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Firefox

Get Firefox, make it faster, and enjoy it!

Alright...I'll start by saying I was a die hard IE fan! There are many reasons that people switch to Firefox. I'll give you one that you'll actually notice (and it's the sole reason I switched in the end): It's FASTER. It's not that much faster (any?) by default, but with a few touches...POOF

Note: Several of the links on this page are to threads on LS2.com. You won't be able to view them unless you are registered and logged in over there. As I get the chance, I'll bring the relevant information over to this site so this wont be a problem anymore.

Here's where to get Firefox:

Firefox 2.0

Here's how to make Firefox FASTER!

1. Performance Settings: See the link to the Fasterfox extension below, as it greatly simplifies things ("one click setup"). For reference' sake, here's a link to the old performance settings page.
2. Mousewheel fix (note that this is a link to post #48 in a thread on LS2.com)

Make Firefox SAFER!

• Make sure you've already installed Firefox.
• Install SpywareBlaster
• Run SpywareBlaster and make sure it is updated (Click updates on the left)
• Click back to Protection on the left, then click "Enable All Protection" at the bottom.
• You don't need to run it again...in fact, you can uninstall the program now if you'd like to save space on your start menu.

Tutorial on various aspects

1. Introduction
2. Firefox Keyboard Shortcuts
3. Advanced Configuration Options
4. Performance Settings
5. Extensions, Themes & Conclusions

Here are little extras:

Skin I use: Qute 3
Save the file, then in Firefox select Tools menu -> Themes, and drag the file you saved from your hard drive to the themes window.

Here is a list of all (or almost all?) of the options available in about:config Advanced users only

Extensions I use:

• ForecastFox Get international weather forecasts from weather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension.
• IETab Open pages in IE via Firefox menus (the right-click menu) (WARNING: This is still vulnerable to any outstanding IE vulnerabilities!)
• Flashblock MUST HAVE Replaces flash objects with a button you can click to view them. Includes a customizable whitelist.
• Tab Mix Plus Like Tab mix, it enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilites. It comes included with features such as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, undoclosetab and many more.
• CustomizeGoogle Enhances Google search results
• Fasterfox Simplifies the performance tweaking. I recommend setting its mode to "Optimized" instead of "Turbo Charged," but this is not required.
• LS2 FireMod A special treat for all you LS2.commers!

Finally, here's a list of random things I just really like about Firefox:

• The little icons that show up next to a website on a bookmark (if the website has custom ones that is, and LS2.com for one does) actually work...if they go away in IE they don't come back but in Firefox they get restored as soon as you visit the site again.
• The search box at the top right can search not only Google, but Dictionary.com, eBay, Amazon, Yahoo, IMDB, and many others! How handy is that?!
• When you visit a secure (https) web site, the address bar gets highlighted yellow...at least it does with the Qute theme that I use. Very nice.
• You can type '/' and it'll bring up a micro-search box at the bottom and you can highlight all of the instances on a page that whatever you type is found.
• YES Firefox DOES use a lot of memory ("system resources"). It's because it caches pages so your forward & back buttons are very fast. Here's an example of a small program making VERY good use of modern systems with lots of memory!

Created: 20 February 2005
Last Updated: 04 December 2006