The Den

Firefox Tip – Add A Print Button to Your Toolbar

Jul 10 2012

Sometimes, there are things that we do over and over again on the Web, where shortcuts would come in handy. That’s why so many folks from our Firefox community shared this tip – to make things easier for you!

Do you find yourself printing a lot of Web pages? Make it easy by adding a print button to your toolbar. Just right-click on the toolbar, click “Customize” and select the print button from there. Read more about customizing your toolbar.

If you have a tip you’d like to share with other Firefox users, please post it on our Facebook page with #FirefoxTips and tag us, or post on Twitter with #FirefoxTips. You can also view more tips in our archive.

If you found this tip useful, be sure to share it with the Facebook and Twitter buttons below, and help tell the world about Firefox.

How to Make Firefox Your Default Browser

Jul 6 2012

If you’re one of the many people who uses more than one browser (or if you’ve just downloaded and want to use that browser exclusively), you need to tell your operating system which one you’d like to use as your default.

If you love Firefox and support what it stands for, below are the steps to make it your browser of choice.

At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options (or on a Mac, in the Menu bar, select Preferences). Select the Advanced panel, click the General tab and then under the System Defaults section, click the “Check Now” button. When prompted, click “Yes” to set Firefox as the default. You can also read more on setting Firefox as your default browser.

Firefox Tip – Sync Your Desktop and Mobile Browsers

Jul 2 2012

More and more people are using Firefox on their Android phones. (Download it here if you don’t have it yet.) This tip is for those mobile users and comes from contributor Jaclyn F.

“I connect my desktop Firefox to my mobile Firefox by clicking Sync on the About:Home page and then ‘Pair a Device’.”

Thanks for pointing that out, Jaclyn! Firefox Sync lets you synchronize your bookmarks, history, passwords, add-ons and open tabs with another copy of Firefox – like one on a mobile phone – so your browser experience goes with you. Read more on how to Sync devices.

If you found this tip useful, be sure to share it with the Facebook and Twitter buttons below, and help tell the world about Firefox.

Remove a Single Website from Your Firefox History

Jun 28 2012

We’ve all done it: typed Goggle when we want Google; or Funny Cars when we meant Funny Cats. Now, that misspelled or mistyped site loads every time we type it in the URL bar. And we click on it before we realize what we’re doing. It’s so annoying, right?

It’s time to take back your browsing, take back your frustration and get rid of that site in your history — all in less than five minutes.

Go to your Firefox Menu and select History > Show All History. You can look for the URL by when you visited it (today, yesterday, etc.) or simply search by typing the name in the upper right search bar.

Once you’ve located the URL, you can control click (or right click with your mouse) to open your options. Select “Forget This Site” to delete it from your history once and for all. Then you can close that window and forget all about that site.

Until you mistype it again. At least you’ll know how to fix it right away!

Firefox Tip – Drag and Drop to Change Your Home Page

Jun 26 2012

We change our clothes. We change our shoes. When you want to change your Firefox home page, we make it just as simple. Firefox contributor William R. sent in this tip to show you how.

“I change my mind about what homepage I want to have, but luckily changing it is easy. I open the site I want as my homepage this week, click the icon to the left of the Web address, drag it to the Home button and release. Then I hit ‘Yes.'”

Thanks William! We’re glad you can’t make up your mind so you can help others with your tip. Read this for more information on setting your home page.

If you found this tip useful, be sure to share it with the Facebook and Twitter buttons below, and help tell the world about Firefox.

Boost Your Firefox Bookmarks in 5 Minutes

Jun 21 2012

What’s your favorite Web page? The one with the funny cats? The one with the sports scores? The one where you connect with friends? Or maybe you can’t pick just one. There’s a way to get to all your favorite Web pages without remembering and typing their URLs over and over again: bookmarks!

For some, a simple drop-down in the browser will suffice. If that’s you, all you need to do is find a bookmark-worthy site and click the star next to the address in the URL bar, which saves it to your Unsorted Bookmarks. You can access that bookmark by going to Menu > Bookmarks. More on how to use bookmarks here.

For others, that’s not enough. You want to supercharge your bookmarks and get to them faster. You don’t have time for a drop-down!

If that’s the case, you need the Bookmarks Toolbar. It sits under your URL bar and gives you instant access to your favorite sites. From the menu bar, select View > Toolbars > Bookmarks Toolbar. Now you can add bookmarks to the toolbar by visiting the page you want to add and simply dragging the site icon onto the toolbar.

* Insiders’ secret: Use short words to rename these bookmarks so you can squeeze more of them in! Right-click on your new bookmark, select Properties and type in the Name field.

