Here you are able to specify the page (or tab group) that &brandShortName; will show when you launch it or press the Home button. Enter the address in the Location(s) field.
Click Use Current Page(s) to use the page you're currently visiting. You can also use multiple home pages. If more than one browser tab is currently opened, this button will set the whole tab group as a start page.
To specify the home page(s) using a bookmark, click Use Bookmark.... You can even select a whole bookmark folder to be used!
If you don't want a home page to be loaded, click Use Blank Page.
Click the Fonts & Colors... button to change the default fonts and colors used by &brandShortName;.
Fonts for:
Normally, web pages are displayed in the default font set by your browser
or in a font chosen by the web pages' authors.
To change the default fonts:
Monospace fonts.You can also specify the display resolution, which is normally 96 dpi.
Finally, you can set the minimum font size to be used on screen. This can be useful on some sites that use very small fonts that are barely readable.
Text and Background
Here you can change the default text and background color to be used on
web pages that haven't specified that information. Click on the color
samples to select colors.
Use system colors
Check this option to use the colors defined in your OS settings instead
of the colors specified above.
Link Colors
Here you can change the default colors for Web links. Click on the color
samples to select colors.
Underline links
By default, links are underlined on web pages. Uncheck this option to
disable this. Note that many sites specify their own styling rules
and this option has no effect on those sites.
Always use my:
Fonts
By default &brandShortName; uses the fonts specified by the web page
author. Enabling this option will force all sites to use your default
fonts instead.
Colors
By default, &brandShortName; uses the colors specified by the web page
author. Enabling this option will force all sites to use your default
colors instead.
Some web pages are offered in more than one language. Click the Languages button to specify your preferred languages.
Language Selection
To add a language, press Select a language to add..., choose
the language, and click the Add button. Remove a language by
selecting it in the list of active languages and clicking the
Remove button.
You can reorder languages to determine the preferred one in case a page is provided in two or more of your selected languages. Do this using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.
Character Encoding
The character encoding selected here will be used to display pages that
do not specify which encoding to use.
You can set &brandShortName; as the default browser by clicking Set Default Browser. This will ensure &brandShortName; is used whenever an application is trying to display a web page or when you open an HTML file.
Many organizations block access from the Internet to their networks. This prevents outside parties from gaining access to sensitive information. The protection is called a firewall.
If your organization has a firewall, the browser may need to go through a proxy server before connecting you to the Internet. The proxy server prevents outsiders from breaking into your organization's private network.
Configure Proxies to Access the Internet
The Privacy panel contains options related to your privacy. As you browse the web, information on where you have been, what pages you have visited, etc are stored here. You can click the Clear button on each section to clear that information. Alternatively you can clear all information stored while browsing by clicking Clear All. A confirmation dialog will be shown before clearing the information.
To display section-specific options, expand a section by clicking on the small + button.
Here you can specify for how many days you want the browser to remember what pages you have visited. The default is 9 days.
Save information I enter in web page forms and the Search
bar
When you enter information in web forms, &brandShortName;
remembers what you type and automatically makes suggestions when you enter
information again. To stop this behavior, uncheck this option.
Remember Passwords
&brandShortName; can securely
save passwords you enter in web forms to make it easier to log on to
web sites. Clear this checkbox to prevent &brandShortName; from
remembering your passwords.
View Saved Passwords
You can manage saved passwords and
delete individual passwords by clicking the View Saved Passwords
button.
Set/Change Master Password...
&brandShortName; protects saved passwords and other private data by
requiring the user to know a special master password. You can set or
change the master password by clicking this button.
The Download Manager (accessible from or by pressing Ctrl+E) stores shortcuts to your recent downloads. The Download options are available in the Downloads panel.
A cookie is a file created by a web site that stores information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting that site.
To display the Cookie Manager click View Cookies.
Allow sites to set cookies
By default cookies are enabled. Uncheck this option to disable the use of
cookies. Note that some sites may not work properly when cookies are
disabled.
