This basic introduction to Firefox covers various features in the program including tabbed browsing, searching the web, adding bookmarks, viewing history, and more. It was last presented at the Bay Area Seniors Computer Club on November 20, 2009.

1. Introduction
to
Mozilla Firefox
Objective
Many people use Internet Explorer to access the internet. However, Mozilla Firefox is
another very popular program that allows you to surf the web. This walkthrough gives
you a basic overview of Firefox and its various features including adding bookmarks,
tabbed browsing, searching the web, and others. You will also learn a bit about why
many people have decided to use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. This walkthrough
assumes that you are currently using Internet Explorer 8 on Windows XP. However,
Firefox is available on a variety of other operating systems including Mac OS, Linux, and
other versions of Microsoft Windows.
Outline
Installing Firefox.................................................................................................2
Copying your settings from another browser..........................................................3
The Firefox Screen..............................................................................................4
Searching the web in Firefox................................................................................5
Adding a bookmark.............................................................................................6
Tabbed browsing.................................................................................................7
Viewing previously-viewed pages..........................................................................7
Why use Firefox?................................................................................................8
Conclusion.........................................................................................................9
This walkthrough is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution
United States license. For more information, visit http://www.creativecommons.org.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.1

2. Internet Explorer (IE), represented by that familiar blue “E” shown at right, is
the most common program people use to access the internet. However, it's not
the only way. Internet Explorer is just one of many web browsers. Firefox is
another web browser that is becoming increasingly popular, too, for being
faster, easier to use, and more secure than Internet Explorer.
Term: A web browser is a program that allows you to access the various websites and
resources available on the internet. Internet Explorer is the most common.
There are many others, however, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari, and Opera.
Installing Firefox
So you've decided that you want to try Firefox and
experience a new way of surfing the internet? Great! The
first thing we have to do, though, is get Firefox onto our
computers. To do this, we need the internet!
1. Double-click the Internet Explorer icon on your
computer desktop OR click the start menu in the
bottom-left corner of your computer and click the
Internet Explorer icon you see there. You may need
to move your mouse over “All Programs” to find it. A
typical start menu in Windows XP is shown at right.
2. You will now see your home page for Internet
Explorer. In the screenshots we show in this
handout, we assume that you're using Internet Explorer version 8 (the most
recent). Click inside the address bar (the box near the top of the screen that has
text starting with “http://”).
Highlight the text in this box
and type “www.firefox.com”
3. The text in the address bar should now be highlighted in blue. If it's not, move
your mouse cursor to the right of the text in the address bar, click and hold your
left mouse button, and drag it over the text. Once the text is highlighted, type
“www.firefox.com” (without the quotes). Press “Enter” on the keyboard.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.2

3. 4. You are now on the Firefox website. To download and
install Firefox, click the large button on the screen as
shown at left.
5. You will be prompted to download a file.
Click the “Run” option to have the program
start after it finishes downloading. The
program to install Firefox will begin
downloading. This could take a while,
depending on your internet connection's
speed. Once the file is finished
downloading, Windows will ask you again if
you want to open the file. Click “Run.”
6. The Firefox setup program will now open.
It will guide you through the (very simple!)
process of installing Firefox on your
computer. Click the “Next” button on the
bottom right of the window to guide you through the process.
◦ Choose “Standard” when the program asks you the type of setup you prefer.
This will install Firefox with the most popular settings. You can always change
these later.
◦ Leave the installation location as is.
◦ Decide whether or not you want to use Firefox as your default web browser.
This means that, if you click an internet link in your email or another program,
it will open in Firefox instead of Internet Explorer.
7. Click “Install” on the bottom right. Once the program's complete, click the “Finish”
button. Firefox will open automatically.
Copying your settings from another browser
Since you've been using the internet for a while, you may
have saved many websites and changed Internet Explorer
to make things more convenient for you. You might have
changed your home page and saved several favorite
websites so that you could easily find them. Fortunately,
it's easy to copy these settings into Firefox.
1. When you first open Firefox, it will bring up the
“Import Wizard” to copy your settings from another
web browser, such as Internet Explorer.
2. Click the button next to Internet Explorer (or another web browser, if you use a
different one reguarly). Click “Next” on the bottom of the window to advance.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.3

