Browse Around

If I had any doubt in my mind that people who like Firefox and people who like Internet Explorer are really different, that doubt was erased recently when I received an email from a Firefox user asking how to hide the menu, and another question from an Internet Explorer 7 user asking how to show the menu! I've got an answer to both questions, and some other browser tweaks to for users of both browsers.

What is Firefox?

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) is a web browser, like Internet Explorer (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx). (Internet Explorer is known as Windows Explorer in Vista.) Firefox was introduced in 2004 and has grown in popularity in part because it is often faster and more secure than Internet Explorer, and because it is easily customizable.

There are many "Add-ons" for Firefox, available free. You can easily find, install, and use add-ons to do everything from blocking ads (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10) on web pages to showing the current weather in your status bar http://forecastfox.mozdev.org/). You can even get an add-on to back up your add-ons (http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions/febe/febe.html). If you hate Flash on websites as much as my husband does, you'll love Flash Block (http://flashblock.mozdev.org/) for Firefox. It automagically blocks all Flash content on a web page, but it puts a Flash logo in place of the content. So if you do want to see one of the Flash items, you simply click on the Flash logo and the content is displayed.

Menu Bars
If you want to hide the menu bar in your Firefox browser, you can use this add-on to do it: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4762. (It's easy to turn it back on, too.) On the other hand, some users of Internet Explorer 7 are struggling with the new way of doing things. I use IE7 so infrequently, I'm still struggling with the new way of FINDING things! In IE7, the menu bar is turned off by default. That makes it hard to figure out how to get to your Favorites, and how to save a page to your Favorites.

To toggle the menu bar on or off:

1.Right-click an empty area in the tab bar (next to one of your tabs).
2.Check or uncheck "Menu Bar" as desired.

You'll also notice to the left of your tabs a star and a star with a plus sign. Clicking on the star will display your Favorites. (You also have the option to "pin" that list, which will display it all the time.) Clicking on the star with the plus sign will add a page to your Favorites.

Some people hate the new interface so much that they've found ways to make it more familiar, or at least manageable. Here is the one I use: http://www.intelliadmin.com/blog/2007/01/tweak-your-ie-7-settings.html. It handles the menu bar and some other things as well. It's free.

Save IE7 for a Rainy Day

I encourage people to try Firefox and see if they like it. Even if you do, you'll find some of the Firefox features have now been incorporated into IE7. Maybe you will still prefer IE7, but even if you adopt Firefox as your default browser, you'll still encounter a website from time to time that requires Internet Explorer. Potential net viewers of Live Earth learned that lesson last weekend, but there are other sites. So don't try to ditch Internet Explorer entirely. Keep it around for the odd time you need it. And guess what? There's a Firefox add-on that allows you to run Internet Explorer from within Firefox! Get it here: http://ietab.mozdev.org/.

Do you have a Firefox add-on that you really like? Please email and tell me where to get it and why you like it. If there's an add-on out there that really doesn't work for you, I'd love to hear about that, too.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.