Everybody’s favorite open-source browser, Firefox, is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, the browser just gets better and better.
But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser.
Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.
1) More screen space. Make your icons small. Go to View - Toolbars - Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.
2) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it.
Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box.
3) Keyboard shortcuts. This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common (and my personal favs):
* Spacebar (page down)
* Shift-Spacebar (page up)
* Ctrl+F (find)* Alt-N (find next)
* Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
* Ctrl+T (new tab)
* Ctrl+K (go to search box)
* Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
* Ctrl+= (increase text size)
* Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-W (close tab)
* F5 (reload)
* Alt-Home (go to home page)
4) Auto-complete. This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there - like magic! For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.
5) Tab navigation. Instead of using the mouse to select different tabs that you have open, use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts:
* Ctrl+Tab (rotate forward among tabs)
* Ctrl+Shft+Tab (rotate to the previous tab)
* Ctrl+1-9 (choose a number to jump to a specific tab)
6) Mouse shortcuts. Sometimes you’re already using your mouse and it’s easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard.
Master these cool ones:
* Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
* Shift-scroll down (previous page)
* Shift-scroll up (next page)
* Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
* Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
* Middle click on a tab (closes tab)
7) Delete items from address bar history.
Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up (I won’t ask why).
Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.
8) User chrome. If you really want to trick out your Firefox, you’ll want to create a UserChrome.css file and customize your browser. It’s a bit complicated to get into here, but check out this tutorial.
9) Create a user.js file.
Another way to customize Firefox, creating a user.js file can really speed up your browsing. You’ll need to create a text file named user.js in your profile folder (see this to find out where the profile folder is).
10) about:config. The true power user’s tool, about.config isn’t something to mess with if you don’t know what a setting does. You can get to the main configuration screen by putting about:config in the browser’s address bar.
See Mozillazine’s about:config tips and screenshots.
11) Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.
12) Speed up Firefox. If you have a broadband connection (and most of us do), you can use pipelining to speed up your page loads. This allows Firefox to load multiple things on a page at once, instead of one at a time (by default, it’s optimized for dialup connections). Here’s how:
* Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
* Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
* Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30. This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.* Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer.
Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
13) Limit RAM usage. If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Again, go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.
14) Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized. This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.
15) Move or remove the close tab button. Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:* 0: Display a close button on the active tab only* 1Default) Display close buttons on all tabs* 2on’t display any close buttons* 3isplay a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x
15 Firefox Tricks
Make FIREFOX browser run at full speed
1. first in the URL bar, Type “about:config”. This will bring up a list of commands and variables you can edit.
2. The second step is to put “network.http.pipelining” in the filter and change the value to “true”.
3. After that you will want to put “network.http.proxy.pipelining” in the filter.Like the last one, make that value set to “true” also.
4. Next, locate “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” and change the value to some number higher, say 10,20 or even 30, it would make up to 10,20 or 30 requests at once.
5. The last step is to right click anywhere and select “New” then “Integer”. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and make its value “0″. This will make the browser respond faster on the information of the websites it receives.
6. Close out FireFox (make sure FireFox is closed by viewing the Task Manager) and restart it and enjoy the new mega speed
Sense View P430 Electronic Magnifier
It looks like a typical PMP device but in reality its a gadget for the weak eyes. It is a magnifier from Himskorea, the Sense View P430 which features a 4.3" TFT-LCD monitor and has six color select options.. The camera is placed at the rear side and magnifies the desired area. It has six different color options and the ability to capture images. The Sense View P430 works on Lithium polymer batteries which gives upto 4.5 hours of continuous usage. This electronic magnifier 'Sense View' is for the elderly with weak eyesight. If you put the magnifier on a certain part of a book or magazine, it enlarges the part as much as you want. It is possible to capture images also.