4. 3. On the next screen, click the option to import your home page from Internet
Explorer or other browser. Click “Next.”
4. Once the program is finished copying, click the “Finish” button on the bottom right
of the box. Firefox will now open. Notice that your favorites and home page have
been copied for you!
Notice that Firefox has now copied
your favorites and home page.
The Firefox Screen
5. Menus
1. Navigation bar
6. Search box
2. Bookmarks bar 4. Tabs
3. Content area
Firefox should look pretty familiar to you if you've used the internet at all. We'll go over
a few of the elements in the program.
1. Navigation bar: Here's where you conduct the basic functions of surfing the web:
moving forward and back between pages, entering addresses, reloading pages,
etc.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.4

5. 2. Bookmarks bar: “Bookmarks” are the equivalent “Favorites” in Internet Explorer.
While you can save tons of bookmarks in Firefox, you can put your most
frequently-access ones here.
3. Content area: This area of the screen displays the web pages you're viewing.
4. Tabs: Tabs allow you to have multiple web pages open at once. You can switch
between them by clicking the box (e.g tab) for the different pages you have open.
5. Menus: As with many other applications, the menus give access to various other
options within Firefox including viewing your browsing history, printing, changing
font sizes, altering settings and appearance in Firefox, and many other features.
6. Search box: This is a quick way to search popular sites (Google, Amazon, eBay,
etc.) without having to go directly to the site. You can select a site to search by
cliking the small icon on the left of the box. You can even add other sites to your
search options!
Notice how similar this setup is to Internet Explorer? If you've already used Internet
Explorer, using Firefox should be fairly simple.
1. Navigation bar
5. Menus
6. Search box
2. Favorites bar 4. Tabs
3. Content area
Searching the web in Firefox
Let's conduct our first web search using Firefox. Many of you may use the search engine
Google to search for websites on the web. However, the helpful search box in the top
right corner allows you to conduct searches quickly and easily no matter where you
currently are on the web. We're going to search right now for the Bay Area Seniors
Computer Club.
1. Move your mouse cursor over the search box in the top right corner and click
inside of it.
2. Type your search term into the box. For our example, type “Bay Area Seniors
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.5

6. Computer Club.”
3. Click the magnifying glass on the right side of the box to
finish your search. A Google search page will appear with
the results of your search.
Notice that if you click the tiny arrow to the left of the Google icon
in the search box, you get other options for websites to search, as
shown at right. You can even add your own with the “Manage
Search Engines” option.
Adding a bookmark
Now that we've found the website for the Bay Area Seniors Computer Club, we may want
to save it so that we can get back to it easily. Fortunately, saving websites (called
“bookmarking” in Firefox) is simple. Simply click the star on the right side of the address
bar. That's it! The star will turn yellow once you've bookmarked the site.
Clicking the yellow star again will open options for you to edit
the bookmark by giving it another name, saving it in a
different place, etc. Click the star now. Change the name of
the bookmark to “Bay Area Seniors Computer Club” by
highlighting and deleting the text in the “Name” box and
entering the new name. Click the small arrow on the right of
the “Folder” box and click the option that says “Bookmarks
Menu.” You'll now see the website in your “Bookmarks” menu.
What if you want the website to be on your Bookmarks toolbar so you can easily click it?
Not a problem! The easiest way to do this is to move your mouse cursor over the tab for
the website (we'll discuss tabs more in the next section). Now, drag your mouse cursor
over the Bookmarks bar. You'll see a small ghost image of the site and a tiny little blue
arrow on the bookmarks bar. Release your mouse, and the site will appear on the bar!
Drag your mouse over the
Click and hold your mouse bookmarks bar. You'll see a
over the tab for the website. ghost image of the site and a
small arrow on the toolbar.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.6

