Firefox is an extremely popular browser that is used by about 36% of internet users. There are many ways to tweak and get Firefox running exactly how you want from changing to multiple home pages to organizing your favorites. Here we look at 9 useful Firefox tips and tweaks to help make your Firefox browsing experience better:
1. Missing Menu or Navigation Bar
Sometimes on a fresh install or because of an update you can lose the navigation and menu bars (sometimes other bars too like favorites). Getting these items back is not difficult to do.
- Option 1
You are likely to have an orange Firefox button in the top left corner. Click the button and go to options on the second menu. From there select the Menu bar. You should now see the menu bar with options on top of the screen. From here you can enable other toolbars and items by going to the View option on the menu bar, selecting toolbars, and then ensuring a tick is in any toolbar you wish to display.
- Option 2
Go to the top of your screen and right-click next to the current tab (blank space). You should get a drop-down box with a number of toolbars. Some will have ticks some won’t. Tick any toolbars you wish to display such as the menu bar.
2. Clearing Remembered Passwords from Firefox and Setting Master Password
Firefox remembers any passwords you ask it to remember and stores it in a file. You can access this file and view all the passwords stored which is a security concern if the computer is a shared computer. You can set a master password so that other users can not view the password.
To clear the passwords or set a master go to the top menu bar and select tools and then options. On the top bar of the new screen select the security tab. At the bottom, you will see the option to set a master password and view saved passwords.
Once you click on saved passwords you will see all the logins for every site you have asked Firefox to remember with options to remove and show passwords.
3. Changing Firefox Homepage
To change your Firefox homepage go to tools and then options on the top menu bar. Select the General tab and in the homepage section type the required homepage and then press OK. This page will open every time you start Firefox.
4. Multiple Homepages
You don’t have to settle for just one homepage when you open Firefox. If for example, you wanted it to open your Mail site and Google on start-up you can get it to do both. Go to the menu bar and select tools and then options. On the homepage put the pages you want to open by default with a separator (|). For example:
www.computerlearnhow.com|www.google.com
This would open these 2 pages every time you start Firefox or press the Home button. You can also get it to open your current pages as the homepages by selecting use current page(s) which has the same effect but uses your current open pages.
5. Changing Firefox Downloads Location
To change the default location for downloads in Firefox go to tools and then options. On the general tab select Save files and then select browse. Finally, select the folder on your computer you want to be the default for any files you download.
6. Adding Favorites to the Toolbar
You can put favorites on the bookmark toolbar for ease of access. When adding a bookmark in the folder option change this to bookmark toolbar. This will add it to your toolbar. If you can’t see the bookmark toolbar see tip 1.
7. Delete Items from the Address Bar History
Been to a website you should not have been or want to remove a site from the drop-down address box without deleting all of the internet histories?
Go to the address box at the top and start typing the address. Once it automatically pops up in the address bar hover over the name until it turns blue and then hold CTRL and press DEL to remove it.
8. Access Advanced Firefox Settings
Warning: Don’t alter these settings unless you know what you are doing!
Firefox does have a section where all settings are stored and can be changed. You can access this by going to a new Firefox window and in the address bar typing ‘about:config’ and then clicking continue on the warning that appears.
9. Organize Bookmarks
If like me you have a ton of favorites you can organize these into handy folders. To do this go to bookmarks on the menu bar and select show all bookmarks. On the left-hand side expand the Bookmarks menu folder. Here you will see the current folders. Right-click on the bookmarks menu and then select the new folder. Give the folder a name and a description and press add.
When you save bookmarks in the future you can now save them to this folder or you can drag and drop current bookmarks into the folders you have created.
