The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

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The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

Are you browsing this article in Firefox? If not, go ahead and fire up the browser and take a look at all the options you can change. It’s pretty easy to customize Firefox, right? Especially with the abundance of extensions and add-ons that are available throughout the web. But did you know about about:config? Did you know that you can further customize your browser by manually editing individual settings? If you didn’t, then you might find this article to be helpful.

A while ago, Mozilla implemented a feature called about:config into its applications. This feature allows you to edit every single one of Firefox’s internal settings manually, yes, even settings that can’t be accessed through the normal Options panel. Gaining access to these program settings is actually quite simple. All you have to do is go to the URL bar in Firefox and type….you guessed it, about:config! Then just start typing which setting you want to tweak and it will appear on the screen.

Keep in mind that it is possible to break Firefox if you grow too adventurous and fiddle around with parameters that you shouldn’t be fiddling with. MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage you may cause to your browser or computer by exploring the following tweaks.

browser.ctrlTab.previews

Normally, when you use Ctrl + Tab to navigate through your current tabs, Firefox will just switch from tab to tab, rendering the page with each tap. If you set this setting to true, you’ll instead be shown a row of thumbnails that you can tap through. By default, this setting is set to false.

browser.taskbar.previews.max

In Windows 7, when you hover over the Firefox taskbar icon, you’re presented with a popup that shows a thumbnail preview of all the tabs you have open. If you like to have a lot of open tabs, this list can get pretty big and wieldy. Set it to 1 to minimize its intrusion, or whatever value you prefer. By default, this setting is set to 20.

browser.tabs.closeButtons

Do you hate having an X (the close tab button) on every single open tab in Firefox? Then tweak this setting to your pleasure. Setting it to 0 will only show the X on the currently active tab. Setting it to 2 will not display the X on any tabs at all. Setting it to 3 will remove the X from all of the tabs and create a singular X at the end of the tabs list.

By default, this setting is set to 1.

browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab

In a fresh-out-of-the-box Firefox browser, closing the last remaining tab will result in the entire browser closing. Some of you may not like this. Luckily, all you have to do is change this setting to false and you’ll be able to have an open browser without having any open tabs. By default, this setting is set to true.

browser.urlbar.trimURLs

This tweak is a small one, but some of you may desperately be wanting it. Have you noticed that sometimes the URL bar will truncate the http:// portion? If you want Firefox to stop doing that, then simply change this setting to false. By default, this setting is set to true.

browser.allTabs.previews

At the end of the tabs list, there’s a small button you can click to show a list of all the currently open tabs. With this setting, you can flip it to true and transform the tab list into a tab grid. You’ll see a grid of thumbnails that show all of the tabs you have open. This is very useful for quickly exiting out of multiple tabs.

This is probably one of the more unknown tweaks out there, but it’s a most useful one. By default, this setting is set to false.

Do you know of any other awesome Firefox about:config tweaks that people would find useful? Share them with us in the comments!

Image Credit: Shutterstock

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The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.

View full post on FileHippo.com

class="align-right" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/movie-seats-Shutterstock.jpg" alt="movie ratings"/>I don’t care to remember the number of times I have taken a film critic at his word and ended up wasting lot more than the price of a movie ticket. A few ruined dates later I have become a ‘wise guy’. Now, I try to catch as many movie ratings and reviews as possible mixed with word of mouth before I plonk down money for a movie ticket.

With my trusty Firefox browser by my side I go in the hunt for trusted movie reviews across the length and breadth of the web. There are more than a few movie websites featuring reviews on the latest that have hit the theatre. There are also quite a few href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/top-6-firefox-add-ons-for-the-movie-freak/">Firefox add-ons that help to shortcut the process for movie freaks like me. And here are four Firefox add-ons that help you compare movies across the popular movie information sites.

href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cinemeter/">CineMeter

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/movie-ratings01.png" alt="movie ratings" width="580" height="416" />

To get a broad overview, you really need to be aware that each site rates a movie differently. IMDb gives a movie ‘stars’ according to the feedback it gets from users. Rotten Tomatoes uses a mix of reviews from certified film authors and major film reviewers to arrive at the Tomatometer score. Users also give feedback here on how a movie has fared. MetaCritic with its Metascore and MovieWeb also have their own rating systems.

The Cinemeter is a short and precise Firefox add-on that works from the right-click context menu when you select the name of a movie. It opens up a small window and displays the score from each of these sites. The ratings are hyperlinked and you can click on them to take you to the movie review page on each film site.

href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/film-info-and-reviews/">Film Info and Reviews

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/movie-ratings02.png" alt="movie reviews ratings" width="255" height="400" />

A very simple but useful add-on that helps you read up the movie ratings and reviews from ten different websites. Film Info and Reviews opens up multiple Firefox tabs and takes you straight to the specific movie page on these websites – Wikipedia, IMDb, RottenTomatoes, Roger Ebert, Flixter, Allrovi, Metacritic, Netfli, BoxOfficeMojo, and Movie Reviews.

The Firefox add-on is visible on the add-ons bar. You have to click it once to open up the search box with the selection of the sites. You can select your choice of sites and that stays saved till you change them. The sites in combination give you all the dope on a release – from critical feedback to how it’s faring commercially.

href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/movie-reviews-finder/">Movie Reviews Finder

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/movie-ratings03.png" alt="movie reviews ratings" width="580" height="491" />

Movie Reviews Finder is a simple search engine for film reviews. It is a search enabler for IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, and other sites like Roger Ebert, Variety etc. Once you query the movie review search engine from the search bar, Movie Reviews Finder opens up a separate search results page with all the hits it could find for the said movie. You can choose to display only results from IMDb or RottenTomatoes by clicking the Refine results on top.

href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/eccellio-movies-search-engine/">Eccellio Movies

class="aligncenter" style="border: 0pt none;" src="http://main.makeuseoflimited.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/movie-ratings04.png" alt="movie ratings" width="580" height="353" />

This is again a very simple but interesting search tool for all things related to movies. It is based on Google Search, but it tweaks the interface to give you a set of filters that enables you to search for actors, film festivals, awards, soundtracks, theaters, and of course criticism. You can select a filter from the ones given and also limit the search to specific types of documents by clicking on the vertically arranged icons.

The above three Firefox add-ons are very simple in the way they implement their one sole function. But in the end they save me quite a lot of bother with their meta-searched movie ratings. To highlight their basic usefulness, I would say that these add-ons are timesavers. Which is your favorite movie information website? Here are a few more informational links:

• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/4-websites-that-offer-family-friendly-ratings-reviews-on-movies/">4 Websites That Offer Family Friendly Ratings & Reviews On Movies
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-youtube-channels-switch-catch-movie-reviews/">10 YouTube Channels You Can Switch On To Catch The Best Movie Reviews
• href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/10-websites-short-sweet-twitter-movie-reviews/">10 Websites For SHORTEST Movie Reviews (on Twitter)

Do you visit the web to catch href="http://www.makeuseof.com/tags/movie-reviews/">movie reviews before you visit the theaters? Give us your take on these add-ons too.

Image Credit: rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic.mhtml?id=64012609">Shutterstock

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