Firefox For Dummies [Paperback]

Blake Ross (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0471748994 | ISBN-13: 978-0471748991 | Publication Date: January 11, 2006 | Edition: 1

• Firefox For Dummies gives you the inside scoop on the exciting new browser from the Web wizard that got it started. The book's author, Blake Ross, began developing Firefox as a teenager. Once available to the world, the simple and powerful tool was an instant hit claiming a sizable share of the Web browser market with over 140 million downloads.
• In this book Blake not only gives you the lowdown on how to use Firefox for safe Web searching, but he also shares his insight into how the product came to life. It's a combination of practical tech insight and a good story that is rare in computer books.
• Topics covered include downloading and installing Firefox, creating a home page, searching with Google, creating customized themes and toolbars, using tabbed browsing, downloading and saving files, maintaining security and privacy, eliminating annoying popups, and adding Firefox extensions.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Make your online world safer, easier, and a lot more fun, for free!

Firefox is a lot like a For Dummies book — designed to make things easier for the rest of us. Now, one of the guys who invented it shows you how to use the browser made for people, not programmers. This book shows how you can view multiple Web pages at one time, how you can easily move your favorite links and bookmarks from your old browser into Firefox, how Firefox keeps you safe online, and much more.

Discover how to

• Acquire and install Firefox
• Make the transition from another browser
• Use Firefox's innovative tabbed browsing
• Manage bookmarks with ease
• Maintain online privacy and security
• Customize your browser

About the Author

Blake Ross discovered computers when he was 4 and hasn’t had time to eat since then. He began working at Netscape at 14 and cofounded the Firefox project two years later to make the Web easy to use for plain old human beings. He also cofounded the SpreadFirefox.com community evangelism project, which has changed the face of software marketing and distribution. Blake was featured on the cover of Wired Magazine in early 2005, and he has since been featured in dozens of international publications and television shows to promote computing simplicity. He is on leave from Stanford University, where he is an undergraduate.
Blake is currently working on a new project with some of the original Firefox team. If you enjoy Firefox, you’ll enjoy what’s coming next, so sign up at www.blakeross.com to hear when it launches.

Product Details

• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: For Dummies; 1 edition (January 11, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471748994
• ISBN-13: 978-0471748991
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #528,883 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Firefox for Dummies, August 4, 2006

By 

R. LeFebvre "mac geek" (Anchorage, AK United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Firefox For Dummies (Paperback)

I asked to review this book for one reason only: my parents. You see, I visited them this summer and helped them upgrade their graphite iBook SE to OS X 10.2 (it's what they had, forgive me!), as well as setting them up with a copy of Firefox, as Safari wasn't included on their installation disks, and the only version I could find online was for a later OS X version.

Now, my father is a bit on the...obsessive side. He will read a product manual inside and out before he even sits in front of the actual thing he's trying to learn to use. My mother is almost the complete opposite. She wants to be able to get to her favorite websites, and have them work.

This book, FIrefox for Dummies, by Blake Ross, should work for both of them. It's chock full of details, history and hidden wonders of Firefox. It's written in a clean prose style that never confuses, and often elucidates effortlessly. The author admits in the beginning of the book that Firefox was designed from the ground up to be a simple browser, free of the techie-pleasing but ultimately normal-confusing widgets and gewgaws that plague most other modern browsers. HE should know, too, since he was one of the founders of the team that created Firefox.

My father can read this book from cover to cover and know more about Firefox than I could ever remember. My mother can dip in to the book at random to help her troubleshoot or learn something specific, and then close it. Both of my parents will be able to use this book (and the browser itself, actually) to get exactly what they need and want out of the browser now on their computer.

The book starts with an explanation of what a browser is (many people confuse the browser with the Internet itself: just ask your senator), and moves quickly and entertainingly through bookmarks, blocking popup ads, printing web pages, protecting your browser from hackers, applying themes and customizing your browser.

As for me, I found the book entertaining and fun. It's got sidebars full of history about the browser, the name changes, the whys and wherefores of features in it, and lots of little detailed information that is helpful even to a power user. Extensions, toolbar customization, and even a chapter on using Thunderbird as an email client are all covered here. The final two chapters are a 10-best list, one chapter on the 10 secrets to using Firefox, and the other a chapter on the 10 best extensions for your Firefox browser. Stuff you can't leave home without.

The one thing I wish were better are the screenshots and pictures of computer windows. Firefox is identical in Windows and Mac installations, except for the "window dressing." At the top of each window on our computer screen, Mac users see three little 3D dots, and the Windows world sees three different symbols, including the infamous "X" button. I think the publisher could have thrown in a few more Mac window screenshots, so that my mother might better understand what she was looking at, based on her own Mac screen. To be fair, the author uses both Windows and Macintosh keyboard shortcuts, and expressly references Macintosh and Safari a few times as a reference point, so the text of the book isn't misleading in any way.

Bottom line, I'd buy this book for my parents and anyone else who needs a clear "how to" book on Firefox. I'd also buy it for more savvy web users looking to maximize their understanding of the Firefox browser, in addition to those who like to read obscure computer company history tidbits. If you're in any of these camps, you'll think your money was well spent.[...]

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great FireFox Book By FireFox Co-Creator, January 12, 2006

By 

Fahad A. Al Mahmood "Fahad Al Mahmood" (Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Firefox For Dummies (Paperback)

I received the book today. I admit that I've been a FireFox user for long time so I know many of the information mentioned in the book. But I believe the book is a great book for new users and a great way to convince other web browsers that it is definitely time to switch to FireFox! Well written book with helpful tips and shortcuts. Recommended for everybody.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Firefox books for end-users, May 8, 2006

By 

Parmadi "plodder" (Western Europe) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Firefox For Dummies (Paperback)

I own five books on Firefox: Firefox Hacks, Firefox and Thunderbird Garage, Firefox Secrets, Firefox and Thunderbird (beyond Browsing and Email), and this one: Firefox for Dummies.
Although I like to have more than one book on a particular subject I can confidently say that - for me - this book alone makes the other four superfluous.
It describes all the essential parts in enough detail and in simple language that every non-geek can understand. It also includes a chapter on printing, which is ignored by the other books. Furthermore, the treatment on security, privacy, downloading, customization and extensions is also much easier to follow.
In short, if you only want to have just one book on Firefox, make it this one.