7 Tips for More Firefox Efficiency
April 8th, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 17 Comments
For many of us web workers, Firefox is the browser we live in for much of the day. We’ve done a lot of coverage on this site of Firefox extensions, tab management and more, but the more I use Firefox the more on-the-fly navigational tips I pick up. In this post, I’ll round up some useful ones that can make your sessions more efficient.
Bring Back That Tab. I work with a lot of tabs open in Firefox, and sometimes I close one by accident. To bring a closed tab back from the dead, go to the History menu and choose Recent Tabs.
Bring Back That Site. In addition to resurrecting closed tabs, you can revisit a site you were at yesterday by going to the History menu and choosing Show in Sidebar. You’ll get a breakdown of sites visited by day.
Delete Bookmarks. If your list of bookmarks balloons to the size mine does on a regular basis, it’s good to know how to get rid of bookmark entries. Right-click on any one and hit delete to eject it. The Organize Bookmarks choice on the Bookmarks menu can also keep your list manageable.
Customize Your Toolbars. I’m always surprised by how many Firefox users just use the standard toolbars. You can customize any toolbar, and add buttons, by right clicking on the toolbar and selecting customize. Buttons can be dragged and dropped.
Customize Your Tab Handling. Go to the Tools Menu and select Options to customize many aspects of Firefox. Select Tabs to provide the default options you want for tab handling.
Disable Password Manager–if You Want! Some people like to have their passwords for favorite sites entered automatically in when they visit a site. I happen to not like it, and it’s a better security practice not to do it automatically. To disable this, go to the Tools menu, select Options and click off “Remember passwords for sites.”
Get More from Your Mouse. If you use a mouse with a scroll wheel, you can use it to get a lot out of Firefox. See my previous collection of mouse tips for more.
Do you have any good tips for Firefox users?
17 Comments Post your own comment
Scott Blitstein says: April 8th, 2008 5:08pm
One shortcut I show people frequently is dragging a link from the current page to the tab bar to open it in new tab.
Very handy and surprisingly few people seem to know about it.
You can also right click on the tab bar and select undo close tab to re-open your last closed tab.
Good list
SB
Alex Andrei says: April 8th, 2008 5:19pm
Great collection. Very useful. The one knock I have on Firefox (and I guess IE too), is that as you keep opening tabs you use more memory (which is understandable), but it doesn’t really reduce your memory usage as you close out of the same tabs.
I don’t know if its just me :)
Rolobio says: April 8th, 2008 5:41pm
Ctrl-Click on a link and it will open that link in a new tab :D
sukha says: April 8th, 2008 7:40pm
when do you suggest that us common users, start to migrate over to the new upgrade.. version 3. should we be comfortable using the beta so far, or should be wait for the official release…
thnx.
Jason says: April 8th, 2008 9:02pm
Speaking of password manager. One you might want to have a look at is RoboForm. It’s a pretty nice application that manages all your passwords with a single click.
Vaibhav Gadodia says: April 8th, 2008 10:26pm
Well, FF 3 is better at memory management based on my experience with it so far (though the beta has given me some pain in terms of stability)…
As for making life easy in Firefox, I depend most on 3 shortcuts… Ctrl+T, Ctrl+E, and Alt+D:
http://blog.gadodia.net/3-most-useful-browser-shortcuts/
YouON says: April 9th, 2008 1:15am
why you dont link the extension pages?
i have to find myself? … boring.
YouON says: April 9th, 2008 1:19am
sorry man, big mistake!
Michael says: April 9th, 2008 1:20am
Quickly switch to a different tab:
Ctrl+”tabnumber”
…f.ex. to jump to the 2nd tab on the tab bar, you simultaneously press: Ctrl 2
@Scott B.: Hey ! That was new to me. Thanks !
//Michael.
NikLP says: April 9th, 2008 3:02am
I have Tab Mix Plus installed, which totally changed my browsing habits. I can’t recall whether these tips pertain to TMP, as it’s been that long since I used it – however, I can now middle-click on a link to open in a tab, and middle-click on the tab bar to re-open a recently closed window.
I strongly recommend this extension – I also recommend that once you’ve got it set up, you save the settings – there’s a lot of them to go through!
cubus says: April 9th, 2008 8:51am
You can also bring back the tab you accidentally closed with “Shift+Ctrl+T “
Joel Strellner says: April 9th, 2008 9:34am
You can also right click and select, “open link in new tab” if you prefer.
The duplicate tab add on is nice too. I highly recommend it if you are the type that likes to open a bunch of things in tabs.
aalasanthosh says: April 9th, 2008 11:34am
The most underused button the middle button. Use it to open a link in a new tab and use the same middle click to close a tab.
Also use the scroll button along with Ctrl to increase and decrease the font in a web page.
iLibrarian » 7 Tips for More Firefox Efficiency says: April 10th, 2008 7:18am
[...] Worker Daily has 7 tips for us to increase our Firefox [...]
On The Same Page » From Web Worker Daily and great new tip site. says: April 11th, 2008 10:03am
[...] April 8th, 2008 (4:00pm) Samuel Dean 14 Comments [...]
Steve says: April 14th, 2008 1:09am
Does anyone have suggestions for bookmarking other than Firefox? I’m looking for bookmarks that I can tag and have a bit more functionality with…Thanks.
syahidali says: May 2nd, 2008 11:57pm
The password manager can be a good thing too. Just don’t forget to set the “master password” option.