5 Reasons to Make the Switch to Firefox	2.0/5.0 (1 votes total) Rate: Select 1 - Terrible 2 - Poor 3 - Average 4 - Good 5 - Outstanding
Richard Armaldi July 25, 2007

The number one reason people switch to Firefox is tabbed browsing because it allows you to open links in separate tabs, while staying in a single window, and read them when you're done with the current page. Tabbed browsing makes it possible and even easy to keep track of several pages at once. To switch between tabs, just click on the tab you want to look at. You'll stay organized because new tabs load behind the current view. To open a link in a tab, click on the link with the middle mouse button or hold down the control key and click it.

Unlike most other browsers, Firefox can be customized to you personal needs. You can adjust the standard tool bars or even create you own. Perhaps you're the type who likes a single toolbar with minimal icons. If you want every option available with a single click, you can create multiple tool bars with everything on them. There's no limit to the level of customization you can achieve. If you want to add an option to your toolbar simply choose View, Toolbars, Customize and drag the icon to your toolbar.

Organizing your bookmarks is made easy with Firefox. You can organize your bookmarks into folders and even annotate the folders or individual bookmarks with comments and reminders. Keywords can be associated with any bookmark allowing you to open it just by typing that keyword into the address bar located at the top of the browser. Your bookmarks and browser history can be pulled up as a side bar for faster access. For browser history hit Ctrl+H and for bookmarks use Ctrl+B.

Firefox offers better privacy controls than any other browser. You can quickly clear personal browsing details using the privacy panel. In addition to giving you control over popup windows, Firefox also stops a number of other actions that have been annoying web surfers for a long time, such as status bar tricks. Look under Options then Web features to control these settings. Firefox includes the same set of controls used by other Mozilla software allowing you to control cookies and other settings to suit your tastes.

And last but not least, Firefox is Open Source software. This means that it's open to development by the same people that use it. Firefox is based on the same Mozilla Gecko engine used by other browsers and software. Perhaps the biggest advantage to being open source is that Firefox will never include intended malicious code or spyware.

Discover the insider's secrets to configuring and customizing Firefox. Richard Armaldi shows you how at http://www.firefoxconfiguration.com