1. Clear a particular URL from your browsing history

Start to type out the URL, and when Firefox pops up that site in the list of sites, select it by moving your cursor over it (but don’t click) – hold down the Shift key and click the Delete button on your keyboard.

2. Set smart cookie settings

There are a number of websites that don’t allow you a normal browsing experience without having your browser accept all cookies. If you are not a fan of cookies and want to browse this website there’s a nice solution to the problem. You can, of course, manually erase all the cookies after you are done browsing such a website. A smarter way to achieve this might be to use Firefox’s built in setting that deletes all cookies when you close your web browser.

• Select Firefox and then Preferences



• Select the Privacy tab. Set Firefox will: to Use custom settings for history



• Make sure Accept third-party cookies is checked, and then select I close Firefox from the Keep until: menu.
  

3. Clear History Automatically

Like in the previous tip, you can have Firefox clear your history every time you close the browser. This is a particularly good thing to set on a publicly used computer.

• Select Firefox and then Preferences



• Select the Privacy tab. Make sure the box next to Clear history when Firefox closes is checked
  
• You can further secure Firefox by determining what other data should be deleted when you close Firefox by clicking the Settings button. This will bring up a window with many choices.
  

4. Use Master Password

If you have set Firefox to save the passwords you use to login into your web accounts and want to maintain some degree of privacy while using them, Firefox allows you to set a master password which allows these passwords to be used.

• Select Firefox and then Preferences
  
• Select the Security tab and place a check in the box next to Use master password.
  
• Now enter your password in both the spaces provided. Click OK. For each Firefox session going forward, you’ll need to enter your master password before you’re able to enter a user/pass on a web site.
  

Tips to improve your privacy settings in Firefox is a post from: My MacOS X

Available via Firefox software update or download from here

What’s New in Firefox 3.6

Firefox 3.6 released is a post from: My MacOS X

Today, as part of our ongoing effort to make the web faster, we’re launching our own public DNS resolver called Google Public DNS, and we invite you to try it out.

Why use Google’s DNS?

The average Internet user ends up performing hundreds of DNS lookups each day, and some complex pages require multiple DNS lookups before they start loading. This can slow down the browsing experience. Google have suggested that using their DNS will speed up internet usage and browsing.

Using Google’s Public DNS for Snow Leopard

• Step 1 (System Preferences):
  Open your system preferences and select the Network panel (it will be in the Internet and Wireless section).
  
• Step 2 (Network preference pane):
  In the Network preference pane, make sure your network connection is selected (Airport or Ethernet) and click “Advanced”.
  
• Step 3 (DNS tab):
  Open the DNS tab in the next panel and add Google’s DNS servers using the “+” button.
  DNS Server 1 (preferred): 8.8.8.8
  DNS Server 2 (alternate): 8.8.4.4

• Step 4 (Delete old servers):
  Delete all your old servers or move them to botton (hold Command + mouse click and move)
• Step 5 (Save work):
  Then just “OK” and “Apply” your way back out of the various dialogs and you should be good to go.
• Step 6 (Testing):
  Test that your setup is working correctly; see Testing your new settings

Setting up Google DNS in Mac OS X is a post from: My MacOS X

about:config into the Firefox address bar.

And press enter .

Clicking “I’ll be careful, I promise!” brings up a huge list of preferences, most of which aren’t accessible from the normal Preferences dialog. As the list is so long, the best way to find things in it is to start typing the name of the preference into the “Filter” box at the top. Once you have found the one you want, double-clicking it allows you to change it.
In list below you will see 10 hidden FIREFOX 3 preferences (only some work in Firefox 2).

1. browser.urlbar.clickSelectsAll

The default behaviour, true, means that when you click the address bar, it automaticall selects all. Changing this to false stops this, and just inserts the cursor where you clicked.

2. browser.tabs.closeButtons

By default, Firefox displays a close button on every tab. Setting this preference to 0 will only display a close button on the currently open tab. Setting it to 3 will move the close button to the far right end of the tab bar, and setting it to 2 will get rid of all close buttons.

3. browser.search.openintab

Double-clicking this will set it to true. This makes searches from the box in the top right open in a new tab rather than the current one.

4. browser.urlbar.maxRichResults

Determines the maximum number of results that drop down from the URL bar when you start typing. Default is 12.

5. browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace

If you open a whole folder of bookmarks at once using “Open All in Tabs”, they replace all of your open tabs. Setting this preference to false will cause the new tabs to only replace the current tab and add in the rest after it.

6. accessibility.typeaheadfind.casesensitive

Setting to 1 Makes the Find function (Command-F) case sensitive.

7. ui.click_hold_context_menus

Set this to true to enable the click-and-hold way to open contextual menus.

8. browser.tabs.tabMinWidth

If you open lots of tabs in Firefox, they shrink down so they all fit across the screen. After a certain limit, your tabs don’t get any smaller and you have to scroll to the left and right to view other tabs. This preference allows you to set the minimum width. Default is 100, lower values will give smaller tabs.

9. layout.spellcheckDefault

Changing this value to 2 makes the spell checker work in all text boxes, not just the large text fields.

10. browser.backspace_action

This changes the behaviour of the backspace key. setting it to 1 makes the backspace key scroll up a page in the current window. Shift-Backspace will scroll down. 2 to make the backspace key do nothing. Except delete when text is selected, of course. Changing to 0 will change back to the default behaviour of going back a page.

Hidden Firefox Settings is a post from: My MacOS X