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Disclaimer: This website is created as part of a project assignment for Technical Writing class at the University of California, Irvine. All content and opinions expressed on this website is that of the author, Hrayr Artunyan, and not that of Mozilla Firefox. None of the pages under this domain were published by Mozilla Firefox.
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Mozilla Firefox is a web browser that allows the user to connect to the World Wide Web (www). Firefox has many features common to all browsers such as go back, go forward, reload, home, search and etc. as well as many other new features not available in others. Its simple and intuitive design accommodates anyone from the new to the advanced user. All the controls needed to perform common tasks, such as surfing the net, are easily accessible. It is simple enough, that a user, who knows how to point and click the mouse, can use it; yet powerful enough that an advanced user can customize every aspect of it, ranging from core functionality to the skin of the browser. Firefox has solutions for the modern annoyances of the web; namely, pop-up advertisements and viruses. Firefox cuts pop-up ads from where they originate, thus the user never sees a flashing window while surfing the web. Most pop-up blockers eventually face a situation where the blocked pop-up was not meant to be blocked. Firefox fixes this problem by allowing the user to view the pop-up on their own discretion. Every time Firefox blocks a pop-up ad it displays a thin yellow bar above the web windows giving the user the option of opening it.
This article is designed to introduce the novice user to the Firefox browser. It is composed of the following sections designed to help the user get started with the browser.
o Find
Figure 1 shows a screenshot of a typical Firefox window. On the very top is the menu bar. The menu bar contains the following menu items: File, Edit, View, Go, Bookmarks, Tools and Help. Directly below the menu bar are two toolbars. The top is the common-control toolbar. The common-control toolbar contains the most commonly used tasks such as Go Back, Go Forward, Reload, Stop, Home and the Address bar. Directly below that, is the bookmark’s toolbar. This bar contains quick access to web pages that the user previously bookmarked.
Opening a website is what browsers are built to do: its every browsers core functionality. Every website has a URL (Uniform Resource Locator), or simply a website address. These addresses are usually in the form of http://www.firefox.com. From the user perspective, opening up a website is easy enough. All the user has to do is type the desired URL in the address bar, located in the common-control toolbar, and press enter. At this point the browser takes the URL entered, goes out and searches for the exact location of the website. It then displays the page that it found.
The homepage is the default webpage that the user sees when they open a web browser. The homepage can also be accessed via a button on the common-control toolbar called home. The icon for home is usually a house. Homepages are usually websites that the user commonly utilizes, e.g. search engines, news, and multi-purpose websites such as yahoo.com. There are a couple of ways that a user can set up their homepage. One common way to set the homepage is for the user to open the webpage they wish to set as the homepage; then to drag and drop the small icon to the left of the URL over the home button. This will effectively set the homepage of the Firefox browser to the current URL. One other way is to go to Tools-Options in the menu bar; click on the General button; type the URL in the Location(s) text field; and then click the Ok button located on the lower right corner of the window.
One common feature across web browsers is the ability to bookmark a webpage. Other browsers may call it differently, such as favorites; however, they serve the same purpose. Bookmarking a webpage is the process of saving the URL of a particular website for future reference. They also offer the user quick access to commonly used websites. Bookmarks are categorized in folders, allowing the user the ability to organize them as they see fit. There are a couple of ways to bookmark a webpage. The first and easiest way is to open the URL the user wishes to bookmark, and on the keyboard click Ctrl+D. That is the user needs to press and hold the Ctrl button then press D, then release both buttons. This will open a window asking the user a preferred name and location. The user may also, after navigating the webpage they wish to bookmark, go to Bookmarks-Bookmark this Page… menu item. This will bring up the same window, asking the user to choose a name and location for the bookmark.
Find is another common feature across browsers; however, Firefox’s find function is unique in several respects. Find is a useful functionality in that it allows the user to quickly search for words or sentences in sometimes very crowded websites. Find in Firefox is noticeably more effective then the find function in other browsers. The first noticeable difference is that there is no Find window. When the user presses Ctrl+F or navigates to ‘Edit-Find in This Page’, instead of a common find window, a thin bar appears in the bottom of the website window. This bar is the Find bar. There is a small text field for the user to type in the search phrase. Three buttons to the right of the text field indicate that the user can Find Next, Find Previous, and Highlight. As the user types in the search term, the browser constantly checks the website for any matches. When a match is found, the matched word is selected. When the browser can’t find a match, an indication appears accompanied by an audible sound. The new functionality that the Firefox Find has that others don’t, is the highlight button. When the user types in a phrase that the browser finds, they have a choice of highlighting the results. This effectively highlights all the terms matched, with a yellow background. Firefox’s find is simple and effective.
Another unique feature of Firefox is the tabbed browsing. It allows the user to view more than one page at a time in a single window. This functionality has more timesaving uses than meets the eye at first glance. For example, the user may open links in the background, as they are reading an article, to view at a more convenient time. To open a new tab, go to the File menu–New Tab or Ctrl+T with the keyboard. To open a link in a new tab right click on the link and choose Open Link in New Tab. Another time saving function of the Tabbed browsing is that the user can open all the bookmarks in a folder into tabs with one click. Go to Bookmarks, right click on a folder name and choose Open in Tabs.
Managing bookmarks with Firefox is a cinch. The importance of managing ones bookmark can not be stressed enough. An effective management of bookmarks makes all the difference between knowing exactly where to look for a particular website and searching over dozens of websites for the right one. Thus an effective bookmark manager will save you a tremendous amount of time if used appropriately. Firefox includes tools that will address the problem of organization. For one thing, it allows the user to organize bookmarks into folders. Separation of the bookmarks into categories decreases the time of search tremendously. Another effective feature Firefox included in its bookmark manager is horizontal dividers. These dividers act as a visual (physical) divider between sets of bookmarks. Manipulating the dividers is an easy task, one has only to click and drag these bars to wherever appropriate.
The download manager is what every browser should have. The manager presents the download information such as file name and location, amount downloaded, rate of download and the option to open a file after download. This feature saves the user a lot of time since it eliminates the requirement to go hunting for the file the user just downloaded. The user may configure the Download manager as they see fit. The download manager makes it easy for the user to open the folder of the file they just downloaded. All they need to do is right click on the filename in the download manager and choose Open Containing Window.
Firefox offers one of the best tools for privacy and security control. There are useful feature that some users may wish to clear every once in a while, such as the saved forms, saved passwords, cookies, cash and etc. These features, while convenient, are usually associated with displaying information a user might have considered private. Under the Privacy tab in the Options window, the user can clear the History, Saved form information, saved passwords, download manager history, cookies and the cache. In addition to clearing them, the user may wish to configure these options to better suit himself/herself. Under the advanced tab in the same window, one can find options regarding security, certificates and validation of websites. These options are here for the advanced user to fully be in control over their own security.
Firefox is a small, simple, web browser which accommodates both beginner and advanced users. This fairly new browser is feature packed with the most useful tools at the fingertips of its users. Its compact size, high speed and clean interface, has created a loyal following of users who either switched from other browsers to Firefox or just started out with it. Some of the features of Firefox include tabbed browsing, bookmark manager, download manager, privacy & security manager and etc. It also has solutions to the modern annoyances of the web, such as pop-up ad blocking and virus protection. Firefox, undoubtedly, has quite a potential to be the leading browser of the near future.