Three tab thumbnails are shown by default but the value can be changed in the about:config settings by changing the parameter browser.ctrlTab.previewsCount. Users who prefer the old way and do not need or like this new tab thumbnails preview feature can turn it off completely by setting the parameter browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed to false.

Firefox 3.1 also introduces several changes to the Firefox location bar. Users will finally be able to define the Firefox 3 auto complete feature. The first noticeable change is the addition of five characters that, when entered in the location bar, will restrict the search. The characters can be entered anywhere in the location bar.

(via Mozillalinks)

• History = ^
• Bookmarks = *
• Tags = +
• Titles only = #
• Addresses only = @

That’s however confusing and a feature that only a few Firefox users will really take advantage of. The default characters can be changed in about:config as well.

Far more interesting is the possibility to change the default search, that is the search when no special char is entered. The special chars can be changed which includes their removal. Now if you want that the normal search is only searching your History then you would simply remove the ^ char in the about:config settings of the History parameter. Here are the five parameters:

• browser.urlbar.restrict.history
• browser.urlbar.restrict.bookmark
• browser.urlbar.restrict.tag
• browser.urlbar.match.title
• browser.urlbar.match.url

Removing the special char will apply the restriction by default which will help all the users who complain about the Firefox 3 location bar.

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Firefox 3 adds some great new features to the location bar which will speed up the web browsing experience tremendously. Before that we should take a short look at the features that have been introduced in Firefox 2 and how they have changed in Firefox 3. This will lead to the new features that Firefox 3 is providing.

The keyword function remains more or less the same. Keywords can be added to any bookmark in Firefox. A keyword can be any char which will load the bookmark when entered in the location bar. Keywords can be combined with parameters %S or %s to perform searches from the location bar, for example a search on your favorite blog without visiting that site first and entering the search term. A great article about keyword searches can be found at the MozillaZine website.

It is still possible to enter words in the location bar which will be checked against the history and bookmarks on the fly. This is a new feature of Firefox 3. The order of the words is not relevant for matching results which means that “ghacks technology” and “technology ghacks” will have the same results, as do “ghacks tech”, “gha tech” and every other form that matches a bookmark or entry in the history.

The yellow star on the right side of the results is indicating that the website is located in the bookmarks. A site that would not be in the bookmarks would be displayed with a white star. A click on the white star would give the user the opportunity to bookmark the page. All bookmarks are automatically added to a new bookmark category called unsorted bookmarks. If you do not want this you can click the star, which should be yellow by now, a second time to place it in a folder in your bookmarks.

The above image is showing another new feature called tags that has been introduced in Firefox 3. Every bookmark can be tagged – with one or multiple words separated by comma – and those tags can be entered in the Firefox 3 location bar to list all sites with that tag. You could tag your five favorite online game websites with games and they would appear when games would be entered into the location bar. Basically another way of organizing bookmarks into logical groups. One should not confuse tags with keywords that immediately open one bookmark when entered.

Another new feature is the ability to identify websites by left-clicking on its favicon.

Mostly secure websites are displaying additional information in this first box. If a website provides identity information the favicon button will turn blue and green on sites that tell the user who is running that website.

A click on more information provides additional information like stored cookies and passwords for that website on the local computer.

Last but not least I would like to recommend a useful Firefox 3 add-on that adds search directly to the location bar in Firefox. Awesome Search is the add-on that does that which in my case made the search form in the main Firefox toolbar dispensable.

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What I like about the presentation is the concentration on the benefits. He is not only showing the new features but adding everyday value to them explaining how they enhance the web experience and make life easier for everyone.

The screencast is not a full feature showdown which would probably be impossible to do in four minutes anyway. He is concentrating on the new location bar, also called the awesome bar, malware protection, download manager, new bookmark management and site information.

This video actually has convinced me to make the switch from Firefox 2 to Firefox 3 RC2. I like the new awesome bar which will make life a lot easier especially with the Awesome Search add-on that I have reviewed earlier this week.

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I personally do not think that such a feature is necessary due to the real-time protection that most anti-virus applications provide which will scan the file eventually before it can be executed.

The Mozilla team created a new preference that gives Windows users the option to disable the automatic virus scanning in Firefox which comes in handy if you have a anti-virus software installed but do not want it to scan the downloads or encounter difficulties because of this.

Type about:config in the Firefox location bar and filter for the string browser.download.manager.scanWhenDone. The default value of that parameter is true which means that scans will be done whenever a file is downloaded. Setting it to false will disable the automatic virus scanning in Firefox 3.

During research I came upon another error that is connected to the Download Statusbar extension. If you receive the error message Anti-virus Program not found after a download completes in Firefox 3 and have the Download Statusbar extension installed you need to set the path to the anti-virus program manually in the Download Statusbar options.

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