Thread: Firefox 3.5

After Internet Explorer, Firefox is the most popular browser around and it's getting even more popular as time passes by. Fircfox 3.5 was recently released on the internet a few security patches have been around. A few early builds of Firefox 3.6 are already out. There are even fakes of Firefox 4.0 fioating around the web. There have been a few improvements in this last release.


Private browsing using Firefox

One of the unique features of Chrome was the ability to browse the internet anonymously. In that mode, Chrome wouldn't record any cookies or history entries anywhere on the drive. It's a feature most useful while using public computers; for example, in a cybercafe. Firefox now has this feature too. To start browsing anonymously, go to Tools > Start Private Browsing. You'll be prompted once. You can continue browsing as usuaL When you are done, click on Tools > Stop Private Browsing. The tabs you are browsing will then be closed.


Getting older extensions to work on Firefox

Firefox users depend on plugins and almost every update to the browser breaks the support for the add-on. Most of the time, these add-ons will work perfectly fine with the update, but measures are taken so the browser doesn't crash. To disable checking of the version of the add-ons, a small change in the configuration needs to be made.

Type about: config in the address bar and press [Enter]. Now right-click in this window, dick on New > Boolean and then set the value as False. Follow the same steps and create another Boolean named checkUpdateSecurity and set its value to False. Restart the browser and try mstalling the add-on that wasn't working before and It should start without any problems.


Using Portable FireFox

One of the sites that that hosts portable Firefox builds . There are also optimised builds for different kinds of processors available there. You might find a slight difference in performance.


Adding tags to searcties and bookmarks

Users can search through Firefox's history by typing in a few terms from any of the pages you've visited. Firefox also looks through the bookmarks for these keywords. You can add your own keywords or tags for bookmarks. To do this, open the Library by clicking on Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks. Select a bookmark or multiple bookmarks and type in the tags you want to identify the bookmark with. You can then then in any of the keywords or multiple keywords m your address bar and Firefox will find these for you. For example, If you have a Thinkdigit site bookmark, you could enter tags such as technology, computers, reviews and news. The same can be done with the sites within your history.

Saving sessions in Firefox

Whenever Firefox crashes, there is little that could be done to save the web pages open. The user has to reopen all the tabs manually after that. Firefox 3.5 can save tabs when Firefox crashes, so the next time Firefox opens, all those tabs open with it. Even when you have many pages open, and you close the Firefox window, you're given the option to Save and Quit.

If you always want Firefox to save the tabs, click on Tools > Options. Withm the Main tab, click the drop down menu and set it to Show my windows and tabs from last time .


Opening recently closed fabs and windows

The Undo feature is something that people wouldn't expect in browsers, but they do! Firefox, like other browsers will allow you to undo tabs, but it can also undo closed windows. To reopen closed tabs, click on History> Recently Closed Tabs. To reopen windows, click the Recently Closed Windows sub menu. You can also use the shortcuts [Ctrl] + [Shift] + [T] and [Ctr1]+ [Shift] + [N] , respectively.