Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox

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1 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox B 660 / 1 Try this Popular and Featurepacked Free Alternative to Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 7 arrived with a bang a few months ago, but it hasn t brought benefits for everyone. For one thing, only Windows Vista and XP users are able to take advantage of its handy new features: if you use Windows 2000/Me/98, Internet Explorer 7 is off-limits. For another, even some Vista and XP users have been less than thrilled by IE7. Well, why not try the alternative a free and extremely popular web browser named Mozilla Firefox? In this article, I ll introduce you to Firefox, explain how to install it, and show you how to start surfing the Web, Firefox-style. By Rob Young Discover How To Install Firefox in 7 Easy Steps... Finding Your Way Around the Web with Firefox... Keep Several Web Pages Open At Once with Tabs... Make Web Pages Easier to Read with Simple Zooming... Windows Vista/XP/2000/Me/98 B 660 / 3 B 660 / 5 B 660 / 6 B 669 / 8 This article shows you how to:... Install the popular Firefox web browser... Discover useful web-browsing features that Internet Explorer doesn t have You can install Mozilla Firefox from the Update 5/07 CD-ROM in the Update Software section 19

2 B 660 / 2 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox Internet Explorer was ignored for years until Firefox came along IE7 contains some of Firefox s great features Many Internet users prefer Firefox What Are the Benefits of Using Firefox for Browsing the Web? Microsoft s attitude to Internet Explorer has been interesting. After seeing off the competition and reaching a point where over 90% of the world was using Internet Explorer, they seemed to forget all about it. While other products were being updated and improved regularly, Internet Explorer just gathered dust. Then, unexpectedly, along came a brand new web browser named Firefox, with a raft of useful features, which began attracting users away from Internet Explorer in droves. It was at this point that Microsoft started taking notice. They dusted off Internet Explorer, picked the best features of Firefox, and copied them into a new version of Internet Explorer in an attempt to keep up. It was a wise move, but the new IE7 could only be used on Windows Vista and XP, leaving everyone else with their old and less-feature-filled version of IE. For users of Windows 2000, Me and 98, the benefits of Firefox are easy to explain. (Unfortunately, though, Windows 95 users are still out of luck: you must be using Windows 98 or later to install Firefox.) You get the handy features that Microsoft pinched for Internet Explorer 7, such as a pop-up blocker, tabbed browsing and easy searching, plus a few others. The benefits for Windows Vista and XP users are less clear-cut, but plenty of those users prefer Firefox over Internet Explorer 7. Some users just find they like it better; some want the extra features that IE7 doesn t offer; others just like to have a second browser available in case 20

3 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox B 660 / 3 Internet Explorer causes problems with a particular website. You can install Firefox without committing yourself to anything. It s free, for one thing, so there s no cost involved. If you decide you don t like it for some reason, you can simply uninstall it. Alternatively, you might decide to continue using Internet Explorer, and just keep Firefox in reserve for occasional use. Discover How To Install Firefox in 7 Easy Steps If you d like to give Firefox a try, it really couldn t be easier. We ve included a copy on the accompanying CD and it s a quick and straightforward job to install it. Just follow these steps: 1. Insert your Update 5/07 CD in your computer s CD-ROM drive. 2. Click on Update Software followed by Mozilla Firefox and then click the blue text that says Click here to install Mozilla Firefox. 3. The Firefox set-up program will start, and you move through its four steps by clicking the Next button at the bottom. The only change you need to make is to click on I accept the terms in the License Agreement in the second step. Otherwise, leave the Standard option selected, and when Firefox has been installed (which takes only a few seconds) you ll arrive at the final step. Leave a tick in the box marked Launch Mozilla Firefox now and click the Finish button. Click Next to move from step to step 21

4 B 660 / 4 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox Firefox will import your Favorites and other options 4. Now Firefox will ask a couple of questions. The first, pictured in the following screenshot, is whether you want to use your Internet Explorer options and Favorites in Firefox. It s a good idea to do this, so make sure the option Microsoft Internet Explorer is selected and click Next. Make sure Microsoft Internet Explorer is selected Click Next 5. The next question is whether you want to use your usual Internet Explorer home page or Firefox s own home page. Again, to keep things familiar, I suggest clicking the option Import your home page from Internet Explorer. Click Next. 6. Now you ll see a list of the items Firefox has copied from Internet Explorer. Click Finish. Don t set Firefox as the default browser (yet) 7. Firefox will start, and as its window appears you ll see the dialog pictured below. This is asking whether you want to make Firefox your default browser. For now the best thing to do is to remove the tick from the box and then click No. I ll come back to this option later in this article. Remove the tick Click No 22

5 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox B 660 / 5 Finding Your Way Around the Web with Firefox As you ve just installed Firefox, it will have started automatically. Whenever you want to use it in future there are two ways you can start it: You ll find a Mozilla Firefox icon on your desktop and you can double-click that. (If you don t like to have icons cluttering up your desktop, you can delete this one and use the second option to start Firefox.) Open the Start menu, go to All Programs (or Programs) > Mozilla Firefox and click Mozilla Firefox. Looking at Firefox, your first thought may be that it looks very similar to Internet Explorer. It is, and that makes it quite easy to get started. You ll find most of the familiar items in the same places: How to start Firefox Familiar buttons and Address box Back Forward Home page Address box Search box To visit a web page, click in the Address box, type the address of the page and press Enter. Use the Back button to jump back to pages you viewed earlier, and the Forward button to move forwards again. Click the Home button to jump straight to your home page. The Search box is a new feature. If you want to search for something at Google, type your search words into this box and press Enter, and you ll arrive almost instantly at your search results. Easy access to a Google search 23

