5 Quick Firefox Tricks to Customize and Save Time

A few months back, I made the decision to leave Firefox. I thought I was ready to take advantage of the perks that Google Chrome offers. I quickly realized how much I missed my Firefox Add-ons and all the customizations and features Firefox provides. While the Google Chrome user base continues to grow, I’ll stick to my favorite in Firefox.

I thought today it would be fun to explore a few quick tips that may save you some time and help you better customize your Firefox experience.

Customize Your File Behavior

Tools -> Options -> Applications -> Browse through the various applications under “Content Type” and specify the “Action” for each

For example, for my MOV files, I can change the action to play with my VLC player, rather than the default. For “mailto” I changed this to GMail since I don’t use Outlook. Customizing these options will save you quite a bit of time and unnecessary keystrokes.

Add Keywords to Your Bookmarks

From the Bookmark Library, add a keyword in the keyword field -> When you type a keyword in the address bar, you’ll quickly go to the site.

As an example, I use “ads” as a keyword for AdSense. When I type ads in the address bar, poof I’m at my AdSense page.

Use Smart Folders to Save Your Searches

Select Organize Bookmarks -> open Library -> search for a string of text of your choice -> Click Save to create the Smart Folder

For example, when I blog I like to see the latest in categories such as iPad, BlackBerry, iPhones other smartphones and much more. I usually do multiple searches and visit quite a few sites. By searching the keyword such as “BlackBerry,” I can look in either the Bookmarks or History tab, then save the search. Once I click on the saved search in the future, it will display all the sites I visited via my history.

Try Quick Searches

Hit the / key then start typing a word you want to find and the cursor will select the first instance of the term on the page

While the find bar is another option, this is a quicker shortcut that can save you some time.

Customize Your Search Engine

Click the down arrow by the search engine -> Manage Search Engines -> Remove, Edit, Add or Rearrange

I like to search from my favorites sites, which include Delicious, Google, Amazon, Wikipedia, etc. With this option, I can remove the other sites from the list and prioritize my favorites.