10 Useful Tips & Tricks for Mozilla's Firefox Web Browser

Article by George Norman (Cybersecurity Editor)

on 24 Jul 2017

As someone who has been using Firefox day-to-day for a very – VERY – long time, I’ve grown to know a lot about Mozilla’s web browser. As such, I thought it a good idea to share part of my knowledge with you and highlight 10 tips & tricks that I’m sure you’ll find very useful.

Before I go any further, let me make one thing perfectly clear: the tips and tricks presented bellow apply to Firefox for Windows desktops. So don’t expect any Mac or mobile tips, because there are none.

1. Restore your bookmarks



Firefox keeps track of all your bookmarks and if something bad were to happen, you can very easily restore them. Here’s what you have to do:
  • Open the Show All Bookmarks menu by using the Ctrl + Shift + B keyboard shortcut. If you’ve enabled the Menu Bar, then go to Bookmarks -> Show all bookmarks.
  • Click on the Import & Backup button as seen in the image above.
  • Go to the Restore menu and choose the bookmarks that will be restored.

2. Easily reopen closed tabs



I do this more than I’d like to admit. Moments after I close a tab I realize that I still need it and so I have to reopen it. I could do that from the History menu, but why bother with that when I can just use the Ctrl + Shift + T keyboard instead?

Pressing Ctrl + Shift + T once will bring back the tab that I closed last. Pressing the keyboard shortcut again will bring back the tab I closed before that. And if I keep using the keyboard shortcut I can bring back all the tabs that I closed.

Check out a few other handy Firefox keyboard shortcuts.


3. Open links and close tabs with the scroll click



I absolutely love using the middle/scroll click within Firefox. Scroll clicking a link will open it in a new tab and scroll clicking a tab will close it. I should point out that if you right click a link you can choose to open it in a new tab, a new window, or a new private window.

Check out some more mouse tricks you can perform within Firefox.


4. Drag & drop tabs to rearrange them



All the tabs that Firefox presents on its interface, they’re not stuck in the position they’ve been opened. You can take a tab and drag & drop it to another position. And if you drag & drop it outside the browser window, that tab will open in a new Firefox window.


5. Reader View removes the clutter, reads text out loud



Are you reading this article using Firefox? If you are, then go and click the book-like icon from the address bar, as seen in the image above. This will enable Reader View, a feature that’s been part of Mozilla’s web browser ever since version 38.0 was released back in the summer of 2015.

The cool thing about Reader View is that it strips all the clutter (including ads, background images, and unnecessary buttons) and adjusts the text formatting, making it easier to read articles and news stories. It even comes with a Narrate function that can read text out loud.


6. Put a Master Password on your passwords



Firefox can save your passwords and automatically fill in your login credentials, which is great if you want to sign into your online accounts as easily and as quickly as possible. If you share your computer with someone else, you might want to prevent unauthorized access to all your passwords by enabling the Master Password function. Here’s what you have to do.
  • Open the Options menu from the Menu button or from the Tools menu (if you enabled the File Menu).
  • Go to the Security section and check the option to Use a master password.
  • Enter and re-enter the Master Password.
Once this feature has been enabled, if someone uses your computer and tries to log into any of your accounts, Firefox will ask them to provide the Master Password.


7. Mute tabs that play sound



When I’m at work, I use Window’s Volume Mixer to make sure that Firefox is on mute and doesn’t play sound at inopportune times. At home, where I don’t have to worry about that, I can use the audio indicator (see image above) to identify tabs that play audio and easily mute them.


8. Firefox Sync keeps all your data in sync



Because I use Firefox on my work PC, my home PC, and my Android smartphone, I want to have access to all my data no matter what device I’m currently using. And that’s where Firefox Sync comes in. It can sync my browsing history, bookmarks, passwords, preferences, add-ons and even my open tabs across all my devices.

To get started with Firefox Sync you need to go to Options -> Sync -> and then log into your Firefox Account. If you don’t have an account, you need to create one obviously. Once you’re logged in, you can choose what information will be synced.


9. Keep your browsing habits private



There are three ways of keeping your browsing habits private: manually delete your browsing history, have Firefox automatically delete your browsing history, use Private Browsing mode. All three options are presented in detail here.

Focusing on Private Browsing mode alone, I want to point out that it comes with a Tracking Protection feature which blocks and removes parts of the webpage that may track your browsing activity – including ads. Alongside Reader View, this is the second Firefox feature that shows ads no mercy. And speaking about showing ads no mercy, I really have to bring up Firefox Focus, the mobile web browser that blocks trackers and ads, the browser that recently celebrated 1 million downloads on Android.

Getting back to Private Browsing mode, keep in mind that there are 3 ways it doesn’t protect your privacy.


10. Report deceptive websites to Google Safe Browsing



Hopefully you’ll never encounter a dangerous or deceptive website and you won’t have to use this feature. But if you do encounter one, then you need to know that Firefox makes it incredibly easy to report deceptive websites to Safe Browsing, the service that "Google's security team built to identify unsafe websites across the web and notify users and webmasters of potential harm." All you have to do is go to the Help menu and then select Report deceptive website.


Get Firefox for Windows right here on FindMySoft.

Learn more about Firefox.



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