Introduction

Firefox is a highly-rated, and secure web browser that is installed by default in Ubuntu.

Firefox comes into its own with the customisation options that are available for it. For a start, it's themeable, allowing you to choose a look that suits your preferences.

Also, it can also be extended by extensions which enable you to tailor the browser around what you want to do online. Pretty much any eventually is catered for with an extension - for example, blogging, newsfeed readers, FTP, etc.

It's also easy to try out extensions and then uninstall them if you're not happy with their functionality.

Key Features

Screenshot

scrn-firefox.jpg

Hints and Tips

Examples of Extensions

Security

Functionality

Support

Custom Configuration

There are a number of basic adjustments you can make that have been reported to improve Firefox's performance.

Open a new tab in Firefox and enter in the address:

about:config

No http, or anything, just 'about:config'. Then search for each of the following, by typing them in the Filter box, and make the suggested changes:

Another option that many users find useful is single clicking in the url bar to select the entire url. To set this, use the Filter option to filter with the word "click". Set value

browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll

to TRUE by double clicking it.

Important Security Note

Ubuntu has a strict policy of not having new versions of software in a stable version of Ubuntu. However, Firefox is an exception to that rule, due to issues with backporting fixes. All supported versions of Ubuntu can receive newer versions of Firefox in updates as soon as they are available.

See New Firefox Versions and Ubuntu Backports for more information.

Known issues

PDF Preview in Firefox isn't honored on some URLs

There is a limitation for PDF where if the URL is served as application/octet-stream, or set with a content-disposition: attachment header, it will force downloading of the file, instead of honoring the preference to Preview in Firefox. For more on this, please see here.

Other browsers you may wish to look at

External Links


CategorySoftwareDefault CategorySoftware CategoryInternet

Firefox (last edited 2015-02-17 23:09:19 by ppp079167139055)