| Firefox v3 - Tips & Tricks |
 [ Session Restore Saving Frequency ] |
Whenever Firefox crashes it will try to restore all of your open tabs to the
way they were. Of course at time it isn't able to restore ALL of the tabs.
That's because Firefox, by default, only saves the session restore data every
10 seconds, but you can configure that time interval to whatever you would
like.
- Name: browser.sessionstore.interval
- Preference Needs to be Created: No
- Preference Type: Integer
- Default Value: 10000
- Possible values:
- The number of milliseconds between session restore saving.
For example, entering in 1000 would cause the session restore data to be saved
every 1 second, whereas a value of 20000 would make it happen every 20 seconds.
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| [ Don't Search Bookmarks or History in the Address Bar ] |
One of the main annoyances in Firefox v3 is that the Address Search Bar includes results from your bookmarks and browsing history, instead of just the
website addresses you've typed into it. Some find it good, while others.....well there have to be others witha different opinion. Anyways, here is a simple way to get rid of it.
- Name: browser.urlbar.matchOnlyTyped
- Preference Needs to be Created: No
- Preference Type: Boolean
- Default Value: False
- Possible values:
- True - Will only search addresses you've entered into the
address bar, and will not search your bookmarks or history.
- False - Will search addresses you've typed in, bookmarks,
and history
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| [ Increase the Number of Results in the Address Bar ] |
By default the address bar will always show 12 results in the drop-down menu, which is probably more than enough for most people. If you prefer to see more or fewer) results you can alter how many items can be displayed with the
following setting:
- Name: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults
- Preference Needs to be Created: No
- Preference Type: Integer
- Default Value: 12
- Possible values:
- The number of results you would like to appear in the
address bar drop-down menu.
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| [ Shrink the Super-sized Back Button ] |
The very first thing you notice in Firefox 3 is its extra large Back button. While it's actually quite handy—less chance of missing your target!—if the Back button's just too big for your tastes, it's as easy as pie to reduce. Just right-click on Firefox's toolbar, and choose Customize. In the dialog box, select "Use small icons."
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| [ Delete Mistyped URL Suggestions and Other Auto-complete Entries
] |
While the Smart Location bar is quite intelligent, if you enter an incorrect URL—say, to a page that doesn't exist, or a parked domain—Firefox 3 will still remember it and suggest it again later. (Garbage in, garbage out, as they say.) To remove a mistyped URL from your suggestion list forever, key down to the suggestion and type Shift+Delete on the Mac, and just Delete on Windows. This trick also works for any form auto-complete entry, like if you mistype a username into a login form.
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| [ Select and Copy Multiple Areas of Text
] |
Firefox 3 is really filled with rich features and we are learning about them everyday, here is a real quick post to an awesome new feature in Firefox 3 which you should not miss.
The trick is similar to selecting different files which are not stacked together in Windows explorer using the Ctrl button.
In Firefox 3 when you want to select multiple areas of text without having to repeatedly copy and paste, click on the Ctrl button and use your mouse to select multiple areas of text;
Once you have selected the text use the hotkey Ctrl+C or right click and select Copy to copy over your selected text from multiple areas to the clipboard.
Once you have copied the text you can use the hotkey Ctrl+V to paste the copied text in a text editor.
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| [ Quickly View Stored Passwords for Any Website In Firefox 3 ] |
Firefox 3 has a nice little password manager that allows you to store and manage your passwords. With Firefox 3 it has become much more easier to find and manage your passwords for any given site.
To quickly access and view stored passwords for any given site simply click on the favicon you can view more information about it.
Simply click on the security tab in the new window that is shown when you click on more information button and view the saved passwords for that particular site.
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| [ Manage Search Keywords ] |
 To do this just click the arrow in the search box that is used to display a listing of all your search engines. Then choose the Manage Search Engines option. From here you can manage all of the keywords that are used for the search engines:
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| [ Enable Advanced Color Profile Support ] |
Those of you that are photo enthusiasts might enjoy the fact that Firefox has advanced color profile capabilities. It's not enabled by default because it can cause a 10-15% performance hit for the browser, but if image quality is that important to you this might be something you want to enable. Here's a great comparison between Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 (with the color profile turned on): 
- Name: gfx.color_management.enabled
- Preference Needs to be Created: No
- Preference Type: Boolean
- Default Value: False
- Possible values:
- True - Enables color profile support so that the colors
appear richer
- False - Disables color profile support so that you have
better performance
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| [ Change Default Applications ] |
 Firefox has a nice configuration tool for selecting the default applications for certain types of URL's and media. And when I refer to “applications” I don't just mean the programs you have installed on your computer… it also includes web applications such as Gmail and 30Boxes.
If you pull up the preferences for Firefox you should see an Applications tab, and from there you can configure the default applications.
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| [ Change Page Zoom to Text Zoom ] |
Firefox 3 introduced a new type of zooming that scales everything on the page, including the style, images, and text. That way when you zoom in or out it's a little more like taking a magnifying glass to the whole site, but some people still prefer the old method where Firefox only adjusted the size of the text when zooming. You can re-enable the text-only zoom by going to View -> Zoom, and selecting the Zoom Text Only option.
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| [ Disable Antivirus Scanning ] |
For Windows users when Firefox 3 finishes downloading a file it will initiate
a virus scan using any antivirus application that the user has installed on the
computer. If you download a lot of files (especially large files) this can
become a bottleneck for you as you wait for each file to be scanned, especially
when many antivirus applications will automatically scan all incoming files.
That means each file you download might get scanned twice.
By jumping into the about:config you can enable or disable
this setting at your leisure:
- Name: browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone
- Preference Needs to be Created: No
- Preference Type: Boolean
- Default Value: True
- Possible values:
- True - Scans each download with the installed antivirus
application
- False - Does not scan each download with the installed
antivirus application
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| [ Forcing Compatibility ] |
It's possible to bypass any
compatibility checking with this tweak, which means you'll be able to install (not necessarily run) any extension.
This is obviously not recommended for everyone, and you should only use this as
a last-ditch effort.
- In the Address Bar type about:config followed by the
Enter key. Continue through the warning message if it's shown.
- Right-click in the main area, and select New ->
Boolean
- Enter extensions.checkCompatibility into the box that
appears, and click the OK button.
- Then choose false in the next window.
- Now you can install any extension, but remember that they are not guaranteed
to work. I've seemed to have pretty good results with this though.
One problem that you
might notice is that when you go to install an extension that's not
compatible with your version of Firefox the "Add to Firefox" button will be
grayed out. This is quickly remedied by going to the "All Versions" page, and
you'll find a link to that following the description of the add-on
Once on that page you can download the most recent version of the add-on
without the site checking what version of Firefox you're running, but you'll
need to follow the steps outlined above before being able to actually install
it.
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| [ Change Page Zoom to Text Zoom ] |
Firefox 3 introduced a new type of zooming that scales everything on the page, including the style, images, and text. That way when you zoom in or out it's a little more like taking a magnifying glass to the whole site, but some people still prefer the old method where Firefox only adjusted the size of the text when zooming. You can re-enable the text-only zoom by going to View -> Zoom, and selecting the Zoom Text Only option.
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