Using Firefox with Extensions Introduction This set of instructions provides a visual sequence of steps to help you get started in using Mozilla Firefox and its extensions. What is Firefox? Firefox is a free web browser. It is one of the products of the Mozilla open source software project, supported by the Mozilla Foundation. Firefox is an application platform. You can write applications and extensions that install and run on top of Firefox. Firefox is a feed reader. It supports autodiscovery of RSS and Atom, with features to integrate feeds into bookmarks. Firefox is a way of life. There have been over 90 million downloads since Firefox 1.0 was released in November 2004.1 Why use Firefox? 2 • Tabbed Browsing o Tabbed browsing changes the way you use the Internet by allowing you to open links on a page in background tabs and then read them when you're ready. Tabbed Browsing makes it much easier to keep track of several pages or sites at once by letting you view them within a single browser window. It's easy to navigate between tabs - just click on a tab to view the page. Tabs load in the background so you can browse the web faster - and stay organized. To use Tabbed Browsing, hold down Ctrl while clicking on a web link, or click with the middle mouse button. • Pop-Up Blocking o Firefox stops popup windows in their tracks. Some sites make legitimate use of popup windows. When Firefox blocks a popup window, it displays an icon in the status bar. Clicking this icon shows a breakdown of the popup(s) that Firefox stopped when loading the current page. You can then allow some or all of the popup windows to be shown. 1 2 O'reilly Why switch? • Extensions o Extensions are small add-ons that add new functionality to Firefox, from a simple toolbar button to a completely new feature. They allow you to customize Firefox to fit your own needs and preferences. Using Firefox with Extensions One of the best reasons to use Firefox is found in the extension called DownThemAll. DownThemAll is fast, reliable and easy-to-use. It lets you download all the links or images contained in a webpage. You can refine your downloads by fully customizable criteria to get only what you really want! Using Google & Firefox Aside from the options listed above, you can also open your Google Gmail account from the Google Toolbar right in Firefox. Integrating Google Reader in Firefox One of the best applications to come out of Google Labs in the last few months has been Google Reader. Click the Labs Pic to go to the main site. Google Reader is a feed reader, or "news aggregator", capable of reading Atom and RSS feeds. Major revisions to Reader were made on September 28, 2006. It is accessed through a web browser, such as Firefox, and features an interface similar to Gmail. I use Google Reader to receive updates from blogs that I enjoy reading. As updates are made available from the blog’s publisher, Reader collects and presents them in an easy to view format. In the screenshot above, you can see that I subscribe to a blog called The Yellow Stereo. In Reader, this blog’s newest entry is the only thing I see. That makes it easier to stay updated without having to revisit the website every time something new comes online. When you encounter a website or blog that you would like to stay updated about, look for a list of aggregators to find out if the site will work with your Google Reader. When you see the Add to Google button, just press it and you’ll be taken to your Google account page and asked if you would like to add this to your home page or to your Reader page. Extracting Links and Downloads Inside the Google Reader page you’ll see the update for the blog publisher’s newest content. Some publishers just settle on text, which is fine, but others have found ways to pass along downloadable items and provide links for supporting material. In the example for The Yellow Stereo there is a link for new music files that the publisher has provided from the musicians that he is featuring. By using DownThemAll from your set of extensions in Firefox, you are able to immediately start a series of downloads for these new files so you can save them to your computer. You can do this, individually, by using the control-click command on your mouse or you can activate DownThemAll to grab everything on the page that is downloadable. You’ll be prompted as to what you would like to save and what you would like to discard. Conclusion I hope these instructions are informative enough to get you interested in discovering all you can with several of the tools made available for users within Firefox and Google. For additional help using Firefox and Google, explore the User Help pages listed below. Google Help Firefox Help Or, email me