E-mail and browsing are arguably the two most common uses of your computer and internet connection. A feature rich browser is a great tool to have, and if you only use web based e-mail services, you won't need an e-mail client. In the last issue of the Academic Computing Newsletter we discussed the merits of Thunderbird. This time we will focus on Firefox. Firefox fits the browser bill very well with standard features such as news feeds and live bookmarks via RSS. When you add in extensions, Firefox becomes a powerful tool that is fun to use. Both products are provided by the Mozilla Corporation (http://www.mozilla.com), which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation (http://www.mozilla.org/foundation/). Both are open source and available for free download. Both work well on Windows XP, Mac OS X, and Linux, and the settings are compatible across all those systems. Oh yes, before you ask, they work in Windows Vista, too. So that means you can move between these systems and not have to redefine settings such as address books, bookmarks, and message filters. This article will provide more detail about the Firefox product.
Here is a Screen Shot of Firefox that we can use for this discussion. As you note, this is from MAC OS X, but since it works the same across Windows XP, Mac OS X and Linux, that really should be OK. Note that we have two tabs showing.
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This browser provides some real useful options for browsing and gives you good control, which can make for a better browsing experience. The options you can select are extensive, but most are fairly obvious. You will find the Options under the Tools menu on Windows XP and in Firefox Preferences on Mac OS X. This Firefox Options Screen Shot shows the Content options, which is where you can block Popup windows.
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The Second Firefox Options Screen Shot shows the extensive Privacy options.
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Note that there are multiple tabs on the Privacy window that give you control over how information about you is managed. This view shows the Cookies options. You can prevent cookies from being saved by unchecking the "Allow sites to set Cookies" box; however, that will cause some things to not work, such as our PSU single signon Web Access service. You should take note of the "Settings" button on the lower right just above the "Help" button. This gives you a one click option for clearing all your private data, and allows you to customize exactly what you want to clear.
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From the screen shot you see the choices I use for which data to clear. You also invoke this by going to the Tools menu and selecting Clear Private Data, or if you want, you can have it automatically clear when you close Firefox. I don't do that because there are times when I accidentally close Firefox and even (somewhat rare) times when I trip over a bug.
If you look at this File Explorer Firefox Screen Shot, you can see where Firefox stores its settings.
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It is similar to Thunderbird, with a slight wrinkle. On Windows XP, there is one extra folder in the chain named Mozilla, and on Mac OS X, the Firefox folder is in the Application Support folder in the Library Folder instead of directly in the Library Folder as Thunderbird was. I have not copied any of these settings between computers, mostly because I haven't seen the need. Bookmarks you ask? Well, maybe, but have you ever been to the delicious site (http://del.icio.us)? You should look at this site. It allows you to save your bookmarks on their site, tag your bookmarks with key words, and see what other people who use those key words are looking at. That can be very interesting, and sometimes really handy when you are researching a topic.
Like its predecessor, Mozilla, the Firefox browser supports "tabbed browsing"–allowing the browser to display multiple pages in a single browser window. Rather than searching your Windows toolbar (or MacOS X dock) to go between instances of your browser, "tabbed browsing" manages Web sites in tabs across the top of a single browser. Tabbed browsing allows an instructor to very quickly move between different Web pages and provides a useful tool to compare or contrast different sites. If you decide on a set of "tabs" which you like, you may bookmark them as a group by using the "Bookmarks" menu and clicking on "Bookmark all Tabs." You may even configure a set of tabs as your "Home Page" by selecting a bookmark folder rather than a single bookmark as a start page (e.g. starting with the Portal, ANGEL, and WebMail open in tabs in a single browser window when starting Firefox).
One of the really useful features of many Web sites is the ability to receive information that you want to follow without having to continually go to the site to see what has changed. They do this with a technology called Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed. Sites that use this will display an orange logo that will either say XML or RSS. Typically these will be feeds that will give you information about what has changed at a Web site. You can subscribe to these RSS feeds in Thunderbird or Firefox, I do a little of both. Why? The RSS feeds usually give you a brief synopsis of the Web page change, and if you want to see the whole article, you will need to open that up. For things that I frequently want to read all the articles, I use RSS in Firefox. For things I just want to keep track of, and occasionally read an article, I use Thunderbird.
Current versions of Thunderbird and Firefox have RSS capabilities without adding any extensions. In Firefox you will see
a little orange RSS Feed icon 
to the right of the URL address
you are displaying. If you click on that icon, you get a drop down menu that lets you choose where in Firefox to track
that feed. In this Firefox RSS Feed Setup screen shot, you can see me selecting to bookmark a feed in something called Sage.
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Sage is an extension to Firefox that I like because it allows me to view all my RSS Feeds in a Frame on the left side of the Firefox window.
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So if you want Sage or other extensions, you can find lots of them at http://www.mozilla.com/add-ons/. I don't have any extensions that I use with Thunderbird, but you may find some you want. In the bottom right corner of the window in my screen shots you will see one other extension that I really like. It is called Adblock. Bet you can guess what that one does. There is an even newer version called Adblock Plus. If you get either, you will also want to get the Adblock Filterset.G Updater. That updates filters regularly to keep up with which adds to block (without you having to bother with that). You need to be aware that many of these extensions are beta code. Most usually work pretty well, but think about what you really need before you get carried away.
