Load Firefox, click
Tools, Options, and select the General
tab.
Home Page.
This field specifies Firefox’s homepage. Pressing the Use
Current Page button will set the currently loaded page
as homepage. Use Bookmark allows you to select a link
from your bookmarks as the homepage, while Use Blank
specifies that a blank page be used as the homepage. If you
are feeling more adventurous you can enter a single or
multiple addresses manually.
For multiple entries
(each address is loaded in a separate tab), separate each
address with a pipe. This is commonly the Shift +
\ key combination, depending on your keyboard, as
follows: techspot.com|techspot.com/vb|techspot.com/staff
(Thanks K3NNY).
Default Browser.
Ticking the option sets Firefox to check whether it
is currently set as the default browser when you next
launch it. If it isn’t the following window will appear:
Selecting Yes
will change Firefox to the default browser, No
will leave it unchanged. Alternatively you can also use the
Check Now button to see if Firefox is the default
browser, if it is not you will be prompted if you want to
make it the default.
Connection.
Selecting the Connection Settings button allows you
to configure Proxy server settings for Firefox to use.
You’ll need to consult your ISP or network documentation for
specific settings if necessary. For most people using the
default “Direct connection to the internet” should
suffice.
Privacy
Now select the
Privacy tab.
This section is
divided into different tabs, which will be covered from left
to right, starting with the History tab.
Remember visited
pages for the last X days.
Where X specifies the amount of days that links for
pages viewed are stored. This may be useful if you want to
keep track of what others using the PC are viewing, or if
you want to check a recently viewed site whose URL you have
forgotten. If this doesn’t seem like much use then set it to
0.
Clicking the Clear
Browsing History Now button deletes the history files
stored on the PC. This is presumably useful if others are
using the PC and you don’t want them to know what web pages
you have been visiting ;). History can be viewed in Firefox
by clicking the History button (Alternatively press
Ctrl + H).
Now select the
Saved Forms tab.
Saved information
I enter in forms and the Search Bar.
Ticking this option saves form and search entries, a
convenient time saver for filling out forms on web. Of
course, if you are privacy conscious it would be safer to
leave this disabled (unticked)
Clear Saved Form
Data Now. Clicking this button
deletes stored form/search information, which would be
worthwhile performing at regular intervals (Every few
weeks/months) if you enabled the previous option.
Now select the
Passwords tab.
Remember Passwords.
Ticking this option enables login details for
websites to be saved; you’ll be prompted what action to take
when this is available:
Functioning similar
to the Saved information I enter in forms and the Search
Bar option, this allows login details for websites saved
and entered automatically into login forms for the site upon
revisiting. Unticking this option results in login
details always having to manually entered, which would seem
most prudent, however it is possible to secure your saved
passwords as we cover next.
Set Master
Password. For improved
personal security, clicking this option allows you to create
a password that will be required for saved passwords to be
loaded. Successfully entering this password results in saved
passwords automatically be entered for the remainder of the
session, while failure means login details will not be
loaded automatically. When creating a password ideally it
will be at least 6 characters long and contain a
combination of uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and
non-alphanumeric characters, e.g. S3curePassw0rd?.
The Password
quality meter is intended to give some sort of measure
on how secure the password you are creating is, e.g. the
above image indicates S3curePassw0rd? is a good
combination. Click Ok once you have found a
combination that’s quite secure and you’ll remember.
Remove Master
Password. Press this button
and enter the current master password to remove it.
View Saved
Passwords. Press this button
to view a listing of Passwords Saved/Passwords
Never Saved. By default only the Username and
Site is displayed, but you can use the View Passwords
if you really need to view them, too. Sites can be removed
from either listing individually using the Remove
button in the Downloads window, or by selecting the
Remove All button.
Now select the
Download History tab.
Remove files from
the Download Manager. This
drop-down menu determines how the Download Manager history
is cleared. Three options are available:
Upon successful download.
Self-explanatory, this removes the item from the Download
Manager when the download has finished.
When Firefox exits.
Again, fairly self explanatory, downloads are removed from
the Download Manager whenever a Firefox session is closed.
Manually.
Selecting this options saves download history until items is
removed manually from the Downloads window (covered
next).
View Download
History. Clicking this button
loads the Downloads window, allowing you to view the
currently saved download history (alternatively it can be
loaded by pressing Ctrl + J simultaneously or
by clicking Tools, Downloads).
Items can be removed
from download history individually by selecting the
Remove button, or overall by clicking the Clean Up
button (which removes all but currently downloading files).
Clear Download
History Now. Clicking this
button deletes stored download manager history. This option
is only relevant if you have set Remove files from the
Download Manager to Manually, in which case you
should perform active it at regular intervals (every few
weeks/months) so it doesn’t get too cluttered.
Now select the
Cookies tab, certainly the most important of the tabs in
Privacy.
Cookies are
(generally) useful text files stored on your system that can
be used to record information such as login details, so you
won't need to re-login every time you visit such sites. They
can also be used for tracking and other purposes, which
might not be beneficial to you.
Google’s Privacy Policy
for example states the following regarding to cookies:
Upon your first visit to Google, a cookie
is sent to your computer that uniquely identifies your
browser… We use cookies to improve the quality of our
service and to better understand how people interact with
us. Google does this by storing user preferences in cookies
and by tracking user trends and patterns of how people
search… However, some Google features or services may not
function properly without cookies.
Further information
can be found on cookies at sites such as
SpywareInfo.
Firefox offers the following options with regard to cookie
support:
Allow Sites to Set
Cookies. Tick this
option to enable the creation of cookies by web pages
that you view. This is recommended as most sites require
cookie support in order to function correctly. The next few
options can be used to lockdown on undesirable cookies
getting onto your system.
for the originating web site only.
