Firefox Secrets: A Need-To-Know Guide [Paperback]

Cheah Chu Yeow (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2005

This is a must read guide to anyone who wants to learn how to browse faster and more conveniently with Firefox. Firefox Secrets will teach you how to get the most from Mozilla, including how to find and use all the hidden features, extensions available to you. You'll learn:

• Ways to ease the transition from Internet Explorer
• A way to setup multiple "homepages" when you launch your browser
• Read RSS feeds from within Firefox using a free extension
• Where to download a new and less obtrusive "Download Manager"
• The best "must-have" extensions to download as well as the "fun" ones
• Two different ways to speed up Firefox downloads with prefetcher and pipelining
• Firefox's secret features for Web Developers
• And much, much more!

Firefox Secrets is the ultimate guide to the Web Browser that major magazines, newspapers and even Microsoft's own "Slate.com" website are recommending as the ultimate replacement to Internet Explorer.

Product Details

• Paperback: 292 pages
• Publisher: SitePoint (May 1, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0975240242
• ISBN-13: 978-0975240243
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #620,282 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Does a good job covering the Firefox essentials..., July 31, 2005

By 

Thomas Duff "Duffbert" (Portland, OR United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Firefox Secrets: A Need-To-Know Guide (Paperback)

Quite a few Firefox books have made their appearance on the market, and I have the chance to review yet another one... Firefox Secrets by Cheah Chu Yeow. Although not the first to market, it does a good job given the right audience...

Contents: Introduction; Introducing Your New Favorite Web Browser; Essential Browsing Features; Revisiting Web Pages; Dressing Up Firefox; Personalizing Firefox; Tips, Tricks, and Hacks; Web Development Nirvana; Living On The Edge; Index

Yeow does a nice job explaining why Firefox is a desired alternative to IE and why you should be using it. In addition to explaining all the different features in the menu, he also goes into some of the more popular browser extensions you can download and install to customize your browser experience. That's one of the huge advantages of Firefox over other browsers, and it's an area that can't be overlooked. There's also a fairly high level coverage of how the browser can aid your web development efforts based on the built-in debugging tools and the high adherence to web standards.

If you already have a Firefox book, this one isn't going to add much new information for you. Also, if you're wanting to dive into all the esoteric settings with about:config, this also won't get you there. But if you haven't yet switched to Firefox, or if you've switched but haven't taken the time to explore all the power that Firefox gives you, this book would help you out quite a bit...

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Book For Firefox Beginners, July 12, 2005

By 

Daniel McKinnon "Dan" (Tewksbury, MA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Firefox Secrets: A Need-To-Know Guide (Paperback)

I found this book to be a great resource for beginners who are new to Firefox, or an individual that wants to learn more about why they should immediately stop using IE and make the switch! 'Firefox Secrets' is well written with an easy style, not assuming that you are an experienced user, instead it takes the approach that you are new to the joys of using the best browser in the world. Mr. Yeow introduces the reader to the basics of obtaining Firefox, and then quickly goes into the #1 difference that makes Firefox fantastic - tabbed browsing. After explaining what tabbed browsing is and how it can be configured to fit your needs, Bookmarks are examined and then Themes are discussed.

For anyone that is a little bit familiar with Firefox, a look at how to install and configure some of the best extensions on the web is a worthwhile venture, and finally the Author talks about tips/tricks and the available web development add-ins out on the web.

I especially found the web development section to be the most handy. I was already familiar with the outstanding Web Developer extension and have used it for some time, but there were also links to an advanced Javascript debugger, along with other tweaks that the author recommends to improve the web browsing experience.

If you are an expert at Firefox you probably won't learn much from this book, but for any new user or someone who would consider themselves an amateur, I would recommend picking this up because it's very likely that you'll pick up something new -- whether a trick you did not know about or a hot extension, it's unlikely that anyone but the most experienced of users isn't going to learn something new from this text. I found this to be an enjoyable and easy read and I think you will find it worthwhile to peruse as well.

**** RECOMMENDED

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Firefox Secrets...indeed..., August 2, 2005

By 

Ingo Hildebrandt (Benningen, Germany) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Firefox Secrets: A Need-To-Know Guide (Paperback)

I received my copy some days ago and I'm really satisfied with the book. IMO this book is targeted at both newbies and long time users of FireFox. I for one am using FireFox since it's early days (Firebird..) on all my computers and on different Operating Systems (Windows & Linux) and I consider myself an expert, nontheless I was still able to get some new infos out of this book (especially the chapter about extensions, etc). FireFox is a fantastic browser and I love the whole Extension-approach as it's a lean mean browsing machine in it's basic setup which can be configure, at the user's discretion to an all-around everyday browser.

Hat tip to Chu for this excellent book!