Everybody’s favorite open-source browser, Firefox, is great right out of the box. And by adding some of the awesome extensions available out there, the browser just gets better and better.

In my case I love Firefox , its the best I think. Anyway its your choice, but please stay away from IE 6 or earlier. They are really waste to display modern sites.

But look under the hood, and there are a bunch of hidden (and some not-so-secret) tips and tricks available that will crank Firefox up and pimp your browser. Make it faster, cooler, more efficient. Get to be a Jedi master with the following cool Firefox tricks.

1. More screen space. Make your icons small. Go to View – Toolbars – Customize and check the “Use small icons” box.
2. Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box. Note : In newer Firefox you have to goto ‘Manage search engines’ then select ‘Edit Keywords’.
3. Keyboard shortcuts. This is where you become a real Jedi. It just takes a little while to learn these, but once you do, your browsing will be super fast. Here are some of the most common (and my personal favs):
   • Spacebar (page down)
   • Shift+Spacebar (page up)
   • Ctrl+F (find)
   • Alt+N (find next)
   • Ctrl+D (bookmark page)
   • Ctrl+T (new tab)
   • Ctrl+K (go to search box)
   • Ctrl+L (go to address bar)
   • Ctrl+= (increase text size)
   • Ctrl+- (decrease text size)
   • Ctrl+W (close tab)
   • F5 (reload)
   • Alt+Home (go to home page)
4. Auto-complete. This is another keyboard shortcut, but it’s not commonly known and very useful. Go to the address bar (Control+L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Let’s say “google”. Then press Control+Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there – like magic! For “.net” addresses, press Shift+Enter, and for “.org” addresses, press Control+Shift+Enter. Cool right?
5. Tab navigation. Instead of using the mouse to select different tabs that you have open, use the keyboard. Here are the shortcuts:
   • Ctrl+Tab (rotate forward among tabs)
   • Ctrl+Shift+Tab (rotate to the previous tabs)
   • Ctrl+1 to 9 (choose a number to jump to a specific tab)
6. Mouse shortcuts. Sometimes you’re already using your mouse and it’s easier to use a mouse shortcut than to go back to the keyboard. Master these cool ones:
   • Middle click on link (opens in new tab)
   • Shift+Scroll Down (previous page)
   • Shift+Scroll Up (next page)
   • Ctrl-scroll up (decrease text size)
   • Ctrl-scroll down (increase text size)
   • Middle click on a tab (closes tab)
7. Delete items from address bar history. Firefox’s ability to automatically show previous URLs you’ve visited, as you type, in the address bar’s drop-down history menu is very cool. But sometimes you just don’t want those URLs to show up (I won’t ask why ). Go to the address bar (Ctrl-L), start typing an address, and the drop-down menu will appear with the URLs of pages you’ve visited with those letters in them. Use the down-arrow to go down to an address you want to delete, and press the Delete key to make it disappear.
8. User chrome. If you really want to trick out your Firefox, you’ll want to create a UserChrome.css file and customize your browser. It’s a bit complicated to get into here, but check out for this tutorial soon.
9. Create a user.js file. Another way to customize Firefox, creating a user.js file can really speed up your browsing. You’ll need to create a text file named user.js in your profile folder. You can find custom built user.js file at techlifeweb.com.
10. about:config The true power user’s tool, about.config isn’t something to mess with if you don’t know what a setting does. You can get to the main configuration screen by putting about:config in the browser’s address bar.
11. Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.
12. Speed up Firefox. If you have a broadband connection (and most of us do), you can use pipelining to speed up your page loads. This allows Firefox to load multiple things on a page at once, instead of one at a time (by default, it’s optimized for dialup connections). Here’s how:
    • Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Type “network.http” in the filter field, and change the following settings (double-click on them to change them):
    • Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true”
    • Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true”
    • Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to a number like 30.
      This will allow it to make 30 requests at once.
    • Also, right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0”.
      This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.
13. NOTE : I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY PROBLEM OCCURED DUE TO CHANGING UNWANTED SETTINGS
14. Limit RAM usage. If Firefox takes up too much memory on your computer, you can limit the amount of RAM it is allowed to us. Again, go to about:config, filter “browser.cache” and select “browser.cache.disk.capacity”. It’s set to 50000, but you can lower it, depending on how much memory you have. Try 15000 if you have between 512MB and 1GB ram.
15. Reduce RAM usage further for when Firefox is minimized. This setting will move Firefox to your hard drive when you minimize it, taking up much less memory. And there is no noticeable difference in speed when you restore Firefox, so it’s definitely worth a go. Again, go to about:config, right-click anywhere and select New-> Boolean. Name it “config.trim_on_minimize” and set it to TRUE. You have to restart Firefox for these settings to take effect.
16. Move or remove the close tab button. Do you accidentally click on the close button of Firefox’s tabs? You can move them or remove them, again through about:config. Edit the preference for “browser.tabs.closeButtons”. Here are the meanings of each value:

• 0: Display a close button on the active tab only
• 1: (Default) Display close buttons on all tabs
• 2: Don’t display any close buttons
• 3: Display a single close button at the end of the tab bar (Firefox 1.x behavior)

Create shortcut key for applications

If you use a programme more often that you want to set a shortcut key for that application simply follow this:

1. Create a shortcut if you are trying with an application directly (Right click and select ‘Create Shortcut’ the .exe file)
2. Right click the shortcut you want to assign shorcut key to and select ‘Properties’
3. In the ‘Shortcut’ tab click on the text box near to the field ‘Shortcut Key’
4. Now just press the key combination you want to use as shortcut key. eg : CTRL+ALT+P or CTRL+SHIFT+ALT+P etc..
5. Thats it! Just press that key combination anytime to open the application!

