5. Get Web page details
If you're in the Web business, there's plenty of information you may want to know about a given Web page. What metatags are your competitors using, for example? How "heavy" are the pages you create -- in other words, how large are they in kilobytes?
The General tab of the Page Info screen tells you that and more. Click the General tab, and you'll see page size, the date the page was modified, metatags and more.
6. Shrink the Back button
Firefox 3's Back button looks like an arrow on steroids. If that bothers you, you can shrink it down to normal size. Right-click an empty spot on the toolbar, select Customize, and check the box next to Use Small Icons. Click Done. The Back button will now be smaller -- and the same size as the forward button. Keep in mind, though, that all the other icons on the toolbar will be smaller as well.
7. Find all your passwords
If you're like most people, you have plenty of passwords associated with Web sites. And most likely, you've forgotten most or all of them. Firefox remembers your passwords, so you'll be logged into your sites automatically. But what if you need to log into the sites on another PC? Or what if you'd like to keep a record of your passwords, in case they get wiped out?
Firefox 3 gives you an easy way to find all your passwords and user names associated with Web sites:
1. Select Tools --> Options and click the Security icon.
2. In the Passwords section, click Saved Passwords. A screen appears with a list of Web sites and usernames associated with each site.
3. Click Show Passwords. A warning screen will appear, asking if you want to show your passwords. Click Yes. You'll now see all your passwords, along with site URLs and usernames. Write them down or take a screen capture to print out, and put them in a safe place.
8. Change the maximum number of Awesome Bar results
The address bar in Firefox has gotten such a makeover and has been given so many new capabilities that many people now refer to it as the Awesome Bar. (Mozilla refers to it as the Smart Location Bar.) No matter what you call it, though, it's eminently hackable.
First, a little background about the Awesome Bar's new features. In earlier versions of Firefox, when you typed text into the address bar, it showed you a drop-down list of URLs you'd recently visited and narrowed down the list as you typed in more text. So, for example, if you typed the letter "c" by itself, you'd get a long list of sites you'd recently visited that start with "c," and then as you typed additional letters, the list would shorten. You could scroll to any URL on the list and press Enter to visit there.
The Awesome Bar adds some oomph to that. First off, it not only lists recently visited sites as you type, but it grabs URLs from your bookmarks as well. And it doesn't just look for URLs that match the first letter -- it also looks at page titles and tags. What's more, it uses an algorithm to figure out what are the most likely sites you want to visit and puts those first on the list. And it shows you not just a list of URLs, but much more for each URL, including the site's favicon, its full title and whether you've bookmarked the page.
By default, the Awesome Bar returns a list with a maximum of 12 entries. You can change that maximum to another number:
1. Type about:config into the address bar and click "I'll be careful, I promise!" when you get the security warning.
2. Type (or paste) this text into the filter box: browser.urlbar.maxRichResults. You can also just type browser.urlbar and pick out browser.urlbar.maxRichResults from the resulting list.
3. Double-click the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults entry. In the "Enter integer value" pop-up, type the maximum number of results you want to appear and click OK. From now on, that will be the maximum number.
Note that even after you do this, you will only see the default six results as you type. To see more, scroll through the list.