When a user enters a search term in the Firefox location bar (address bar, awesome bar) it is determined if the entered term is an actual web address or a search term. If it is a search term a search using the default search engine is performed. If it is a web address the web address is loaded directly.

Firefox assumes that all phrases that make use of a period are web addresses and will try to load them. This can be quite frustrating if a user wanted to look up a file name in a search engine. You can test that yourself by entering svchost.exe in the address bar. Firefox will try to load the website svchost.exe even though the .exe domain extension is not existent.

There is no Firefox setting or add-on that can restrict the extensions to the known domain extensions but there is another way to directly saerch for terms with periods in Firefox using the location bar.

continue reading "Make Firefox Search For Terms With Periods In The Location Bar"

Firefox 3 introduced a new feature called unsorted bookmarks. If you look at the Firefox 3 location bar you see a white star in the right end of the bar. Clicking on that star turns the color to yellow and adds the page to the unsorted bookmarks in Firefox.

The problem with this process is that the unsorted bookmarks folder is deeply hidden in the Firefox bookmarks folder. Long time reader Transcontinental send me a nice link that makes it possible to add the Unsorted Bookmarks folder to a location that is easier accessible.

Some might say that you could simply move the Unsorted Bookmarks folder from the bookmarks manager to the Bookmarks Toolbar. That however will only move the existing bookmarks with it but it will not add new bookmarks that are added by clicking on the white star.

continue reading "Fast Firefox 3 Unsorted Bookmarks Access"

Firefox 3 introduced a new way of keeping an overview over the bookmarks of Firefox by adding tags. Tags are descriptions of an item and can be used to load the site in the address bar which is probably easier than having to type part of the url of the website. They also come in quite handy if several bookmarks of a website exist in Firefox that all point to another part of the website, say different articles here at Ghacks.

Writing down part of the url in the address bar would display all hits while tags only show the websites that have been tagged with that name which means that a unique tag will only show one result.

Adding tags to bookmarks is completely optional and a cumbersome process especially for users who imported bookmarks from Firefox 2 and decided to tag them all, or at least part of them to use the tagging feature for all bookmarks.

continue reading "3 Tagging Add-ons For Firefox"

Keeping up with all the different attack vectors is like the protagonist of Cervante’s famous novel Don Quixote. New threats are emerging on a daily basis while protections seem to remain stagnant at best. Users could opt for a radical solution by choosing to turn off scripts using NoScript and uninstalling scripting languages like Java and Flash content.

That would make most of the Internet unusable and produce some bad looking websites with reduced functionality while some would stop working completely.

Local Rodeo is a Firefox extension that protects Firefox against two types of JavaScript malware. The two types are Intranet Exploration and Anti DNS-Pinning.

continue reading "Local Rodeo Protects Firefox From JavaScript Malware"

Whenever a user creates a new tab in Firefox, which usually is done by pressing CTRL T, the tab that appears is completely blank and does not provide any information whatsoever. Now this is different if you middle-click a link or bookmark because this action will load the website under the link in the new tab automatically.

A blank tab however is not useful at all. A better solution would be to open another website or service in the blank tab, something that is quick to load, is usually the right choice and does not delay the process for to long if the user wants to do something different with the tab.

A tab is usually created when the user wants to open a new url or search for something. He could do CTRL T and enter the url that he wants to visit. What if he uses a search engine most of the time that way? What if the search engine could be loaded automatically when a new tab is created?

continue reading "Load URL When Creating New Tab In Firefox"