The Vosonic VP8360
The Vosonic VP8360 is a powerful multimedia viewer with a 3.6” TFT LCD and 2.5” HD capacity (40~120GB) giving you more room and fun to play. The VP8360 basically takes its predecessor VP8350's concept up a notch by introducing a more standard rechargeable battery and "enhanced ergonomics". It's also a bit bigger due to the use of a 2.5-inch hard drive, rather than the VP8350's 1.8-inch drive giving you an option to nsert a 120GB HDD in there. It also supports a whole slew full of formats (ranging from standard stuff like MP3, WMA, MPEG4 to e.g. MOV and several RAW profiles). The "image tank" character is emphasized by the Compact FlashTM Card type I/type II (CF), Memory Stick® (MS), Secure Digital Card (SD)/MultiMedia Card (MMC) and IBM ®MicroDrive card compatibility. It has also got some games like Tetris to keep you busy while you're waiting for your files to transfer.
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W70
The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-W70 is an excellent, very compact performing digital Camera. The 7.2 megapixel sensor, 3x Optical zoom, nice 2.5 inch LCD, and "Stamina" battery life produces good images and excellent battery life. About the size of a deck of cards, it's easily pocketable and still performs well indoors. A 1/2.5 inch Super HAD CCD has an effective resolution of 7.2 megapixels (3072x2304 pixels). You can also capture images at 3:2, 5M, 3M, 2M, 2M, VGA, and 16:9. Two quality settings (Fine and Standard) vary the JPEG compression rates. A small optical viewfinder is also available if you're in a pinch and can't see the LCD (or are saving battery juice). With the Sony W70, you can shoot in full Auto, Program Auto, Twilight, Twilight Portrait, Soft Snap, Landscape, Beach, Snow, High Sensitivity, and Movie modes. The W70 features a 5 point auto focus (or center auto focus). You can focus on subjects as close as 19.7 inches in Normal mode and 0.72 inches in Macro mode. The W70 has 58MB of internal memory and an additional slot that accepts Memory Stick Duo or Memory Stick Pro Duo memory. The formats used by the w70 are JPEG for still images and MPEG1 compliant movies (with monaural sound). A "multiconnector" plugs into the camera with USB (2.0) jacks and AV jacks on the other end of the cable. An additional jack works with the optional AC adapter to provide power for the camera. All in all it is an excellent buy when it comes to getting quality pictures and great battery life. The camera is available for prices close to $300.
The Nokia N93
The Nokia N93 is Nokia´s new camera phone flagship and the ultimate mobile device for spontaneous video recording. Offering uncompromised digital camcorder, telephony and rich Internet communication functionalities. The Nokia N93 features a 3.2 megapixel camera with Carl Zeiss optics, DVD-like video capture and 3x optical zoom. You can connect the Nokia N93 directly to your TV for a widescreen movie experience or upload your images and video to online albums or blogs. Moreover, you can create high-quality home movies and burn them to DVD with the included Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 software. UMTS and Wi-Fi 802.11g show that this phone is not bad, but I think it has too slow processor to handle skype properly and generally only QVGA resolution for such a phone, seems not enough. The N93 features large internal memory of up to 50 MB, which can be further expanded with a hot swap miniSD card of up to 2 GB, allowing users to capture up to 90 minutes of DVD-like quality video or close to 2500 pictures. The N93 is expected to be available from July 2006, in three colours: silver grey/deep plum, frost white/metallic red and frost white/mocha brown.
Sandio's Game O' 3D gaming mouse
Ease of Mouse Movement is a lookout for any Serious gamers. Sandio is all set to give gamers an edge with the Game O' 3D gaming mouse. Any product that promises to transfer to a mouse the movement commands that were formerly restricted to the keyboard is bound to draw some interest. Sandio Technology is showing off one such mouse, the Game O', at E3 this year, calling it "the first and the only six degrees-of-freedom 3D mouse in the IT industry." The 2000 dpi laser mouse seems to allow players to move in around in 3D space by translating mouse motions into 3D in-game movement, as opposed to just aiming a weapon's crosshair's, when the button above the scroll wheel is depressed. 3D movement is actually accomplished by a joypad on the left side of the mouse that's controlled with your thumb. Sandio will be releasing the Game O' "soon," for the not-unreasonable price of $80.
