Firefox has emerged as the first browser in years to seriously challenge Internet Explorer – with good reason. Firefox has superior security and anti-scumware features, it works on Windows, Linux, MacOS X and other operating systems, and it’s free.
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Best of all, Firefox offers lots of goodies for searchers, both through a built-in Google search toolbar, as well as dozens of free extensions created by an active open-source developer community.
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This week, I’ll be taking a close look at Firefox, reviewing some of the native features that make it a compelling alternative to Internet Explorer. I’ll also review my favourite browser extensions that enhance both search and browsing the web.
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If you haven’t yet tried Firefox, download it now. This link is to the 1.0 “preview release,” but this version is very stable and really works like final, production software. The download is a relatively light 4.5 MB, and the program installs quickly, without requiring any type of registration.
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During installation, you can also opt to have Firefox import options, bookmarks, browsing history, passwords and other data from Internet Explorer or a previous version of Firefox.
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You’ll also be asked whether you want to make Firefox your default browser. Although I love Firefox and use it daily, I still keep Internet Explorer as my default browser, because some web sites are designed specifically for IE. If you find that you really prefer Firefox you can always set it to be your default browser later through the options panel.
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Once installed, you should have no problem using Firefox. It’s similar enough to Internet Explorer that it doesn’t need a lot of explanation. That said, if you really want to dig in deep check out the excellent Introduction to Mozilla Firefox.
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Firefox was designed from the ground up to be highly customizable. You can tweak literally any aspect of the browser, from appearance to fundamental behaviour. See the Firefox Tips & Tricks page for details. The tips are divided into four categories and sorted by importance/popularity.
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Tomorrow I’ll focus on Firefox’s search tools, starting with the built-in Google search toolbar that can be extended to add just about any of your favourite general purpose or specialized web search tools.
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Firefox, Google and Web Search
Mozilla Firefox has Google, Yahoo and other search tools baked in, but they are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to search capabilities available with this innovative new web browser that launched its first official version today.
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Firefox’s search box appears just to the right of the address window. The search box is preconfigured to run searches on Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Dictionary.com. The default is Google, but you can select your search tool of choice using a drop-down menu.
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Want additional search engines? No problem – selects the “More Engines” option and you’ll be taken to the Mycroft project, which offers an extensive collection of search plugins for all Mozilla-based browsers. Choose one of the “top ten” plugins for AltaVista, the Internet Movie Database, Wikipedia, and others, or browse for plugins by category.
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If you’re looking for general web search plugins, the General category is the one to visit. Here you’ll find plugins for all of the major search engines such as Ask Jeeves, Dogpile, HotBot and so on, as well as country-specific search plugins.
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It’s also worth taking a look at some of the other categories. There are more than 44 search plugins for major news sites, 149 for shopping sites, 145 for computer sites and 63 for reference sites, among others. Three are also a half-dozen search plugins for kid-specific resources.
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All of these plugins install directly into the search box next to the address bar. Installation is literally a snap—just click the link for the plugin you want to install and click “yes” in response to the message box asking you if you want to install the plugin. That’s it. It takes less than a second to add new search tools to the browser.
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Can’t find a plugin for your favorite search site? Firefox allows you to create “custom keywords” that let you add your own plugin equivalent. See this article for more instructions and a lengthy list of pre-built custom keywords that you can use.
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Firefox also sports a nifty “find on page” feature that can help you locate specific terms on lengthy pages. Press CTRL-F on your keyboard and a new search box appears at the bottom-left of the browser window. Type your search terms and your cursor instantly moves to the first occurrence found on a page (up or down), and the word is highlighted to make it easier to see.
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Click the “find next” or “find previous” buttons to find other instances of your word on a page. If the words you’re looking for don’t exist on the page, the search box turns red and a “phrase not found” error message is displayed.
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The find on page search box is persistent, remaining open until you click the red “X” at the right. I find that I use it often enough that I just leave it open most of the time.
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Search Toolbar Clones
For those of you who are Google Toolbar addicts, fear not: The Googlebar for Mozilla emulates virtually all of its functions, at least those related to search. A dropdown menu lets you run your search not only in the web catalogue, but in Google Images, News, Froogle, the Directory and adds the ability to search Google Answers, a feature Google’s own Toolbar doesn’t offer. The site search capability is also supported.
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Googlebar also lacks some of the other goodies available in the Google Toolbar, such as the Auto Fill capability, a button to post to Blogger, and a few others. Most notably, the Googlebar leaves out a PageRank display.
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If you’re PageRank obsessed and still want to use Firefox, you have two options. The PageRank/Googlebar is another Google Toolbar clone that ostensibly displays PageRank. If you just want PageRank, a simple plugin called Page Rank Status installs without any of the search functionality offered by the two toolbars.