Tick this option to only accept cookies which
originate from the webpage you are visiting. Unticking
this option enables cookies from both the originating
website and other third-party cookies. While this perhaps
wouldn’t be the preferred choice, it provides best
compatibility with websites.
unless I have removed cookies set by the
site. Ticking this
option sets that cookies removed from the system via View
Cookies will added to the Block list in
Exceptions (covered beneath), and therefore be refused
in the future. Unticking this option sets that
cookies removed via View Cookies will be removed, but
no further action taken and may be accepted again in the
future.
Keep Cookies.
This option allows you to specify how cookie storage is to
be handled. Three options are available:
until they expire.
Selecting this option sets that cookies are stored until
they expire, as per their expiration date. This can vary
greatly from site to site. Checking my own browser I found 3
cookies with expiration dates set to 2006, 2010 and 2037
(hmmm). As a result selecting this option is most likely to
lead to a whole heap of cookies stored on your PC until
either you use the Clear button or start deleting
them manually. Having that said, this option also ought to
provide the most hassle free mode of operation.
until I close Firefox.
This operation performs as above, accepting cookies without
prompting you, albeit only until the Firefox session is
closed. This offers a decent trade-off between convenience
and privacy/cluttering. As you may have realised from
earlier though, downsides may include things such as having
to re-enter login information in sites that need it, every
time you visit.
ask me every time.
Selecting this option prompts you with the beneath whenever
accepting a cookie is concerned.
Use my choice for
all cookies from this site.
Ticking this option sets that Firefox should apply the
option chosen for all further cookies originating from the
site in question (stored in Exceptions). This would
be recommended where you would visit a website regularly or
incidentally receive a lot of prompts regarding their
cookies (e.g. same server ads on different sites), and wish
to specify how to handle all their cookies.
Show/Hide Details.
Clicking this button allows you to view/hide details on the
cookie that confirmation is currently being prompted for.
This may help you decide whether to accept/deny it.
Allow.
Select this button to enable the creation of a cookie
from the site. This would be recommended where the cookie is
benign in function, e.g. for storing forum login details, so
you won’t need to login every time.
Allow for session.
Select this button to enable the creation of a cookie
from the site, but which lasts only for the current
Firefox session.
Deny.
Select this button to disable the creation of a
cookie from the site.
Exceptions.
Clicking this button allows you to specify how to handle
cookies from specific websites.
Enter the website
address into the Address of web site field and select
Block, Allow for session or Allow as
appropriate. Should you change your mind at a later date,
you can remove individual sites using the Remove Site
button or Remove All.
View Cookies.
Selecting this option allows you to view cookies currently
stored on the system.
It would be wise to
check this regularly if you have set Keep Cookies to
until they expire, so you can view and remove any
unnecessary ones. Individual cookies can be removed by
selecting and pressing the Remove Cookie button or
press the Remove All Cookies to delete all. Note that
if you previously ticked “unless I have removed cookies
set by the site” removing cookies here will add the site
to the ExceptionsBlock list.
Clear Cookies Now.
Clicking this button deletes all stored cookies. This option
isn’t especially relevant when Keep Cookies is set to
until I close Firefox, otherwise you may wish to do
this every few months to clear out unnecessary cookies with
distant expiration dates, minimizing clutter.
Now select the
Cache tab.
Use up to X MB of
disk space for the cache. This
field specifies the size in megabytes of the disk cache
folder. This is used to cache all data for the web pages you
view. Should you visit certain websites repeatedly this
cache can improve loading times as data for the webpage may
already exist in the cache. That said, there’s no point
going nuts with this setting and setting aside a large
amount of space – it’s merely intended as a temporary
cache. Though this may vary depending on how many repeat
viewing web pages you visit there should no real need to set
aside more than 1 or 2 dozen MBs for this. Personally I use
just 10MB. As discussed later, Firefox also checks
for newer versions of cached data so there is no need to
store too much anyway as you’ll probably be downloading
newer versions regularly.
Clear Cache Now.
Clicking this button will delete all cached browser data on
the hard drive (except cookies). You should consider doing
this every once in a while to remove unneeded cached data.
Clear Private Data
A useful addition to
the latest version of Firefox is the Clear Private Data
utility, which allows you to easily delete personal data. To
access it click the Settings button, visible at the
bottom of each of the Privacy tabs.
Select the items
to be cleared. Tick the
items listed beneath which you wish to be cleared by
default whenever the utility is. At work for example,
I’ve selected Browsing History, Download History,
Cookies, Cache and Authenticated Sessions.
When the Clear Private Data tool is run manually (and the
next option is Ticked) these can be altered if
needed.
Clear private data
when closing Firefox.
Ticking this option specifies that Select items to be
cleared should automatically be deleted when the Firefox
session is closed. This is clearly of great benefit to those
with shared systems who don’t want other to be able to track
their browsing habits simply by viewing history, etc. A
minor side effect is Firefox may take longer to close.
Untick this option if you don’t require this
functionality; it can always be run manually if needed.
Ask me before
clearing private data. When
ticked Firefox will prompt you whenever the Clear
Private Data utility is run with the following window
(Shortcut: Ctrl + Shift + Delete):
The Clear the
following items now options apply to the current
run of the utility only, although toggling Ask me before
clearing private data is a permanent toggle, i.e. were
you to Untick this and run the utility you won’t be
prompted again unless you enable it in the Tools,
Options, Privacy tab, Settings button.
Press Clear
Private Data Now should you wish to purge selected items
from the system, otherwise press the Cancel button.
Unticking
this option allows the utility to be run without prompts,
i.e. TickingClear private data when closing
Firefox, clicking Tools, Clear Private Data
or pressing Ctrl + Shift + Delete
executes the utility using the defaultSelect the
items to be cleared in the Options menu.
