Specify the page or tab group that &brandShortName; will display after it is opened or when the Home button is clicked. Enter the address in the Location field.
Click Use Current Page(s) to use the page you're currently visiting. You can also use multiple home pages. If more than one browser tab is currently opened, this button will set the whole tab group as home page.
To specify the home page(s) using a bookmark, click Use Bookmark.... You can even select a whole bookmark folder to use as multiple home pages!
If you don't want a home page to be loaded, click Use Blank Page.
Click the Fonts & Colors... button to change the default fonts and colors used by &brandShortName;.
Fonts for:
Normally, web pages are displayed in the default font set by &brandShortName; or in a font
chosen by the web page's author. To change the default fonts:
You can also specify the display resolution (normally 96dpi) by selecting Other... in the drop-down list of resolutions.
Finally, you can set the minimum font size to be used on screen. This can be useful on sites that use very small or unreadable fonts.
Text and Background
Here you can change the default text and background color to be used on Web pages that haven't
specified that information. Click on the color samples to select colors.
Use system colors
Check this option to use the colors defined in your OS settings instead of the colors specified
above.
Link Colors
Here you can change the default colors for Web links. Click on the color samples to select
colors.
Underline links
By default &brandShortName; underlines all links. Uncheck this option to prevent link
underlining. Note that many sites specify their own link styling rules; this option has
no effect on those sites.
Always use my:
Fonts
By default &brandShortName; uses the fonts specified by the Web page author. Enabling this
option will force all sites to use your default fonts instead.
Colors
By default, &brandShortName; uses the colors specified by the Web page author. Enabling
this option will force all sites to use your default colors instead.
On Windows you can set &brandShortName; as the default browser by clicking Set Default Browser. This will ensure &brandShortName; is used whenever an application tries to display a Web site or when you open an HTML file. Note that this feature also registers some common image formats, including GIF and JPG. This feature has no effect on Linux or Macintosh.
Many organizations block access from the Internet to their networks. This prevents outside parties from gaining access to sensitive information. This protection is called a firewall.
If your organization has a firewall, &brandShortName; may need to go through a proxy server before connecting you to the Internet. The proxy server prevents outsiders from breaking into your organization's private network.
Configure Proxies to Access the Internet
The Privacy panel contains options related to your privacy. As you browse the web &brandShortName; stores information on where you have been, what pages you have visited, and other browsing statistics. Click the Clear button on each section to clear that information. Alternatively you can clear all information stored while browsing by clicking Clear All. A confirmation dialog will be shown before the information is cleared.
To display section-specific options, expand a section by clicking on the small + button.
Here you can specify how long you want &brandShortName; to remember what pages you have visited. The default is 9 days.
Save information I enter in web page forms and the Search bar
When you enter
information in web forms, &brandShortName; remembers what you type and automatically makes
suggestions when you enter information again. To stop this behavior, uncheck this option.
Remember Passwords
&brandShortName; is capable of securely storing passwords you
enter in web forms to make it easier to log on to Web sites. You can manage the saved passwords
and delete individual passwords by clicking View Saved Passwords. To stop saving passwords
alltogether, uncheck this option.
The Download Sidebar (accessible from the View menu or by pressing Ctrl+E) stores shortcuts to your recent downloads. There are no options here other than the Clear button. The Download options are available in the Downloads panel.
A cookie is a file created by a Web site that stores information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting that site.
Learn more about cookies and how you can gain control over what sites are allowed to store cookies on your computer by reading about Managing Cookies.
To display the Cookie Manager click Stored Cookies.
Enable Cookies
By default cookies are enabled. Uncheck this option to disable
the use of cookies. Note that some sites may not work properly when cookies are disabled.
Pages you view are normally stored in a special cache folder for quicker viewing the next time you visit the same page. You can specify the amount of disk space the cache can use here.
Block Popup Windows
By default, &brandShortName; blocks annoying popup windows
on Web sites. Unchecking this option will disable popup blocking.
Some sites make legitimate use of popup windows. Therefore, the popup blocking feature has a simple whitelist mechanism to allow certain sites to open popups anyway. To add a site to the whitelist, click Add Site....
To remove a site from the whitelist, select that site from the list and then click Remove Site. To clear the whitelist completely, click Remove All Sites.
Enable Java
Java is a popular programming language for the web developed by
Sun Microsystems. A single Java program can run on many different kinds of computers, thus
avoiding the need for programmers to create a separate version of each program for each
kind of computer. Uncheck this option to disable Java applets in &brandShortName;. Note
that in order for Java applets to work, you must install the Java plugin.
Enable JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language commonly used to
construct web pages. JavaScript is often used to dynamically validate forms and select
buttons. Disabling JavaScript may cause some sites to not work properly.
While it is usually recommended to keep JavaScript enabled, there are some functions that you may want to disable. Click the Advanced... button to display these options.