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Be aware that the PageRank values displayed by these two programs are likely just as unreliable as those displayed by Google’s own Toolbar. PageRank values should be taken with a (very large) grain of salt from just about any source.
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Yahoo fans should try the Yahoo Companion Toolbar for Mozilla. This toolbar clone is not as comprehensive as the Googlebar, lacking a number of features offered by the Yahoo Companion for Internet Explorer.
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Another interesting multi-search tool for Firefox is NeedleSearch which lets you “bookmark” search engines for direct access through the browser. Gary Price took a closer look at NeedleSearch in SearchDay earlier this year.
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These are just a few of the search extensions available for Firefox. In the next instalment, I’ll look at some more specialized and esoteric plugins, as well as other features that enhance the overall browsing experience.
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More Search and Browsing Fun with Firefox
Mozilla Firefox has features and extensions that go far beyond what you get with Internet Explorer. Here’s how to turbo charge the browser to enhance your online experience.
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In yesterday’s instalment, I looked at Firefox’s built-in search tools, and a few plugins that extended these capabilities. There’s a lot more available: Developers have built literally hundreds of add-ons and extensions that enhance the browser.
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Firefox Search Tools
The best place to start looking for search tools for Firefox is at the Mozilla Update site.
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The Firefox search tools extensions page lists nearly 30 extensions available for download. Most of these have specific, limited functions, such as changing the behavior of the search button, enhancing the word highlighter feature, and so on.
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Other extensions provide features that some will like, but others will find irritating. For example, I love the idea behind the Google Preview extension, which adds thumbnail images to Google search result pages. If you use Google’s default 10 search results per page, this preview function works really well.
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However, if you change your preferences to display 50 or 100 results, it takes a lot of time to download the previews for all results. It would be great if the developer let you independently control the number of thumbnails displayed.
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Other extensions do things like open search result pages in their own tabs, recommend related pages and display links to view previous versions of a page in the Wayback machine.
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The cool thing about Firefox extensions is that they are easy to install—and equally easy to uninstall if you don’t like what they do. The Extensions Manager (accessible from the Tools menu) keeps track of all extensions and makes it easy to uninstall those you don’t want any longer. The Extension Manager also has a button that lets you easily check for updates to your installed extensions.
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Non-Search Extensions
Other extensions to Firefox enhance browsing or other online activities. There are extensions for blogging, bookmarks, chat, contacts, download tools, games, navigation, privacy, security and many others.
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I’ve found several of these non-search extensions to be really useful. IE View is a utility that lets you view pages in Internet Explorer if they don’t render properly in Mozilla, which can happen on sites that have been designed only to work with IE.
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The Gmail notifier lets you know when, well, you’ve got Gmail. And I love the bandwidth tester that lets me see how zippy (or not) my hotel room connection is.
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Extensions are grouped by category at the Mozilla Update site. You can also see those that are popular, top rated and those that are newest.
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Another site, the Mozilla Developer’s Extension Room, offers links to more than 200 extensions for Firefox. Many of these extensions are similar to those found at the Mozilla update site.
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Firefox as an RSS Reader
Live Bookmarks lets you view RSS feeds and blog headlines in the bookmarks toolbar or bookmarks menu, effectively turning Firefox into an RSS reader. Firefox displays a small icon in the lower right corner of the browser when displaying a site that has enabled the Live Bookmarks functionality. Click the icon to add the site as a Live Bookmark.
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Alternately, you can add any RSS feed manually as a Live Bookmark. To do this, select Manage Bookmarks, and from the File menu select New Live Bookmark, then enter the name and URL of the feed.
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Once you’ve created Live Bookmarks, the easiest way to view your feeds is to open bookmarks in the Sidebar (Select View > Sidebar > Bookmarks). Click the minus sign next to the Live Bookmark to expand the feed; click any link to view the full underlying story in the main browser window.
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If you find this approach to getting news feeds attractive, check out the new Bloglines Firefox Centre, which offers both extensive information about Firefox and also provides two extensions that further enhance the browser’s RSS reading capabilities.
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Other Firefox Resources
I’ve just scratched the surface of what you can do with Firefox. Some of the other features you’ll likely find quite useful include:
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Tabbed Browsing – Web pages are loaded in “tabs” within the same browser window, making it easy to switch back and forth among multiple web pages.
Plugins – Tools such as the Acrobat reader, Macromedia Flash and others that support specific tasks.
Themes – Skins for Firefox that allow you to change the look and feel of the browser and personalize it to your tastes.
Bottom line: Firefox is a killer browser, offering features and enhancements that leave Internet Explorer in the dust. Firefox also neatly avoids many of the security problems that plague Internet explorer. Even if you opt to continue using Internet Explorer, you should download and run Firefox and play around with some of its seriously cool extensions.
By Chris Sherman