Five Firefox Tips You May Not Know About

The thing I like best about Firefox is that just when you think you know everything there is to know about the browser, something new comes along and surprises you.

I discovered five new Firefox tips today. Maybe these are old hat and you know them already. Or maybe like me, you had no idea these could be done.

1. Quick search - without going to a search engine first.

Are you reading a website and you subsequently discover a word or phrase that you want to put into a search engine? Up until now, I would just open a new tab, type in the URL for Google and manually type the word or phrase in. But it seems there is a faster easier way.

Just highlight the word or phrase with your mouse’s left-click button. Then drag the highlighted text into the address bar in the browser. Then press “enter”. Firefox will now perform a “Are you feeling lucky?” Google search for you.

2. Delete visited URL’s

When you drop down the box underneath the address bar, you can see your recent browsing history. But what if you want to remove one URL from that list? Maybe you’ve been looking at a naughty site and you don’t want your girfriend to know? Or maybe you’ve been shopping for your loved one online and you want to keep it a secret?

Just drop down the URL box, highlight the URL you want to zap then press the “delete” button on your keyboard. The URL will then be removed from the list.

3. Navigate to browser tabs using the keyboard

Instead of using the mouse to click on a tab, why not use the keyboard instead? Pressing CTRL + TAB together will bounce you from tab to tab, starting from the one in the far left and working its way along. Or if you want to go to a specifc tab straight away, you can do that too. CTRL + 2 will take you directly to the second tab from the left. CTRL + 5 will take you to the fifth tab from the left.

4. Start downloads instantly

Instead of right-clicking on a download link, choosing “save to target” and pressing enter, just drag the download link to the “downloads icon” in the toolbar. The download will start automatically.

5. Grab files off webpages, even protected webpages

Have you ever wanted a picture, file or video off a webpage but you can’t, because it’s been protected? Just right-click on the page, choose “View Page Info” then the “media” tab. Find the file you’re looking for from the list and click on “save”. (note : this doesn’t work for everything but I have still had a pretty high success rate nonetheless).

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Firefox 2.0.0.10

Mozilla Firefox is a fast, full-featured Web browser that makes browsing more efficient than ever before. Firefox includes pop-up blocking; a tab-browsing; integrated Google searching; simplified privacy controls that let you cover your tracks more effectively; a streamlined browser window that shows you more of the page than any other browser; and a number of additional features that work with you to help you get the most out of your time online.

Features:

• Improved Tabbed Browsing
• Spell Checking
• Search Suggestions
• Session Restore
• Web Feeds (RSS)
• Live Titles
• Live Bookmarks
• Pop-up Blocker
• Streamlined Interface
• Phishing Protection
• Automated Update
• Protection from Spyware and more....

Download 2.0.0.10

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Release Notes

Installing Windows Media Player Plugin for Firefox

So you just bought a training video and popped it into your computer. You click on the menu in the autoplay dialog and it opens up Firefox, your default browser. Now you are staring at a blank screen.
What now?

The problem is most likely because you don't have the Windows Media

Player plugin installed for Firefox, so all we need to do is install it.

Note that you'll usually have the same problem anytime you try and view video files in FIrefox using Windows Media format, such as .wmv files.

Installation

Just download and run the plugin installer linked below. You'll probably want to close Firefox during the installation.

Verifying Plugin Installation

After running through the very quick installation wizard, you might be curious if the installation actually worked. While the easiest method is to just open a Windows Media video, you can also type the following into the address bar to see the list of loaded plugins:

about:plugins

And you should see the Windows Media Player plugin in the list. You can also see which file types Firefox will use the plugin on.

And now I can view this Windows Media format video file in Firefox…

Technical Notes

In case you have any issues with this installer, you might want to take a look at this list to help with your troubleshooting:

• The WMP plugin uses the IE Proxy settings, not the ones in Firefox.
  This is because the plugin itself is only a thin wrapper around Windows
  Media Player, which always uses IE internally to fetch data.
• The plugin files are installed to the "C:\Program Files\Mozilla
  Firefox\plugins" directory by default, and the file name is
  np-mswmp.dll. If the uninstaller fails to remove this file for whatever
  reason you can manually delete it.
• You could also theoretically copy the same .dll file into the
  plugins directory on any Firefox installation and it should work
  without running the installer.

Download Windows Media Player Firefox Plugin from port25.technet.com

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