7. Tabbed browsing
As you're browsing around the web, you may want to go to a new website but keep your
current website easily accessible. Fortunately, most web browsers now, including Firefox,
allow you to do this through tabbed browsing. Tabs allow you to keep multiple websites
open without having to switch between differerent windows. We're going to open a new
tab now.
1. To open a new tab, click the small “+” box in next to the tab for the website.
2. A new tab will open. Single-click inside the address bar near the top of the screen.
Type “bayareaseniorscomputerclub.ning.com” into the box and press the “Enter”
key on the keyboard.
3. Now you've got two different websites open! To switch between them, simply click
the tab with the title of the website you'd like to view.
4. Want to close one of the tabs? No problem. Just click the red “x” on the tab you'd
like to close.
You can have tons of different websites open with tabbed browsing, so don't be shy about
opening a new tab! When you click some links on websites, they'll actually automatically
open in a new tab.
Viewing previously-viewed pages
If you've been surfing the web for a little while, you may find that you want to go back to
a page you viewed previously. You're probably already familiar with the forward and
back buttons. Fortunately, Firefox makes it easy to skip back to websites you viewed
long ago, too. Notice that the back button is large and easy to see?
Click the small black down arrow just to the right
of the forward button. This will open a short list of
websites you've viewed previously, as shown at
left. Simply mouse over one of the sites and click
your left mouse button once to go back to that
website.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.7

8. You can view even more of your browsing history
by clicking the “History” menu near the top of the
screen. This menu shows all of the websites
you've viewed previously during this day.
You can also view the sites you've visited even
farther back by clicking the “Show All History”
option under the History menu. You can view
websites you visited days or even weeks ago,
depending on how long you've told Firefox to
save this information. It defaults to save your
history for 90 days. However, you can change
this by accessing the “Options” box under the
“Tools” menu near the top of the screen.
Why use Firefox?
As we've been going over Firefox's various features, you may have noticed that they're
quite similar to Internet Explorer or other web browsers you've used. Given the similar
features, why has Firefox quickly become the second most popular web browser in the
world?
It's simpler
Many find Firefox's screen a bit simpler to use: the icons are a bit clearer and larger, it's
not quite as busy, and it's easy to change. Check out the side-by-side comparison of
Firefox and Internet Explorer below. Firefox is on the top (it's greyed out a bit).
It's faster
Firefox frequently loads web pages faster than Internet Explorer. Grab a stopwatch and
open up both Firefox and Internet Explorer. Try timing how long it takes to open a
website with a lot of content on it, such as http://www.cnn.com. You will find that
Firefox likely loads it noticeably faster.
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.8

9. It's more secure
You've probably heard of various nasty programs that can find their way into your
computer through from the internet. Many internet security experts consider Firefox to
be less susceptible to such problems than Internet Explorer. In part this is because
Firefox is not as common and therefore not as desirable a target. However, it is also
because Firefox has more options to configure it and has a very large, active community
of people working to make it better. Check out this information about security
vulnerabilities in various web browsers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers#Vulnerabilities
It's adjustable
Firefox also allows you to change it and add small
programs to it that make your web browsing
experience a bit better. These programs are
called “add-ons.” While discussing them is
beyond the scope of this walkthrough, they are
definitely worth exploring. Add-ons can do things
such as allow you to block advertisements on
websites, control your music player from within
Firefox, easily find words within a web page, and
many other things.
Conclusion
Firefox is a nice alternative to Internet Explorer that is worth a try. This walkthrough
gave you some basic information about Firefox and how to use it. However, there's much
more to explore. Try exploring the various menus and buttons in Firefox to see what else
it can do!
Last updated: November 20, 2009, by Buzzy Nielsen
Introduction to Mozilla Firefox, p.9