WSG Newsletter:
Firefox: The Searcher's Browser
Issue: April 3, 2005
[All links open in a New Window]
Many have called the new Firefox browser, the
searcher’s browser. Chris Sherman, associate editor at
Search Engine Watch, was among the first. Search guru Mary Ellen
Bates recommended the Firefox browser as one of her top
searching tips to attendees at the Computers in Libraries Conference
2005. There are others just as keen.
In fact, since Firefox 1.0 was released in November 2004, the software
has been downloaded 40 million times. In market
share terms,Firefox has picked up at least 5.69% of the browser
market (as of Feb 18, 2005) according to WebSideStory, and is the
main reason Internet Explorer's share has slipped below 90%.
Firefox is a stand-alone browser – no email, no newsgroups
– making it smaller and easier to download and install. This
is open-source software. It was developed through the collaborative
efforts of some 900 developers, coordinated by the non-profit Mozilla
Foundation. This is the group that developed the Netscape browser
and was spun off by AOL Time Warner. There are versions for Windows
(98 and up), Mac OS X 10.1 (and up), and Linux.
What's the attraction?
For many it’s because they had tired of IE’s vulnerability
to spyware, adware, viruses and every other malignancy. Firefox,
although not absolutely secure, has been less noticed by the hackers
and, as an open-source community effort, quicker to make the fixes.
But it would not have succeeded for that alone. The secret is usability.
Firefox is a breeze to use, quick to load pages, very customizable,
and has loads of features, many of these aimed at helping searchers.
The sidebar on this page has practical details on how to get Firefox
and a selection of tutorials to help people get acclimated. Here
we review the features that make this such a valuable tool for searchers.
Managing Surfing
Blocks Popups: Firefox has a built-in popup blocker.
The browser lets you know when it has blocked a popup and gives
you the option to allow popups for sites you identify. Manage popups
through Tools > Options > Web Features.
Password Manager: Firefox keeps all usernames
and passwords in one place, easy for you to find, view and remove
if necessary. (Under Tools > Options > Privacy)
Manage Cookies: Managing cookies is just as easy.
Set up exceptions for allowing or disallowing cookies, delete them
when you close the browser, or keep them all for you to review.
(Also under Privacy)
Printing Pages: Don't be bothered ever again by
lines that run off the page when printing. Firefox will shrink the
page to fit the window. Use Page Setup to select
“shrink to fit page width” and define the contents of
the header and footer of the page.
Search Bar with built-in search engines
 Firefox
comes with a set of plugins for searching the most popular search
engines. No need to add the engine to bookmark list. Simply select
the engine from the Search Bar in the top right corner and enter
the query.
These were developed through the Mycroft project
and there are hundreds more such as Pubmed, Google Scholar, and
SOSIG in the UK. See the full list at http://mycroft.mozdev.org/download.html.
After you have collected a few of these you’ll want to organize
them. Mycroft doesn’t have a facility for managing these plugins
but Sven Bader in Germany does. His plugin can be used to: sort,
rename, edit delete, or hide search engines.
http://www.svenbader.de/anwendungen/e_firefox.htm
Find in this page
Find a word easily on a page. Use Edit > Find
in this page (or CTRL-F) to activate the little search box at the
bottom of the page. Firefox starts looking for the word as you type
and highlights it. Know, before you’ve finished typing, that
the word is there or not. Use highlight to show all occurrences
on the page. This alone will save hours over a year.
[If you aren’t getting the type-ahead feature, go to Tools
> Options > Advanced and under Accessibility, put a checkmark
beside “begin finding when you begin typing”.]
Tabbed browsing
View different web pages as tabs inside the browser window rather
than having several windows open. Users of the alternative browsers
Netscape, Opera, Mozilla, and Firefox will know the advantages of
working with tabs. IE Windows XP users are promised the feature
in IE 7.0. Tabbed browsing saves computer wait time but does take
some getting used to. Searchers can use this to
- Anchor a page of search results under one tab as you open the
individual results in a new tab. (Right click to select Open Link
in New Tab)
- Manage different projects in separate windows, each with tabs.
- Have multiple home pages (or start pages) open when when the
browser is launched.
Options for controlling tabbed browsing are under Tools
> Options > Advanced. Here you can specify that any
bookmarks or entries from history should be presented in a new tab.