Others have so many bookmarks (you’re a bookmarks maniac!) that you can’t even keep up with them on the toolbar. If that sounds familiar, give this a try: Right-click on a bookmark, select Properties and enter a Keyword for this site, like “news” or “Den” (because we know you’ve bookmarked this blog, right?!). Now you can find it in the future by typing that keyword in the Awesome Bar.

Getting to your favorite video — wait, we mean that very productive site you’re looking for — couldn’t get any easier.

Firefox Tip – Set Multiple Home Pages

Jun 18 2012

Sometimes, it can be hard to pick just one of anything. Just one flavor of ice cream. Just one kind of soda. It’s the same with choosing a home page. No worries! Firefox has a solution, explained in this tip from Firefox contributor Carmen C.

“I can’t pick just one home page, so I set Firefox to open three when I start: my work email client, Facebook and a news site. To set it up, I open a new window and load the first site. Then I load the other sites in new tabs and click on Firefox > Options (Preferences on a Mac) in the menu bar. Under the General panel I choose ‘Use Current Pages’.”

Thanks Carmen! We know it’s hard to pick just one home page these days. Read this for more information on setting your home page.

If you found this tip useful, be sure to share it and help tell the world about Firefox!

Reset Your Firefox

Jun 13 2012

Remember when a do-over was acceptable? You got to start with a clean slate and try again.

A do-over would come in handy in many real-world situations. Take Web browsing, for example. Over time, you acquire plugins that you may or may not have willingly downloaded, toolbars you don’t remember installing and more. These can slow down your browsing, cause annoying crashes and just make a big old mess.

Who has time to troubleshoot these things? It’s tedious, sometimes frustrating and often doesn’t fix the problem.

Firefox has a solution. It’s like hitting the reset button. Actually, it is a reset button. Go to your Firefox menu bar and select Help > Troubleshooting information. Click the “Reset Firefox” Button, confirm your action with the slide-down prompt and then click “Done” when Firefox lets you know it’s reset. How cool is that?

When you reset Firefox, you don’t have to start from scratch. Here’s what you’ll still have in your browser:

Bookmarks
Browsing history
Passwords
Cookies (you won’t be logged out of any sites you were logged in to before the reset)
Web form auto-fill information

What won’t be in your browser anymore:

Extensions and themes: although helpful, they can sometimes cause problems. Reinstalling them one at a time might point out the culprit. But regardless, you’ll need to reinstall them.
The reset process will close all open websites. Bookmark sites before your reset and you’ll be able to return.
Site-specific preferences, search engines, personal dictionary, download history, DOM storage, security certificate settings, security device settings, download actions, plugin MIME types, toolbar customizations and user styles are also not saved.

So the next time your Firefox seems sluggish — or crashes — give the reset button a try.

Read more about Firefox Reset. We think you’ll find it useful — and probably want it for other things. Like bad dates. Or that email you wish you didn’t send.

Firefox Tip: Add Search Engines to the Search Bar

Jun 11 2012

Search is such an important part of Web browsing for most people, that the folks at Firefox HQ thought you would find this tip interesting.

Did you know that you can add additional search engines to the search bar (i.e. Google Translate, Dictionary.com)? Click on the arrow next to the search icon in the Awesome Bar and choose “Manage Search Engines.”

3 New Features to Boost Your Firefox Browsing

Jun 8 2012

The makers of Firefox never rest on our laurels. We’re always trying to make browsing the Web easier, faster, more reliable, and yes, more fun.

That is why we’re excited about three of our newest features, and we can’t wait for Firefox users to start enjoying them!

First, we have a (drumroll, please) new tab page. Now, when you open a new tab, you’ll see thumbnails of Web sites that you visited recently or open often, making it easier to get to your favorite sites with one click. And we’re not just guessing which sites to display – those sites come from your Awesome Bar. From there, you can move, pin, or even delete those thumbnails directly from the new Tab page. And hey, we know everyone has different tastes in browsing, so if this new feature isn’t for you, simply wipe the tab clean by toggling the grid icon in the top right corner of the screen. This article will show you how to customize your new tab page.

Next up, we have some added functionality to the Firefox Home Page (type About:Home in your Awesome Bar) or click on your Firefox home button. Your most commonly used preferences (Bookmarks, History, Settings, Add-ons, Downloads, Sync) have now been added automatically, so you don’t have to go searching through the menu options (which are still there if you prefer.) Read more about the new Firefox Home Page, or for more about home page settings — including how to change it to something else — see How to Set the Home Page.

And last, but not least, we’ve made it so Firefox starts up faster when loading tabs from a previous session. We do this by loading the tabs as you click on them (instead of all at once). This means less memory usage as well.

Make sure you have the latest version of Firefox so you can enjoy these features immediately! Go to your menu bar and click Firefox > Help > About to see what version you have (updates will automatically start if you’re not on the most recent.) Or, download it here.