6 B 660 / 6 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox Your Favorites are called Bookmarks Quick help to get you started Your Favorites from Internet Explorer are called Bookmarks in Firefox, but they work the same way. Open the Bookmarks menu to see your list of favourite sites and click the one you want to visit. If you arrive at a page you d like to add to your Bookmarks, either press Ctrl+D or choose Bookmarks > Bookmark This Page. Even if you told Firefox you wanted to use your usual Internet Explorer home page, you ll see Firefox s own web page the very first time it starts. It does this to welcome you to the program, but you can still click the Home button now if you want to go to your usual home page. If you have any problems managing the basics in Firefox after getting used to Internet Explorer s way of doing things, the Mozilla people have even thought of that! Open the Help menu and choose For Internet Explorer Users and you ll find a useful Help page explaining the main differences between Internet Explorer and Firefox. Keep Several Web Pages Open At Once with Tabs Tabs are one of the most powerful features of Firefox. Rather than having to leave one web page to go to another, you can keep multiple pages open at once. Each page has its own tab, as pictured in the screenshot on the following page, and you can switch to different pages you ve opened by clicking their tabs. 24

7 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox B 660 / 7 Click a tab to switch to the web page it contains To open a new tab, either choose File > New Tab or press Ctrl+T. The new tab will appear with the name (Untitled) as you can see on the right in the screenshot above, accompanied by a blank web page. You can now type an address to visit in the Address box, or pick a favourite site from the Bookmarks menu. Open new tabs whenever you need them If you find a link on a web page that you d like to follow, but you don t want to lose track of the current page, you can make that link open into another tab. Just right-click the link and choose Open Link in New Tab. A new tab will appear and the new page will begin to load in it. Whenever you re ready to look at it, just click that new tab to see it. Right-click a link Click Open Link in New Tab Each tab contains a little grey box at its righthand side containing an x button. If you d like to close a particular tab that you no longer need, just move the mouse on to this button (which makes it turn red) and click it. 25

8 B 660 / 8 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox Use the mouse to zoom or the keyboard Search a web page with this unique Firefox feature Make Web Pages Easier to Read with Simple Zooming Here s another handy feature that Internet Explorer has picked up from Firefox. If you come across a web page containing small text that s difficult to read, just use Firefox s zooming feature to make it larger. There are several ways to do it: If you have a mouse with a wheel, hold down the Ctrl key and roll the wheel away from you to increase the size of the text, or towards you to make the text smaller. Open the View menu, move down to Text Size and choose Increase for larger text, Decrease for smaller text, or Normal to return to the original text size. Hold the Ctrl key and press the + key repeatedly until the text is large enough, or the key to make it smaller. You can press Ctrl+0 (zero) for normal-sized text. Quickly Find Particular Words or Phrases in a Web Page Here s a clever feature of Firefox that's head and shoulders above Internet Explorer 7. If you arrive at a web page that s supposed to cover a particular topic, but you can t see where it s mentioned, Firefox makes it easy to find words or phrases that appear on the page. Choose Edit > Find in This Page (or press Ctrl+F) and a small panel will appear at the bottom of the window. In the box labelled Find, type the word or phrase you want to look for. As you do, Firefox will find and highlight the first 26

9 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox B 660 / 9 instance of that text on the page. Use the Next button to the right to move to the next instance of the word (if there is one). Type the word or phrase to find on the page Firefox will highlight it in colour If you click the Highlight all button further to the right, Firefox will highlight every instance of your word or phrase on the page. You can then scan quickly through the page looking out for those coloured highlights. Your Default Browser Should It Be Internet Explorer or Firefox? The first time Firefox started, it asked whether you wanted to make it your default browser. As the final step of installing Firefox, I suggested you answer No to this and tell Firefox not to ask about it anymore. At present, then, Internet Explorer is still your default browser, just as it always has been, but what does that actually mean? Your default browser is the web browser program that will start if you click a link to a website in an message, or if you open the Favorites folder on your hard disk and double-click a site to visit. In Windows Vista and XP, it s the web browser that will start if you click the Internet item at the top of your Start menu. We left Internet Explorer as your default browser 27

10 B 660 / 10 Browsing the World Wide Web with Firefox You can make Firefox your default instead Click this button and choose Yes In a nutshell, your default web browser is the one that will start if you choose any option that requires a web page to be displayed. When you ve spent some time with Firefox, you might decide you like it better than Internet Explorer and want to use it full-time for all web pages. If so, start Firefox and choose Tools > Options. In the dialog that appears, click the Main icon at the top and then click the Check Now button which will present a similar dialog to the one we saw at the end of the installation, and this time click Yes. You can still use Internet Explorer whenever you like Not too keen on Firefox? Even if you do set Firefox as your default browser, that doesn t remove Internet Explorer from your system, or prevent you from using it: you ll still find Internet Explorer on your Start menu. When you do use Internet Explorer, you ll find that it asks you a similar question (because it notices that you ve chosen something different Firefox to use by default). If this happens, say No to Internet Explorer. If you don t want to set Firefox as your default browser, that s fine. You can still keep it and use it whenever you want to, or, if you really don t like it at all, you can uninstall it. (You can find steps for uninstalling programs in article I520 Installing and Uninstalling Software Yourself in your PC Knowledge for Seniors main manual.) 28