Learn more about cookies, the individual preferences, and how you can gain control over what sites are allowed to store cookies on your computer by reading about Managing Cookies.
Pages you view are normally stored in a special cache folder for quicker viewing the next time you visit the same page. Here you are able to specify the amount of disk space the cache can use.
Block Popup Windows
By default, &brandShortName; blocks
annoying popup windows on web sites. Unchecking this option will disable
popup blocking.
Some sites make legitimate use of popup windows. Therefore, the popup blocking feature has a simple whitelist mechanism to allow certain sites to open popups anyway. To add a site to the whitelist, click Allowed Sites, then enter the site you want to allow popups from and click Allow.
To remove a site from the whitelist, select that site from the list and then click Remove Site. To clear the whitelist completely, click Remove All Sites. Click OK to confirm your changes or click Cancel to discard them.
Allow web sites to install software
By default, web sites are allowed to install software such as extensions
and plug-ins. You will be prompted to confirm each installation. Uncheck
this option to completely disable software installation.
Some sites have useful software to install into &brandShortName;. Like the popup blocker, &brandShortName; has a simple whitelist mechanism to allow certain sites to install software. Software installs are not possible at all from sites which are not whitelisted, and you will still be prompted for installation. To add a site to the whitelist, click Allowed Sites, then enter the site you want to allow software installs from and click Allow.
Load Images
By default images are loaded on web pages.
Uncheck this option to disable images completely.
Depending on if you enable images, you can change which sites are blocked or which sites can load images by clicking Exceptions. Enter the site you want to allow/deny images from and click Allow to allow images, or click Block to block the images. Click OK to confirm your changes, or click Cancel to discard them.
Enable Java
Java is a popular programming language for the
web developed by Sun Microsystems. A single Java program can run on many
different kinds of computers, thus avoiding the need for programmers to
create a separate version of each program for each kind of computer.
Uncheck this option to disable Java applets in &brandShortName;. Note that
in order for Java applets to work, you must install the Java plugin.
Enable JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language
commonly used to construct web pages. JavaScript is often used to
dynamically validate forms and select buttons. Disabling JavaScript may
cause some sites to not work properly.
While it is usually recommended to keep JavaScript enabled, there are some functions that you may want to disable. Click the Advanced... button to display these options.
This panel controls how &brandShortName; handles different file types such as applications, compressed files, and multimedia files.
Ask me where to save every file
This is the default option.
&brandShortName; will ask you where you want the file to be saved whenever
you download a file.
Save all files to this folder:
Alternatively, you can
specify a default folder where all downloads will be saved, such as the
"My Downloads" folder. You can browse to a specific folder by
selecting Other... from the drop-down list of available folders.
To show the folder, click the Show Folder button. This will open
the folder in the default file manager.
This list contains file types that you have downloaded. You can choose what &brandShortName; should do when clicking on a specific file type. Select the file type you want to modify and click the Change Action... button.
This will display the Change Action window, where you can choose to have the file type opened by an application or saved to disk. For example, if you view lots of media files on web pages, you might want to specify that &brandShortName; always open media files in your media player instead of asking where you want each media file to be saved.
To remove an automatic rule for a file type, select that file type and click the Remove button.
From the Downloads panel, you can also control the plug-ins for &brandShortName;. Click the Plug-Ins... button to display the Plug-Ins window:
From this window, you can control which plug-ins for &brandShortName; can run. For example, if you don't like Flash animations in general but still find a need to have the plug-in installed, you can disable the plug-in here. This will block any Flash ads and animations until you enable the plug-in again.
The advanced panel contains many options that are less likely to be used by most people, but still useful and sometimes critical options for some people.
Move system caret with focus/selection changes
Specifies
whether to move the system caret whenever the focus or selection changes.
Some accessibility aids, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers, use
the system caret to determine which area of the screen to read or
magnify.
