Web Browser
Introduction
Firefox is my suggested web browser. It’s free and open source, has a mature extension community, can be configured just how you want it, and doesn’t try to track your every move. In terms of speed and memory usage Firefox is consistently highly ranked (and with the upcoming Firefox 4 it’ll be all the faster).
At the bottom of this page, just as with my suggested operating system page, I have a list of Alternatives for those that don’t find Firefox fitting to their needs.
Setup
User Interface
For the user interface I suggest customizing the tool bars and getting everything other than the tabs into the top most bar. Also consider setting the browser to use small icons and then disable the Navigation and Bookmarks toolbars. Combined with the Suggested User Interface Extensions from below this makes for a very clean and easy to navigate layout which saves vertical space (without hiding any essential buttons).
Search Engines
While cleaning up the user interface I suggest managing your search engines. I recommend removing all the ones you don’t plan to use (I remove everything) and add any you find lacking. The Mycroft Project is a great place to find search engines. I heartily recommend using SSL variants if they exists for the engines you prefer to use.
For some ideas, I generally nab the SSL versions of the following: StartPage, Scroogle, Wiktionary, Wikipedia, Newzbin, NZBMatrix and the standard versions of Ask.com (consider enabling Ask Eraser before using), nzbs.org, and NZBsRus.
You may also want to add keywords (or key letters) for every search so that you can quickly search from the address bar by typing in the keyword a space and then whatever you want to search for.
Preferences
To smooth out the browsing experience, I recommend setting Firefox to show tabs and windows from last time. To help with privacy use custom settings and reduce how long history is remembered (I use a week), remove search and form history and set Firefox to clear cookies when it closes. These preferences will still provide a convenient browsing experience while reducing the amount of information that can be tracked through your browser.
Alternatively, if you’re more concerned with privacy than logging in or forgetting what websites you’ve been to you can simply set Firefox to Never remember history which will put you into Private Browsing mode all the time.
Extensions
Extensions can increase your productivity, speed up your browsing experience, increase your privacy, and in general terms make the Firefox web browser work better for you. However, they can also do the exact opposite.
With that in mind, I strongly recommend carefully reading any privacy policies, license agreements, and, last and least, comments on extensions before you install them. Also, take a less is more approach. The more extensions you load up the more resources Firefox is likely going to use, the slower it will load, and possibly the slower it will run.
Below, my Recommended Extensions are those that add some real functional benefit to the browsing experience. Be it removing slow loading, privacy violating ads, increasing privacy, or helping you use secure, site-specific passwords, they all provide something tangible (without adding further hassle).
Below that I provide some Suggested User Interface Extensions, these allow a more streamlined and compact arrangement of the Firefox interface but may not be to everyone’s taste.
The Extension lists are well established but they are not static. You may wish to check back from time to time to see if any extensions have been replaced, added, or removed.
Recommended Extensions
To more easily download all of the Recommended Extensions go to the Collection here.
Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus by itself doesn’t do a whole lot. But when used in combination with a list of known privacy violating ads and sites it can do a ton. I no longer recommend using this with an ad block list instead I recommend using this with two Fanboy’s Stat’s/Tracking Filter.
Using this combination will keep your browser free from privacy violating ads and also block out known privacy violating sites and web addresses (while still providing ad supported sites with potentially needed revenue!).
After installing Adblock Plus simply close out of the Preferences and Filter Subscription windows and then click on the subscription links above. This will prompt you to add those subscriptions, do so and you’re all set.
Beef Taco
Beef Taco is a split off and update of the original Targeted Advertising Cookie Opt-Out add-on (which has now been merged into a more heavy weight add-on).
There are no necessary settings to change for Beef Taco.
Ghostery
This little guy can block all known web bugs from keeping tabs on you. And if that wasn’t enough Ghostery now also deletes Flash and Silverlight cookies (LSO’s)!
