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Download | Features | Requirements
Main Features
Tabbed browsing
Firefox supports tabbed browsing, which allows users to open multiple pages in the same window. This feature was carried over from the Mozilla Application Suite, which in turn had borrowed the feature from the popular MultiZilla extension for Mozilla.
Firefox also permits the "homepage" to be a list of URLs delimited with vertical bars (|), which are automatically opened in separate tabs, rather than a single page.
Firefox 2 supports more tabbed browsing features, including a "tab overflow" solution that keeps the user's tabs easily accessible when they would otherwise become illegible, "session store" which lets the user keep the opened tabs across the restarts, an "undo close tab" feature, as well as others.
Pop-up blocking
Firefox also includes integrated customizable pop-up blocking. Firefox was given this feature early in beta development, and it was a major comparative selling point of the browser until Internet Explorer gained the capability in the Windows XP Service Pack 2 beta. This blocks pop-ups from all web sites by default, but can be configured to allow individual sites to show pop-ups. It can also be turned off entirely to allow pop-ups from all sites. Firefox's pop-up blocking can be inconvenient at times - it prevents JavaScript-based links opening a new window while a page is loading unless the site is added to a "safe list" found in the options menu.
In many cases it is possible to view the pop-up's URL by clicking the dialogue that appears when one is blocked. This makes it easier to decide if the pop-up should be displayed.
Download manager
An integrated customizable download manager is also included. Downloads can be opened automatically depending on the file type, or saved directly to disk. By default, Firefox downloads all files to a user's desktop on Mac and Windows or to the user's home directory on Linux, but it can be configured to prompt for a specific download location. The download manager currently does not support cross-session resuming (stopping a download and resuming it after closing the browser), although this feature will be included in the next major release. From within the download manager, a user can view the source URL from which a download originated as well as the the location to which a file was downloaded.
Live Bookmarks
Powered by RSS or Atom feeds, "Live Bookmarks", allow users to dynamically monitor changes to their favorite news sources. When this feature was first introduced in version 1.0 PR, there were a few worries that Firefox was beginning to include non-essential features and that it was beginning to bloat the browser much like the Mozilla Suite.
Instead of treating RSS-feeds as HTML pages like most news aggregators do, they are treated as bookmarks that are updated in real-time with a link to the appropriate source. Live bookmarks are updated automatically, however no browser option exists to prevent or control the automatic Live Bookmark updates.
Add-ons
There are 4 types of add-ons in Firefox: extensions, themes, language packsand plugins, although the latter is not managed through Firefox's add-on manager. Firefox add-ons may be obtained from the Mozilla Add-ons web site or from other sources.
Extensions
Firefox users can add features and change functionality in Firefox by installing extensions. Extension functionality is varied; such as those enabling mouse gestures, those that block advertisements, and those that enhance tabbed browsing.
Features that the Firefox developers believe will be used by only a small number of its users are not included in Firefox, but instead left to be implemented as extensions. Many Mozilla Suite features, such as IRC chat (ChatZilla) and calendar have been recreated as Firefox extensions. Extensions are also sometimes a testing ground for features that are eventually integrated to the main codebase. For example, MultiZilla was an extension that provided tabbed browsing when Mozilla lacked that feature.
While extensions provide a high level of customizability, PC World notes the difficulty a casual user would have in finding and installing extensions as compared to their features being available by default.
Most extensions are not created or supported by Mozilla. Extensions have the same rights to the user's system as Firefox itself, and malicious extensions have been created. Mozilla provides a repository of extensions that have been reviewed by volunteers and are believed to not contain malware. Since extensions are mostly created by third parties, they do not necessarily go through the same level of testing as official Mozilla products, and they may have bugs or vulnerabilities.
Themes
Firefox also supports a variety of themes for changing its appearance. Themes are simply packages of CSS and image files. Many themes can be downloaded from the Mozilla Update web site.
Language Packs
Language packs are dictionaries for spell checking of input fields.
Plugins
Firefox supports plugins based on Netscape Plugin Application Program Interface (NPAPI), i.e. Netscape-style plugins. As a side note, Opera and Internet Explorer 3.0 to 5.0 also support NPAPI.
On June 30, 2004, the Mozilla Foundation, in partnership with Adobe, Apple, Macromedia, Opera, and Sun Microsystems, announced a series of changes to web browser plugins. The new API will allow web developers to offer richer web browsing experiences, helping to maintain innovation and standards. The new plugin technologies are expected to be implemented in the future versions of the Mozilla applications.
Mozilla Firefox 1.5 and later versions include the Java Embedding plugin,[5] which allow Mac OS X users to run Java applets with the latest 1.4 and 5.0 versions of Java (the default Java software shipped by Apple is not compatible with any browser, except its own Safari).
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Customizability
Beyond the use of Add-ons, Firefox additional customization features.
* The position of the toolbars and interface are customizable
* User stylesheets to change the style of webpages and Firefox's UI.
A number of internal configuration options are not accessible in a conventional manner through Firefox's preference dialogs, although they are exposed through its about:config interface.
Information gathered from....
* Wikipedia - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Features_of_Mozilla_Firefox
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