Happy Birthday, Firefox

As November draws to a close, let’s recognize the open-source browser Firefox, who this month reached the ripe old age of four years. To prove that it is truly growing up, Firefox’s share of the browser market jumped four points in the last three months, to almost 20%. The spike was due to the release of Firefox Version 3.0 which the first day it was available in July achieved a record-setting 8.2 million downloads. This success, which landed Firefox in the Guinness Book of Records, was the result of slick enhancements and one heck of a marketing effort by the Folks at Firefox. So, what’s all the fuss about 3? PC Magazine summarizes eight enhancements it especially likes. Here are some:

• Create additional tabs by simply pressing the Ctrl key while dragging an existing tab into an empty space on the toolbar. Neat!
• Shrink the size of the icons on the toolbar
• Use smart bookmarks, for instance: the 10 sites you’ve visited most often, or the last 20 sites you’ve visited with a particular keyword in the title
• Send Gmail or Yahoo mail by default
• View your saved passwords for any page. This one is both exciting and kind of scary. Worthy of inspection in a future Tech Tip.
  

Although PC Magazine doesn’t include it, here’s one more feature that is perhaps the best of all: Zoom In / Zoom Out: You can change the size of text and images with these quick keystrokes:
Zoom in: Ctrl +
Zoom out: Ctrl -