Load Images
By default images are loaded on Web pages. Uncheck this
option to disable images completely. If images are loaded, you can still specify not
to load images from certain sites by clicking Permissions....
The Image Manager window lists all servers for which you are currently blocking images. To block a server (often an advertising server), right click on an image on a Web page and select Block Images from <server>. To unblock a site, select that server from the Image Manager and click Remove Site. To unblock all sites so all images are shown, click Remove All Sites.
This panel controls how &brandShortName; handles different file types such as applications, compressed files, and multimedia files.
Ask me where to save every file
This is the default option. &brandShortName;
will ask you where you want the file to be saved whenever you download a file.
Save all files to this folder:
Alternatively, you can specify a default folder
where all downloads will be saved, such as the "My Downloads" folder. You can browse to a
specific folder by selecting Other... from the drop-down list of available folders. To show
the folder, click the Show Folder button. This will open the folder in the default file
manager.
This list contains file types that you have downloaded. You can choose what &brandShortName; should do when clicking on a specific file type. Select the file type you want to modify and click the Change Action... button.
This will display the Change Action window, where you can choose to have the file type opened by an application or saved to disk. For example, if you view lots of media files on Web pages, you might want to specify that &brandShortName; always open media files in your media player insted of asking where you want each media file to be saved.
To remove an automatic rule for a file type, select that file type and click the Remove button.
From the Downloads panel, you can also control the plug-ins for &brandShortName;. Click the Plug-Ins... button to display the Plug-Ins window:
From this window, you can control which plug-ins for &brandShortName; can run. For example, if you don't like Flash animations in general but still find a need to have the plug-in installed, you can disable the plug-in here. This will block any Flash ads and animations until you enable the plug-in again.
Switch themes and uninstall existing themes in this panel. Select a theme from the list and click OK to switch to that theme.
To download more themes, click on the Get New Themes link.
To uninstall a theme, select it and click Uninstall Theme. Note that you can't uninstall the theme that is currently loaded or the built-in themes Modern and &brandShortName;.
You can enable, disable, or change settings for installed extensions in this panel. To install extensions, click on the Get New Extensions link.
Some extensions offer the ability to change settings. To change settings for an extension, select it and click Settings. This button is disabled if there are no settings for the selected extension.
To disable an extension, select it and click Disable Extension. You can't uninstall an extension yet. This is planned in a future release of &brandShortName;.
The advanced panel contains many options that are less likely to be used by most people but are still useful and sometimes critical options for some.
Move system caret with focus/selection changes
Specifies whether to move the system
caret whenever the focus or selection changes. Some accessibility aids, such as screen readers and
screen magnifiers, use the system caret to determine which area of the screen to read or magnify.
Use Find As You Type
Find As You Type is a very useful feature in &brandShortName;.
It is a fast way of finding links or text in a Web page without the need of displaying complex
search dialogs. Read more about Find As You Type at
mozilla.org.
Hide the tab bar when only one Web site is open
If you're only viewing one Web page
in a &brandShortName; window, the tab bar is not shown. Uncheck this option to always show the tab
bar.
Open links in the background
When you middle-click on Web links (or hold down
Ctrl while clicking with the left mouse button), the links will be opened in a
new tab. That tab will not be shown directly; it will be loaded in a background tab.
Uncheck this option to load the link in a foreground tab instead, which will show that tab
directly.
Use autoscrolling
Autoscrolling is a useful feature which allows you to scroll
the page by just holding down the middle mouse button (usually the scroll wheel) and move the
mouse up or down. Some people find this annoying so here's the option for it.
Use smooth scrolling
Smooth scrolling is still somewhat experimental in
&brandShortName;, but it can be very useful if you read a lot of long pages. Normally, when you
press the Page Down key, the view jumps directly down one page. With Smooth Scrolling, it
slides down more smoothly, so you are actually able to see how much it scrolls. This makes it
easier to resume reading from where you were before.
Resize large images to fit in the &brandShortName; window
This feature is similar
to the one seen in Internet Explorer. It makes images that are larger than can be fit on the
screen shrink automatically so you can view the whole picture. Click on the image to view it at
full size.
Use SSL 2.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information
through SSL2 (Secured Sockets Layer Level 2), the standard protocol for secure transmissions.
All secure Web sites support this protocol.
Use SSL 3.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information
through SSL3 (Secured Sockets Layer Level 3), a protocol that is intended to be more secure
than SSL2. Note that some Web sites may not support this protocol.
Use TLS 1.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information
through TLS (Transport Layer Security), an open security standard similar to SSL3 (Secure
Sockets Layer). Note that some Web sites may not support this protocol.
The Certificates section is provisional and will be changed or removed in future releases. It is not covered in this document. Please consult the Mozilla help system for more information about the various options available here.
The Validation section is provisional and will be changed or removed in future releases. It is not covered in this document. Please consult the Mozilla help system for more information about the various options available here.
Copyright © 2003 Contributors to the Firebird Help Project.