You can also force applications that open results in a new window,
to open in a new tab instead. This would be most useful for Google
and Yahoo where you may have set your preferences to open results
in a new page. See Mozilla
Tips and Tricks for tabbed browsing.
Search extensions
Extensions are further add-ons to extend functionality. They are
easily installed – just follow the directions from the web
page. As part of the process, you’ll need to tell Firefox
that it’s ok to download software from that web site.
You can manage extensions and add more under Tools >
Extensions. Or go directly to https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/
and look for Firefox.
Googlebar: Other search engines have developed
toolbars for Firefox (see MrTech
– Roundup of Firefox Toolbars) but not Google. Fortunately,
volunteers associated with the Mozilla project did. Googlebar emulates
all the functionality of the Google Toolbar except popup blocking
(which Firefox does) and Auto-Fill. Of course it provides the search
box, keeps search history (if you wish), has links to all the services,
does an immediate site search, delivers page information, highlights
terms and even more. If you’ve come to like tabbed browsing,
configure the toolbar to open results in a new tab. More information
at http://googlebar.mozdev.org/
ConQuery: ConQuery will save you even more time.
Highlight a section of text – a few words, a title –
right click and send the query to one of the search engines in your
Search Bar. If you need to edit the query a bit before submitting,
CTRL click on the engine you’ve selected to get a small input
box. Of course, results will show in a new tab unless you change
the preferences. Do this by selecting Tools > Configure ConQuery.
This is a work of beauty. More information about ConQuery at http://conquery.mozdev.org/
IEView: Good as Firefox is in displaying pages,
there are some websites that only work with Internet Explorer. This
is especially true of online banking services. IEView provides a
quick toggle to IE and immediate load of the page. If you suspect
the page requires IE to work, right click on the page and choose
View This Page in IE. See http://ieview.mozdev.org/
ScrapBook: Researchers will love this extension
to save pages or parts of pages, add comments, and organize the
collection as one would bookmarks, not to mention the search capabilities.
Can also capture multiple URLs from a page. http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook/
Added April 12/05
Other Favourites: Everyone weighs in on their
favourite extensions. Other lists that can help you choose are:
Bookmarks: Live Ones
Firefox bookmark manager is reasonably good – similar to
Netscape’s of old. The unique quality is that RSS feeds can
be added as live bookmarks. RSS feeds are specially formatted pages
of new content at a website that are created periodically for newreaders
to pick up. Live Bookmarks has some of the function of a newsreader.
It connects to the page and displays the headlines. You decide which
items to read.
Adding can be done in a couple of ways.
- The easiest is to click on the
in the bottom right of the page. You are asked - Add Live Bookmark
for This Page’s Feed. Yes – do that - “Subscribe
to RSS” – and then put it in your bookmark list.
- Sometimes you have to look for the XML or RSS link on the page
to get the URL and add it manually through Manage Bookmarks.
I recommend setting up a Bookmark Folder for your Feeds –
call it Feeds or News – something distinctive – and
moving that folder onto your Bookmarks Toolbar (linkbar) so that
there is a small reminder to check for new headlines.
Here are the weblogs of two search gurus to follow:
Tara Calishain – ResearchBuzz –
http://www.researchbuzz.com
– add using the Live Bookmarks Icon
in the bottom right corner.
Search Engine Watch Blog - http://searchenginewatch.com/blog/
– you must get the URL of the XML page and add it manually
as a Live Bookmark.
- Find the XML icon, click through to a page where you’ll
see SEW Blog listed again, click on the feed to get the url
- http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/blog/blog.xml.
- Select Bookmarks > Manage Bookmarks.
- Choose File > New Live Bookmark
- Create the bookmark and move it into your Feeds folder.
You might add Websearchguide's Internet
News too.
More information about Live Bookmarks at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/live-bookmarks.html
Live Bookmarks is adequate for watching 4 or 5 feeds, but if you
have more, the Sage newsreader that plugs into
Firefox makes viewing much easier. News feeds show in a sidebar
at the left and the headlines with descriptions show in a web page.
Adding new feeds is integrated with Firefox live-bookmarks feature.
( http://sage.mozdev.org/)
Conclusion
Quite simply, the Firefox browser is a pleasure to use. Everyone
will appreciate the ease of managing settings for privacy and security
and customizing the browser. Searchers will delight in the many
tools for running searches and saving bookmarks. Live bookmarks
integrate the news into the daily web experience. This is not just
a browser - it is a productivity tool.
|
References