Firefox 3 introduces real full screen mode where unlike Firefox 2 where the location bar and tab bar remained visible at all times, now they both automatically hide below the top edge of the screen.

If for some reason you prefer to see the location and tab bars, you can customize Firefox:

• Enter about:config in the location bar to access the advanced preferences.
• Look for browser.fullscreen.autohide and double click it to set it to false.

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Firefox 3 introduces full page zoom, that is, instead of just making text bigger or smaller, it resizes the full page including images and layout.

1. If you just want to zoom text, in the View menu, select Zoom and mark Zoom Text Only.

2. Firefox 3 remembers what zoom level you used for viewing pages in a domain and will automatically zoom them the next time you visit any page in the same domain. If you prefer Firefox not to remember it: Read the rest of this entry »

While Firefox 3’s location bar is perhaps my personal favorite new feature and the one I missed the most when I have to use Firefox 2 for some testing, there are a lot of people who find it weird, obtrusive and don’t like it including bookmarks and history among its results.

An option to restore its old behavior was available for a few weeks during Firefox 3 development but it was pulled basically because it would need a lot of testing and it was thought it was not worth it. The option may come back for Firefox 3.1.

In the meantime, for those who prefer the old way and those who want even more power, here are 9 easy tweaks you can try. Read the rest of this entry »

Have you noticed the new Google search favicon? I am not sure if Google intends to keep it forever but I like the refresh.

You can update the Firefox’s default Google search plugin to show the new Google search icon:

1. Locate the searchplugins folder in your Firefox install folder. (typically C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ on Windows).
2. Open the google.xml file with a text editor.
3. Locate a section that starts with <Image width=”16″ height=”16″>. You will see it is followed by a long series of characters (the encoded Google icon).
4. Replace it with this equally unreadable code: the new encoded Google icon. Ensure the closing </Image> stays there.
5. Save the file and restart Firefox.

Enjoy a fresh new Google search icon!

If you tried last week’s tip for adding the iPhone version of Google Reader as a Firefox sidebar, you probably quickly noticed that it’s not perfect: an ugly blue border around the Google logo and too large item titles may discourage you from using as your default reader.

The How-to Geek has a nice post on how to further customize the Google Reader sidebar hiding the Google logo and excerpts and setting the titles’ font size to something more convenient.

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Google has updated the iPhone version of Google Reader, its online web feed aggregator.

This is good news even if you don’t have an iPhone. Like other web apps designed for the iPhone interface, it fits very well in Firefox (and other browsers) sidebar. Read the rest of this entry »

Today Facebook unveiled its new chat service and as you may suspect it is pretty simple to load it in your Firefox sidebar to have it always on hand.

• In the Bookmarks menu, select Organize Bookmarks…
• Click on the New Bookmark…
• Enter a name. Enter http://www.facebook.com/presence/popout.php for the location and check the Load this bookmark in the sidebar checkbox. Read the rest of this entry »

Select, right-click, copy, switch, right-click paste. Rinse. This is the typical copy/paste procedure we all repeat several times a day and one worth looking for ways to make it more efficient.

Here are a few ways Firefox users can enhance good old copy/paste.

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A common complaint about Firefox 3’s location bar is that the autocomplete menu is too long because of the big font sizes, that the page title grabs too much attention compared to the address or that the address is too difficult to read.

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While the new location bar is currently voted the favorite Firefox 3 feature with about 37% of 1,695 votes cast so far, it seems from comments to my recent Firefox 3 Beta 3 review, that a significant number of users are less than happy with it.

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