How to tweak Firefox to give you the best usability.
Posted on 20th May 2006 by Keith DsouzaHere are few of the things you can use;
1. Force new window links to open in new tab.
Tools -> Options -> Tabs
In that click on the checkbox that says Force links that open in new window to open in:
From that select one of the options
1. the same tab/window as the link
2. a new tab (recommended if you don't want to leave the page still read the other article)
Well if you ever have wanted to select text, then you have to use your mouse everytime to do that in a browser, well I am kind of a 90% keyboard user and like this feature that's there in firefox.
To use your keyboard to select text while browsing. In the firefox browser go to
In that select the checkbox Allow text to be selected with the keyboard.
3. Image resizing when opening images
Well I sometimes do not like the images getting resized automatically in the browser and then me having to go and make it full size again, if your not happy with this, here is how you can stop images from being resized.
In the firefox browser go to
Tools -> Options -> Advanced
In that unselect the checkbox Resize large images to fit in the browser window
4. Use firefox inbuilt password manager
I usually go and sign up for lots of new services everyday and it becomes tedious to go on entering the user name and password for every site that I need to login, I use firefox inbuilt password manager to store and enter my usernames and password's for various sites.
Whenever you type in user name and password's firefox will prompt you whether you want to store the information to be entered the next time, if you are comfortable you can click on remember so that next time it will automatically populate the values the next time.
If you are not getting the prompt here is what to do
In the firefox browser go to
Tools -> Options -> Security -> Passwords
Just check the box Remember Passwords if it is not already checked
If you want to disable this facility just uncheck the box. If you want to delete all information check the next tip.
Note: Do not do this on a public computer and also do not store banking or other important information, I do not do that myself, If at any time you think you feel the information is compromised just clear out the information stored.
5. Keyboard shortcut to clear all your private data from firefox
I like this one as it allows me to clear all the private data like surfing history, passwords, cache, form information, authenticated sessions, download history etc in just one click.
Here is how to configure one click clearing, In you firefox browser window just use this combination of keys
You may get a window that asks you what data has to be deleted, in here you can select one or all options to be deleted.
There is a checkbox at the end of the new window saying Ask me before clearing private data, unchecking this will never show you this popup again but I do not recommend you doing this unless you are on a public computer.
But unchecking that is the quickest way to clear private data.
If you still want firefox to ask you before clearing the data, here is what you can do.
In the firefox browser go to
Tools -> Options -> Security
Click on the Settings button in the lower bottom right corner, In that you have two options at the bottom,
Clear private data when closing Firefox and
Ask me before clearing private data, you can activate or deactivate the facility from here.
Well that's all from me for now, if anyone wants to add to these suggestions, you can do so through the comments section.