bar is limited to 12 results. You can extend it beyond this limit. To do so :

• Type about: config in the address bar and press Enter.
  
  
• Click I promise, I'll be careful!.
  
  
• In the Filter field, enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults.
  
  
• Double click on the option that appears. Then enter the desired value, eg 20 to display 20 results. Click OK.
  
  
• Close and restart Firefox. Note that the menu selection of hits is limited to 6 lines, which requires scrolling through the list of results by using the elevator.

Quickly mark your favorite pages and label:

You can keep track of sites you like and find them easily by marking pages in a single click.

• When you visit a page you wish to add to your bookmarks, just click the star icon in the address bar.
  
  
• The page is immediately added to your bookmarks that are accessible via the menu of the same name.
  
  
• Click again on the star to customize the bookmark.
  
  
• You can then modify the page name, select a folder where you store and assign labels, words to categorize the pages easily and to find them later.
  
  
• You can tag a site with as many terms as you want. Make sure to separate each tag with a comma.
  
  
• You will easily find sites by typing the label in the address bar. For example, typing trick in the address bar, the list of all the sites you've marked with the label will appear.

Assign keywords to your favorite pages:

To quickly open your bookmarks, you can assign a keyword. You simply enter a key word in the address bar to open the web page marked. Here is how you can do that:

• Pull down the menu Bookmarks.
  
  
• Click the right mouse button on the bookmarks that you want to assign a keyword and select the Properties command.
  
  
• In the window that opens, type in the Keyword field the word to use to access this page.
  
  
• Finally, click Save Changes.
  
  
• Then enter the keyword in the address bar and press Enter. The site marked opens.

Quickly access the most visited sites:

Whenever you visit a page, Firefox keeps its address in the history and counts the number of times you view it. The browser can then offer you quick access to 10 sites you visit most.

• Click on the View menu to Toolbars and then click Bookmarks toolbar.
  
  
• At the left end of the bar that appears, you will notice a new folder named Most visited.
  
  
• Click to view the list of 10 sites you visit most. Click on the name of a site to open.

Define multiple Home pages:

Instead of using a single page when Firefox starts, you can use the browser tabs and open all your favorite Web pages.

• Initially, all open web pages that you want to view Firefox startup, each in a different tab.
  
  
• Click on the Tools menu and click Options.
  
  
• Click the General icon.
  
  
• In the Startup section, click the Pages button routine.
  
  
• The addresses of open pages are then listed in the Homepage field.
  
  
• Finally, click OK to close the options window.
  
  
• Now, all these pages will be open each time you start Firefox, or after clicking the Home icon in the toolbar of the browser.

Zooming in on a page:

So far, the Zoom feature of Firefox was at best ineffective, especially compared to that of Internet Explorer or Opera. Now we can really zoom in on the page while maintaining the consistency of the layout.

• To zoom: use the Ctrl + +.
  
  
• To zoom out, use Ctrl + -.
  
  
• To return to 100%, use the key combination Ctrl + 0.
  
  
• Also note that you can use the mouse to zoom progressive: Hold the Ctrl key while turning the wheel.
  
  
• By default, text and images are resized. To enlarge or reduce text only pages, pull down the View menu, select Zoom and Zoom Text Only option.
  
  
• Zoom then with the same commands as above.

Restrict the zoom to the current page:

By default, when you activate the zoom, it applies to web pages visited in the aftermath. It is sometimes more convenient than the zoom is delivered to normal when you leave the page on which it was zoomed.

• In the address bar, type the about: config and confirm with Enter.
  
  
• Click on the button I promise, I'll be careful!.
  
  
• In the Filter field, enter the command browser.zoom.siteSpecific.
  
  
• Double click then on the option that appears to place its value to False.
  
  
• Finally close and restart Firefox to apply the change.

Keyboard shortcuts:

Firefox is full of shortcuts designed to make your life easier. Here are our favorites:

• Move the cursor in the address bar: Ctrl + L
• Move the cursor in the search box: Ctrl + K.
• Scroll down the page: Spacebar
• Scroll page up: Shift + Spacebar.
• Refresh the page: Ctrl + R
• Previous: Alt + Left Arrow
• Next: Alt + Right Arrow
• Open a new blank tab: Ctrl + T
• Open link in new tab: Click on the link with the mouse wheel
• Close a tab: Ctrl + W
• Open last closed tab: Ctrl + Shift + T.

Pause and resume downloads:

The download manager has also received a major facelift. It now has its own search box. A handy feature to instantly re-downloaded software, to open or demand the download again.

• To view the download manager, use the Ctrl + J or pull down the Tools menu and click on Downloads.
  
  
• You can pause a download (Pause) ...
  
  
• and resume it later (Resume button), even if you exit Firefox, or shut down your computer in the meantime.
  
  
• The manager can also easily find the exact address of a download: right-click the downloaded file on your mind and click Copy on the source address of the download.
  
  
• Then paste the address in the Address bar, for example to display.

Follow RSS feed from the favorite sites:

With Dynamic bookmarks for Firefox, you can follow the latest news from your favorite sites published as RSS feeds, directly from the browser and without visit their pages.

• On sites that offer RSS feeds, an orange icon Subscribe to this page is displayed to the right of the address bar. Click it.
  
  
• In the list of feeds offered by the site that appears, click the one you want.
  
  
• The stream with the latest site information is displayed. Click the Subscribe button now.
  
  
• Change if necessary the name of the brand dynamic page and click the Add button.
  
  
• The live bookmark is added to the default browser's bookmarks toolbar. Pull down the View menu, Toolbar, Bookmarks Toolbar to display it if it is not present. By clicking on the Live Bookmark, the list of the latest information from the site occurs.
  
  
• Click on a title to access the article on the original site.