There has been some concern about it tracking user’s browsing but this is elective (opt-in) and is clearly explained in their privacy policy (and in the plug-in itself). To summarize, it will only anonymously track bugs on sites you browse if you tell it to do so!
To enable web bug filter, after installing, open up Preferences and go to the Blocking tab. Click the On radio button and click on Select All. Then check all three Also boxes, hit Save and you’re golden.
You may also want to adjust settings on the other tabs. I recommend enabling bug list auto-update, disabling Show Alert Bubble, and enabling everything except GhosteryLite on the Performance tab.
Lazarus: Form Recovery
Ever write an email or fill out a form just to have the computer or browser crash? Was all of the information gone? Yup, this fixes that.
The default settings are pretty solid, but you may want it to remove saved forms after a week and also add a password so that not just anyone can restore your forms.
OptimizeGoogle
This extension can help to eliminate Google’s ability to track your every move and will also remove Google’s ad-sense and ad-word adverts (goes hand in hand with Ghostery and Adblock plus).
Even if you go out of your way to avoid Google’s services Google is still employed on damn near every site with either Google Analytics or Google Adsense so this extension is still worthwhile!
After installing, make sure all the boxes under the All Services tab are checked and you should be set. If you want there are some additional settings under service specific tabs that might interest you.
PwdHash
This extension creates unique per domain passwords from whatever password you type in. A demonstration of this can be seen here. This extension allows you to use a single strong password on all sites you visit while still giving you the protection of using unique passwords on each and every site.
This process is reversible, but it is another (big) layer of security and one which is convenient to use.
There are no preferences for this extension.
Suggested User Interface Extensions
The Collection for the Suggested User Interface Extensions can be found here.
Searchbar Autoresizer
This addon will automatically shrink and expand the search bar as you use it. It will also save more space when the search bar is not in use. It goes hand in hand with the other Suggested User Interface Extensions in helping to increase the available size of the address bar and to help cleaning up the user interface in general.
Under the preferences click on the Advance button check Shrink searchbar to Button if empty.
Smart Stop/Reload
This combines the stop and reload buttons on your browser, freeing up a little more space on Firefox’s toolbar(s).
There are no preferences for this extension.
Tiny Menu
This collapses all the menu items into a single “Menu” entry. This frees up a ton of space on the toolbar. Combined with the extensions above this can allow for a single toolbar arrangement (given a decent resolution monitor) with the button, address bar, search bar, and menu on one toolbar.
No adjustments are needed for this extension.
Keyboard Shortcuts
These are just a handful of all the ones that are available. These are the ones that I use frequently. They are also pretty universal throughout browsers and a lot of different programs (sometimes with slight modifications).
- Control-Shift-T — Open last closed tab.
- Control-T — Open a a new tab.
- Control-W — Close active tab.
- Control-Shift-W — Close active window.
- Control-L — Bring focus to the address bar.
- Control-N — Open a new window.
- Control-A– Select all.
- Tab — go to next element (text field, button, what have you).
- Shift-Tab — go to the previous element.
Alternatives
Arora
Arora is a browser that uses the same rendering engine as KDE’s Konquerer, Apple’s Safari, and Google’s Chrome but which has a greater flexibility out of the box than Firefox. It comes with a port of Adblock Plus integrated into the browser. It’s a bit lighter than Firefox but is also quite a bit more rough around the edges.
Opera
Opera is a closed source browser that’s been around for damn near ever. Many of the modern browser features that we take for granted today were pioneered by Opera (like tabs, sessions, pop-up blocking). Out of the box Opera probably has the most features of any modern browser with its integrated phishing protection, email and IRC clients and many, many others. A big draw back to Opera is the lack of any extension system, but there are some limited workarounds for this.
SeaMonkey
Before there was Firefox, there was the Mozilla Browser suite; SeaMonkey is the continuation of that project. Essentially it is a combination of Firefox, Thunderbird, and an IRC client rolled into one coherent package. It is generally updated slower than Firefox or Thunderbird.