Microsoft Internet Explorer Navigation

• CTRL+B (Open the Organize Favorites dialog box)
• CTRL+E (Open the Search bar)
• CTRL+F (Start the Find utility)
• CTRL+H (Open the History bar)
• CTRL+I (Open the Favorites bar)
• CTRL+L (Open the Open dialog box)
• CTRL+N (Start another instance of the browser with the same Web address)
• CTRL+O (Open the Open dialog box, the same as CTRL+L)
• CTRL+P (Open the Print dialog box)
• CTRL+R (Update the current Web page)
• CTRL+W (Close the current window)

General Keyboard Shortcuts

• CTRL+C (Copy)
• CTRL+X (Cut)
• CTRL+V (Paste)
• CTRL+Z (Undo)
• DELETE (Delete)
• SHIFT+DELETE (Delete the selected item permanently without placing the item in the Recycle Bin)
• CTRL while dragging an item (Copy the selected item)
• CTRL+SHIFT while dragging an item (Create a shortcut to the selected item)
• F2 key (Rename the selected item)
• CTRL+RIGHT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next word)
• CTRL+LEFT ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous word)
• CTRL+DOWN ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the next paragraph)
• CTRL+UP ARROW (Move the insertion point to the beginning of the previous paragraph)
• CTRL+SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Highlight a block of text)
• SHIFT with any of the arrow keys (Select more than one item in a window or on the desktop, or select text in a document)
• CTRL+A (Select all)
• F3 key (Search for a file or a folder)
• ALT+ENTER (View the properties for the selected item)
• ALT+F4 (Close the active item, or quit the active program)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Open the shortcut menu for the active window)
• CTRL+F4 (Close the active document in programs that enable you to have multiple documents open simultaneously)
• ALT+TAB (Switch between the open items)
• ALT+ESC (Cycle through items in the order that they had been opened)
• F6 key (Cycle through the screen elements in a window or on the desktop)
• F4 key (Display the Address bar list in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
• SHIFT+F10 (Display the shortcut menu for the selected item)
• ALT+SPACEBAR (Display the System menu for the active window)
• CTRL+ESC (Display the Start menu)
• ALT+Underlined letter in a menu name (Display the corresponding menu)
• Underlined letter in a command name on an open menu (Perform the corresponding command)
• F10 key (Activate the menu bar in the active program)
• RIGHT ARROW (Open the next menu to the right, or open a submenu)
• LEFT ARROW (Open the next menu to the left, or close a submenu)
• F5 key (Update the active window)
• BACKSPACE (View the folder one level up in My Computer or Windows Explorer)
• ESC (Cancel the current task)
• SHIFT when you insert a CD-ROM into the CD-ROM drive (Prevent the CD-ROM from automatically playing)

Dialog Box Keyboard Shortcuts

• CTRL+TAB (Move forward through the tabs)
• CTRL+SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the tabs)
• TAB (Move forward through the options)
• SHIFT+TAB (Move backward through the options)
• ALT+Underlined letter (Perform the corresponding command or select the corresponding option)
• ENTER (Perform the command for the active option or button)
• SPACEBAR (Select or clear the check box if the active option is a check box)
• Arrow keys (Select a button if the active option is a group of option buttons)
• F1 key (Display Help)
• F4 key (Display the items in the active list)
• BACKSPACE (Open a folder one level up if a folder is selected in the Save As or Open dialog box)

Microsoft Natural Keyboard Shortcuts

• Windows Logo (Display or hide the Start menu)
• Windows Logo+BREAK (Display the System Properties dialog box)
• Windows Logo+D (Display the desktop)
• Windows Logo+M (Minimize all of the windows)
• Windows Logo+SHIFT+M (Restore the minimized windows)
• Windows Logo+E (Open My Computer)
• Windows Logo+F (Search for a file or a folder)
• Windows Logo+CTRL+F (Search for computers)
• Windows Logo+F1 (Display Windows Help)
• Windows Logo+ L (Lock the keyboard / computer in vista)
• Windows Logo+R (Open the Run dialog box)
• Windows Logo+U (Open Utility Manager)

Accessibility Keyboard Shortcuts

• Right SHIFT for eight seconds (Switch FilterKeys either on or off)
• Left ALT+left SHIFT+PRINT SCREEN (Switch High Contrast either on or off)
• Left ALT+left SHIFT+NUM LOCK (Switch the MouseKeys either on or off)
• SHIFT five times (Switch the StickyKeys either on or off)
• NUM LOCK for five seconds (Switch the ToggleKeys either on or off)
• Windows Logo +U (Open Utility Manager)

Windows Explorer Keyboard Shortcuts

• END (Display the bottom of the active window)
• HOME (Display the top of the active window)
• NUM LOCK+Asterisk sign (*) (Display all of the subfolders that are under the selected folder)
• NUM LOCK+Plus sign (+) (Display the contents of the selected folder)
• NUM LOCK+Minus sign (-) (Collapse the selected folder)
• LEFT ARROW (Collapse the current selection if it is expanded, or select the parent folder)
• RIGHT ARROW (Display the current selection if it is collapsed, or select the first subfolder)

Shortcut Keys for Character Map

After you double-click a character on the grid of characters, you can move through the grid by using the keyboard shortcuts:

• RIGHT ARROW (Move to the right or to the beginning of the next line)
• LEFT ARROW (Move to the left or to the end of the previous line)
• UP ARROW (Move up one row)
• DOWN ARROW (Move down one row)
• PAGE UP (Move up one screen at a time)
• PAGE DOWN (Move down one screen at a time)
• HOME (Move to the beginning of the line)
• END (Move to the end of the line)
• CTRL+HOME (Move to the first character)
• CTRL+END (Move to the last character)
• SPACEBAR (Switch between Enlarged and Normal mode when a character is selected)