Chrome might be all the rage right now, but Mozilla’s Firefox browser has always held its own in the browser wars. This open-source browser has its core set of dedicated fans and is popular under a broad user base across the world. With Firefox’s faster web page download speeds and strong privacy policies, it’s not hard to imagine why. But there are some other brilliant features that many might have missed.
Take a look at these seven Firefox tricks that many users don’t know about. Not only will they provide a better browsing experience, but they’ll add some extra safety features too.
1. Customize the Toolbar
Firefox has many customizability options. But its toolbar custom menu option is particularly useful. This option lets users customize the toolbar buttons as well as the overflow menu.
You can find these settings in the menu by clicking on the Customize option. A new tab will open showing many buttons that you can add to the toolbar and overflow menu. Drag buttons like Save Page, New Window, or Sidebars onto the toolbar, and they will appear there from now on. Any other buttons that you don’t use as much can go to the overflow menu.
2. Clip Sections of Text With This Add-On
There are thousands of great Firefox add-ons out there. But Clippings is a pretty underrated one. With this tool, you can select any text and save it to the clip for later use. It is excellent for frequently-used phrases or text, such as responses to emails. Clippings lists every piece of content in a different color for easy reference. It also shows the original source the text came from.
3. Save Passwords With Firefox Password Manager
Like many other browsers out there, Firefox lets users save their passwords for autofill purposes. You can also set a master password that you will need to type in before you can access any of the saved passwords. It is much more secure than leaving your passwords unencrypted.
You can also use a third-party Firefox password manager that works the same way. Many password managing software comes in the form of a Firefox add-on. They have robust encryption techniques to ensure that passwords stay safe. You can use them to save passwords and let them autofill on websites.
4. Navigate With Tab Shortcuts
There are many great keyboard shortcuts for Firefox. Here are the ones that come in handy when you need to switch between tabs:
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Ctrl + Tab: Brings up thumbnails of all open tabs that you can scroll through by typing the Tab key again.
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Ctrl + Page Down: Move to the tab on the right.
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Ctrl + Page Up: Move to the tab on the left.
5. Get Accelerated Performance
Speed usually isn’t a problem for Firefox users. But if the browser seems a little slow, then there is a setting to make it faster. Got to about:preferences, click on General, and then Performance.
Then the browser enables a setting called "Use recommended performance settings." When that setting is disabled, a new one called "Use hardware acceleration when available" appears. It allows the browser more RAM and GPU usage for better performance.
6. Find Information Faster and Easier
It’s all too easy to end up with 10+ tabs open while searching for a particular thing or researching a topic. Firefox makes managing tabs more straightforward by letting users search for specific words or terms across all the tabs they have open.
Click on the address bar, type in the word along with the % (percentage) symbol. The browser will then highlight the tabs (if any) that contain matching content.
7. Make the Browser Forget the Past Few Hours
Clearing the history in the options menu is always a reliable option, and you can pick the time frame too. But Firefox does have a simple way to remove everything done on the browser within a specified time. As long as it falls within the last 24 hours.
You can delete the entire history, logins, download history, cookies, and cache with the Forget tool. You can add it as a button to the toolbar for easy access. It deletes the last 5 minutes to 24 hours — or any time in-between. Specify a time frame and watch all that data disappear. Be aware that there’s no way to get it back once you delete it, so tread carefully with this command.
Conclusion
Firefox is an excellent option as a browser, thanks to its many brilliant plugins and a focus on privacy. Even though people have been using this browser since it first launched in 2002, it has many new features worth exploring. You can discover some of them over time through a bit of experimentation, but it’s much easier to start by going through this list.
