Favorite FireFox feature
This has to be my favorite feature (I don't really use FireFox, but just started to play around with it). I am always looking for specific text in a web page, and I hate doing the Control-F, rinse, repeat mechanism to find something. FireFox has this nice feature where you can just start typing the text and it will automatically find it in the page.
I do this A LOT when clicking on results from a search query, and looking for the string I searched for in the page. Love it.
FireFox is pretty slick. It has lots of nice small usability and productivity enhancements.
Comments
- Anonymous
January 26, 2005
I really like having the search window at the bottom not obscuring the webpage itself. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
Agreed. They added this to source view and it can be a godsend. One of many small features that make it hard to go back to using (vanilla) IE. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
I hate that the find feature in IE, when it gets to the end of the document, puts up a modal dialog that says "Reached the end of the document". It won't wrap around and start at the beginning, even if I want to search for another string. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
The problem with the IE Ctrl+F find is that 99% of the time it "finds" something, I have no idea where on the page it was found. It needs to do more than just reverse-highlight the text... stuff like this is just killing IE... - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
In IE you can use the Google toolbar for searching the page and highlighting the search terms. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
After using the Find as You Type feature of Firefox for a while, you will find yourself doing it in other applications. I can't count the times I was working with a friend on a project and we looked up something on the Web on IE and I "just started typing" to find a particular piece of information. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
If you think Firefox has usability enhancements, wait until you try Opera. Opera blows away Firefox in this respect. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
It also supports F3 for find again.
I'm a big fan of Firefox, but it's pretty interesting the improvements and tweaks that products like Maxthon have done to Firefox's features.
I love it when you stumble over a feature that you never realized needed improvement but when the alternative presents itself it just shines.
Hooray for competition. - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
You comment: "I don't really use FireFox, but just started to play around with it" is a hoot! I suppose it is a career-limiting move to admit that you use a non-Microsoft product. Why not just admit that Microsoft has failed to innovate in the web browser space? IE6 should be an embarassment to all who work at Microsoft, with its status as a slow, security risk-laden tool that is derided by both Gartner and millions of web users. Microsoft's abandonment of innovation and upkeep of IE for the last 5 years is the best proof of the dangers of a market monopoly. The world is voting against Microsoft with the stampede to Firefox (and to a lesser extent Opera), now the walls are beginning to even show strain from within the Microsoft fort itself. I hope your 'friend' has fun using Firefox...we know that you'd never want to give up IE wink - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
It's never a career limitng move to admit you use competition's software. I worked on Mac Software at Microsoft for 5 years, so you'd think I would know that more than anyone :-). - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
The comment has been removed - Anonymous
January 26, 2005
Mouse gestures was mentioned in passing in the above comment. This is a real cool feature in Firefox. Check out more on the same at http://optimoz.mozdev.org/gestures/
The ability to define site-specific skins is another nice feature. Here is one example: http://persistent.info/archives/2004/10/05/gmail-skinning
And I have quite a few keyword searches set up. "g <phrase>" in the address bar gets me google results for the phrase; "i <name>" gets me images from google for the defined name, "mw <word>" gets me webster dictionary for the word, "mwt <word>" gets me the theseraus and so on...
In short, Firefox rocks! :) - Anonymous
January 31, 2005
I STILL experience this one failure with FireFox and Mozilla...the mouse-over text 'bubble' is formatted wonderfully in IE, but is an ugly mess in FireFox and Mozilla...
Check out a good sample here: http://www.quickdrive.com/Borders/BorderCrossings.asp - Anonymous
June 08, 2008
This has to be my favorite feature (I don't really use FireFox, but just started to play around with it). I am always looking for specific text in a web page, and I hate doing the Control-F, rinse, repeat mechanism to find something. FireFox has this