8.1.1.1. Navigating the web
Fedora starts Firefox with a default home page that has links to useful Fedora-related sites. Navigate to other web pages by typing the web address – also called the univeral resource locator, or URL – into the long navigation bar across the top of the Firefox screen, replacing http://start.fedoraproject.org
.
If you do not know the URL, enter a keyword (or words) into the search bar to the right of the navigation bar, then press the Enter key. The search engine used to perform your search can be changed by left-clicking the logo in the search box. You will be presented with a list of options including Google, Yahoo, eBay, Amazon, and Creative Commons.
Like other web browsers, Firefox makes it possible to save a web page for future reference by adding it to a list of bookmarks. Use the key combination Ctrl+D to bookmark a page you are viewing. To manage bookmarks, use the menu from the top of the Firefox window. You can also create a live bookmark (a feed) that automatically checks for updates from a page with an RSS or Atom feed. If a feed is available for a particular web page, there will be an orange icon at the right hand edge of the address bar while you are visiting that page. Left click the feed icon and a preview of the feed is displayed. Select the method you would like to use to subscribe to the feed.
Use your favorite feed reader
Firefox can use a number of popular web-based options for subscribing to feeds, such as Bloglines, My Yahoo, and Google Reader, as well as Firefox's own live bookmarks. Another option is to use a desktop feed reader you have installed, such as Liferea.
Open a new tab with Ctrl+T. A blank page is presented and a new bar is available under the navigation bar showing all open tabs; to switch between them left-click the desired tab. To close a tab you can either right click to access the or press the red "X" on the tab.
Navigating a large number of open tabs can be difficult. To make it easier, use the arrow icon on the right hand side of the tabs toolbar. Click this to reveal a list of all open tabs that you can switch to by clicking on the relevant item.
Firefox is designed to be moderately fast and lightweight. As a result, some functionality found in other browsers may not be available by default. To solve this problem the Firefox team made the browser extensible, so it is easy to create and integrate extensions that add new functionality to the browser.
To manage and install extensions, plug-ins, and themes, select the
Tools > Add-ons menu entry. New extensions are found by visiting the
Firefox add-on site at
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/. To install an extension from this site follow the
Install link, and when prompted click
Install Now.
Themes, plugins and search engines
Firefox can also be extended by adding new search engines to the search box, installing new themes to customize the look, and installing new plugins allowing the use of Java and other web technologies. All of these can be found at Mozilla's Firefox add-ons site.