Firefox 3’s malware protection works in a similar fashion: If you’re about to visit a site that contains malware, Firefox will block access and present you with a Reported Attack Site alert. You can ignore the warning, return to the previous page, or get more information, just as you can with the Reported Web Forgery warning. Firefox maintains a database of malicious Web sites in an effort to protect computer users from dangerous Web sites.

Another useful security tool is the new Instant Web Site ID feature. Some sites display a green bar with the Web site’s logo and title within the Address Bar. If you click this green bar, you can see valuable information about the site and who runs it, such as the name of the company, whether it’s encrypted, and verification by VeriSign. Click More Information to see additional details, such as the security certificate and type of encryption, and edit the site permissions so you can control how your browser interacts with the Web site.

The Password Manager has a slight enhancement, too. In past versions of Firefox, when you entered a password, the browser would ask if you wanted it to remember the password so you didn’t have to retype it the next time you visited the site. However, if you accidentally entered the wrong password, Firefox would remember it incorrectly and negate the point of storing the password in the first place. Now, you’re given the same options of Remember, Never For This Site, or Not Now regarding remembering the password, but you can make your selection after the page loads, thus avoiding situations such as the one mentioned above.

You can customize any of your browser’s security settings, too. Click Tools and click Options to bring up the Options dialog box. Click the Security icon. On this page, you can create and edit exceptions for certain Web sites that you trust, control which sites remember your passwords, and select which warning messages you wish to see when browsing.

Manage Downloads

It’s mostly an afterthought for many of us, but Firefox’s Download Manager is an integral part of our Web browsing experience. This tool lets you customize the downloading experience as well as keep track of all your past and current downloads.

Anytime you select a file to download, the Downloads window appears, and it lists any and all current downloads and displays their respective progress. You can also open this window anytime by clicking Tools and then Downloads, or simply press CTRL-J.

Firefox automatically scans any downloads for viruses. You can pause and resume the download process at any time; for example, if you’re in the middle of a long download and have to grab your notebook and run, you can click the Pause icon to the right of the item in the Downloads window. When you’re back home, you can fire up your computer, launch Firefox, open the Downloads window, and click the Play icon to resume or the X icon to cancel the download.

Firefox keeps track of all your past downloads, so anytime you need to go back and find one again, it will still be there. If the file you're looking for still exists in the place to which you originally downloaded it, you can open the file or the folder containing it by right-clicking the item and selecting the appropriate task (Open or Open Containing Folder). However, if the file has been moved or deleted, you can’t open it from the Downloads window.

Among the information Firefox remembers about each download is the URL of the page from which you downloaded the item, as well as when you downloaded it. So if you ever need to download something again but can’t remember the Web site address (let alone the specific page), you can search for it in the Downloads window, double-click the item, and select Go To Download Page. The Web site will open in a new tab or window.

The Downloads window also features a Search bar, so you can simply enter part of the name of a file you previously downloaded to locate it. Of course, all that saved data takes up space, so if you want to delete the stored download information, simply click Clear List on the bottom-left side of the Downloads window.

Bookmarks Manager

With this version of Firefox, the Mozilla folks have streamlined bookmark management. Case in point: the so-called “Awesome Bar.” Essentially just the Address Bar with some nifty tweaks, the Awesome Bar is armed with ways to easily manage your previously visited Web sites as well as bookmarks.

For one thing, Firefox remembers every site you visited, and when you type in any part of the site’s name or URL, it will appear in the list below the Address Bar. For example, if you previously visited www.smartcomputing.com, you could enter the URL in the Address Bar or “smart,” “smart computing,” or even “computing,” and you’ll see the site in the list.

To bookmark a site you’re viewing, all you have to do is click the star icon on the right side of the Address Bar once. Clicking the star a second time will bring up the Edit This Bookmark dialog box, from which you can name the bookmark, file it in the appropriate folder, or tag it.

The former two features may not be especially impressive to you, but the ability to tag bookmarks is an invaluable function. Simply enter a keyword you’ll remember in the Tags text field in the Edit This Bookmark window and click Done. The next time you want to see that bookmark, you no longer have to dig through your bookmark library to find it. Instead, enter the keyword or keywords into the Address Bar, and any sites you tagged with those keywords will appear in the list below.

Install & Manage Add-Ons

Increasingly, technology is augmented by applications you can download—think of Apple’s App Store or Google’s Android Market. Firefox’s pseudo version of this is the vast collection of add-ons that are available. Rather than applications per se, add-ons are extra features you can add to your Web browser to customize and personalize it to your tastes and needs.

There are two ways to get add-ons. One is to visit Firefox’s Add-Ons Web site (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox) and browse or search for them; the other is to click Tools and then Add-Ons within an open Firefox browser. This will bring up the Add-Ons dialog box. When the window appears, click the Get Add-Ons tab. From here, Firefox will offer recommendations for add-ons, complete with a five-star user rating system; you can also search for add-ons using the Search All Add-Ons text field, or click Browse All Add-Ons to open the Firefox Add-Ons Web site. Within the Add-Ons window, if you find an add-on you like, click Add To Firefox and follow the on-screen directions to install it to your bag of Firefox tools.

The Add-Ons window is also where you can manage all of your existing add-ons. Add-Ons fall into different categories, and they’re organized for you—Extensions, Themes, and Plugins. There is also an area for Updates, which lets you see if there is an update available for any of your extensions, and the Installation area indicates if you have an add-on that requires action on your part to complete an installation.

Etcetera

There are thousands of other new features in Firefox 3; the ones discussed in this article are just a few of the useful tools built into this browser. As you use Firefox 3, you’ll continue discovering new features that help you in your computing life, such as a spell checker for when you’re writing emails and blogs; Session Restore if Firefox crashes or you have an unrelated computer problem; and more themes, skins, and personas than you can possibly use.

by Seth Colaner