Entries Tagged 'Firefox' ↓

Firefox 3, the latest version of the web browser Firefox is out today. The developers and the Firefox community is trying to set a world record for the highest number of downloads in a day. So go get your copy and help them make the record. And its free.

There is only one way for something to be better and still be free - Open Source. Want to participate in the Firefox revolution, one way you can help is by spreading awareness. Most users end up using the browser that comes with their OS (Internet Explorer / Safari). There are many reasons for this and one of them is that they are unaware of the fact that there are better and free things out there. Educate people about Firefox, explain the advantages and help them make the switch.

If you were already a Firefox user, then there are lots of improvements that make this a must try upgrade. Missed the download day? No problem, make up for it by spreading the word. Grab one of these Firefox buttons or buy some Firefox gear.

I had a really bad experience installing Firefox on my Mac so I decided to pen down the detailed instructions along with my experience installing it as a first time Mac user.

Installing Firefox on Mac OS X

Goto Firefox.com, click on the download link and the file should download to your Downloads folder

Open the Downloads folder using Finder and locate the Firefox.2.x.x.x file, double click on it ad you should see this screen

Click accept and in a few moments, the image will be mounted and you will see this window

Now open the Applications folder in another Finder window and drag the Firefox icon from the above screen into the Applications folder

You will see a progress screen for a few moments and you are done installing Firefox

Right click on the Firefox disc image icon on your desktop and Eject

To launch Firefox, double click on the Firefox icon in the Applications folder

For future use, you could drag the Firefox icon from the Applications window onto the dock to create a shortcut

My experience

Installing applications is supposedly a trivial task on a Mac but when I tried to install Firefox (my first non-Apple application) I was clue less about how to install it.

It was my Day 1 with the Mac and I already got the hang of Safari so I decided to try the mighty Firefox for a few reasons -

• First its a damn good browser
• Second I was used to it as a windows user
• Third and most important, Firefox maintains a consistent UI across all platforms

Just like everyone else I downloaded the DMG, double clicked on the DMG and it showed me this screen.

What the heck??? What am I supposed to do with this little window?? What does it mean? I was really frustrated, why can’t they include instructions to install the app? I initially thought it was actually a splash screen. Then after playing with the window for a while, I discovered that the Firefox logo is an icon and by the signs I thought I should drag this icon into the white Applications icon in the window. Didn’t work. Tried some googling with no luck then realized that I could drag the icon into a new Applications finder window. And finally there I had it, Firefox on my Mac.

This was in the past and when I was a Mac noob. Now that I know how to install applications (apps), when I think about my first install experience I feel embarrassed. And I wish Firefox developers designed it in such a way that the Firefox icon could be dragged into the Applications icon in the same disk image window rather than the user opening a new Applications window and then dragging the icon into it.

It was actually my mistake, they had install instructions on the download page which I did not notice and closed.

Firefox can be called the browser of the decade and its usage has been growing steadily since version 1.0 Version 1.5 and version 2.0 were two major upgrades we saw in the browser and the current version 2.0 is arguably ahead of the competiton in features. The first reason for its success is the ability to configure it your won way and the ability to add any feature you want by the help of Add-ons or Extensions. Version 2.0 has new features like automatic prefetch, completely new visual style, ability to view tab list at the extreme right of the tab bar and not limited to but including a new position for tab close button.

Earlier tere was only one common tab close button and clicking on it would close the current tab, but now every tab has a close button which is good but when it comes to closing multiple tabs it is a pain in the ass. You have to move the pointer to the close button on every tab and click on it instead of the earlier single common button which allowed to close tabs one by one by just clicking on the single button. There was a problem with this too, when you are closing multiple tabs one after the other using the common button you may accidentally close a tab you didnt intend to close. You dont have to worry now because firefox now has a Undo Close Tab option [ Ctrl + Shift + T ], right click anywhere on the tab bar andthe drop down menu has the Undo Close Tab option for you.

So why not change the Close Tab button back to its original place, which is a single close button for all tabs - to do this you will have to open the Mozilla configuration page about:config and type browser.tabs.closeButtons you will see an option with value 1 which is the default, double click and change the value to 3 and press OK. You now have a common close button. But what if you want both the common button and the individual button on each tab? Firefox doesnot support that yet but you have a solution, move your mouse over the tab you want to close and Middle Click it, almost all new mouse configurations have the Scroll wheel instead of the middle mouse button in which case click the scroll wheel, for those of you who never did this its gonna be exciting to see the tabs disappear as you middle click on them. You can close any tab not just the current tab. And if you feel like you closed the wrong tab right click on the tab bar and Undo Close Tab to see the tabs come back.

Now if you feel a little itchy you can remove the tab close button altogether by changing the vaule of browser.tabs.closeButtons to 2 in the about:config page. Changing it to 0 will make only the current tab to have a close button.

Incase you discovered more possibilities with the tab close button please let me know in the comments