Firefox Add-ons and built in tools
What is Firefox: Firefox is a fabulous software application. Firefox, available for free is one of the most innovative products of Mozilla software project. No doubt, Firefox is a very useful application platform. You can always install extensions and enhance the features of Firefox. You can also write applications and run them on top of this browser. Firefox has indeed become a way of life. Since the release of Firefox 1.0, in November 2004, there have been more than 90 million download.
Mozilla Firefox's goal was to adopt web standards. For instance, it is the first web browser that has complete support for CSS2 AND CSS1. A better user experience is where Firefox scores more than other browsers. Firefox has some fantastic built in tools for debugging a website. The JS Console is capable of reporting any warnings and errors in your script.
DOM inspector will allow you to view every node that is in your document to make sure that the nodes are structured properly. You will find many 3rd party extensions for software and web developers that help in testing enormously. The most important thing that there are many preferences available for users and developers alike.
If you type the about:con fig command into the Firefox location bar, hundreds of settings will be revealed to you. Web developers who wish to write good code that completely adheres to standards must use Firefox browser as their test base. Web developers can then do a follow up testing in any other browser.
It has been observed some websites simply do not open with Firefox. However Mozilla is well aware of this problem and is doing its best to resolve this issue. This problem will be completely resolved in future Firefox versions.
Customization and Extensibility:
Traditionally, plug ins have been a part of browser environment, for tasks like viewing PDF documents and watching Flash movies. A new feature in Firefox has been added commonly referred as “Extension Manager”. To access this feature, you select the tools menu and then choose the extensions menu item.
Extensions are basically packages that can be installed into Firefox to add new features to it. In short, extensions extend the existing functionality of Firefox. It is the easiest way to customize Firefox. You will find plenty of add-ons to give your Firefox a wide range of functionality. These add-ons are designed to meet the ever increasing demands of Web developers.
So if you want to ever download extensions for enhancing features of Firefox, you have to just visit the site Mozilla.org. This is one stop shop to download all the best extensions. Mozdev.org, a site has been providing tools to host Firefox for free. There are certain extensions like the “Greasemonkey” that can allow you to add scripts to change how a web page looks and behaves. Firefox architecture , being open and standard based is ideal for such extensions.
Two other areas in Firefox where again customization comes into play are the locales and themes. The theme manager does look similar to extension manager and you can always obtain themes from Mozilla Update. If you find the appearance of Firefox quite boring, you can always change its look using themes.
More themes are being released online, majority are of high quality. It is also possible to create themes if you have knowledge of CSS. Themes enhance Firefox look. It gives Firefox a different look that you will definitely like. Most importantly Firefox themes will support multiple languages.The team of Mozilla Localization project has been tasked to enable Mozilla software for a particular culture or language.
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Tags: Extensions & Plugins