Use Find As You Type
Find As You Type is a very useful
feature in &brandShortName;. It is a fast way of finding links or text in
a web page without the need of displaying complex search dialogs. Read
more about Find As You Type at mozilla.org.
Hide the tab bar when only one web site is open
If you're
only viewing one web page in a &brandShortName; window, the tab bar is not
shown. Uncheck this option to always show the tab bar.
Select new tabs opened from links
When you middle-click on
Web links (or hold down Ctrl while clicking with the left mouse
button), the links will be opened in a new tab. That tab will not be shown
directly; it will be loaded in a background tab. Check this option to load
the link in a foreground tab instead, which will show that tab
directly.
Warn when closing multiple tabs
When you close a window with
multiple tabs, &brandShortName; will ask you to confirm your choice. This
prevents you from accidentally closing the whole window when you wish to
close only the current tab. Uncheck this box to skip past the warning
and have &brandShortName; automatically close the window.
Use autoscrolling
Autoscrolling is a useful feature which
allows you to scroll the page by just holding down the middle mouse button
(usually the scroll wheel) and move the mouse up or down. Some people find
this annoying so here's the option for it.
Use smooth scrolling
Smooth scrolling is still somewhat
experimental in &brandShortName;, but it can be very useful if you read a
lot of long pages. Normally, when you press the Page Down key, the view
jumps directly down one page. With Smooth Scrolling, it slides down more
smoothly, so you are actually able to see how much it scrolls. This makes
it easier to resume reading from where you were before.
Resize large images to fit in the &brandShortName; window
This feature is similar to the one seen in Internet Explorer. It makes
images that are larger than can be fit on the screen shrink automatically
so you can view the whole picture. Click on the image to view it at full
size.
&brandShortName; can check whether a new version of your installed extensions or of &brandShortName; itself is available.
&brandShortName;
By default, &brandShortName; will periodically check and notify you when a
new version is available. Uncheck this option to disable the periodic
check.
My Extensions
By default, &brandShortName; will periodically check and notify you when a
new version for one of your installed extensions is available. Uncheck
this option to disable the periodic check.
Click the Check Now button to manually perform a check for updates to &brandShortName; and installed extensions.
Use SSL 2.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive
secured information through SSL2 (Secured Sockets Layer Level 2), the
standard protocol for secure transmissions. All secure web sites support
this protocol.
Use SSL 3.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive
secured information through SSL3 (Secured Sockets Layer Level 3), a
protocol that is intended to be more secure than SSL2. Note that some web
sites may not support this protocol.
Use TLS 1.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive
secured information through TLS (Transport Layer Security), an open
security standard similar to SSL3 (Secure Sockets Layer). Note that some
web sites may not support this protocol.
Certificates help perform encryption and decryption of connections to secure sites.
Client Certificate Selection
When a web site requests a
secure connection, &brandShortName; will by default automatically use
an appropriate certificate. If you wish to manually choose a certificate
(for example, if you wish to use a certain type of encryption instead of
what is automatically selected), select the option "Ask Every Time" and
you'll be in complete control of what certificates you use while
browsing.
Manage Certificates
Click the Manage Certificates...
button to view stored certificates, import new certificates, and
back up or delete old certificates in &brandShortName;.
Manage Security Devices
Security devices can encrypt and
decrypt connections and store certificates and passwords. If you need
to use a security device other than the one in &brandShortName; or need
to change your master password, click the Manage Security
Devices... button.
Validation ensures that certificates used by &brandShortName; are not obsolete.
CRL
&brandShortName; can use CRLs (also known as Certificate
Revocation Lists) to ensure that your certificates are not invalid. If you
need to add a CRL to &brandShortName; or wish to view information about CRLs
you have installed, click the Manage CRLs... button.
OCSP
OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) is a way to
validate your certificates every time they are viewed or used.
&brandShortName; does not use OCSP by default, but if you want to enable it,
you can do so here. You will most likely only need to change this if your
Internet environment requires it.
Copyright © 2003-2004 Contributors to the Mozilla Help Viewer Project.