7 ways to optimize Firefox 3 for a better browsing experience on your notebook

We  can’t  do  much  about your keyboard, but here’s five ways to free up many of the wasted pixels of a stock Firefox 3  installation and browse the web painlessly on a small screen  - plus a couple of bonus  tips on how to make the most out of your low-powered CPU.

Full Screen

I  often  come  across  videos  and other  elements  embedded  in  pages that are  too big for  the  tiny viewing window. This one is easily dealt with. Just hit F11 to switch to full screen mode - all your toolbars and your operating system’s Dock/Taskbar will be hidden. Combine this with auto-HideStatusbar (which we’ll get to in a moment) and you can utilize every last pixel on your notebook display for browsing the web.

Zoom
It’s  relatively  uncommon  to  find a  site  that’s  optimized  for  screen resolutions wider  than  1024  pixels, but  it happens, and  it can make  life a real pain. Not only do you have to scroll  horizontally  to  see  the whole page,  but  that  extra  scroll  bar  takes up another chunk of valuable vertical screen  real estate. Fortunately, Firefox’s Zoom function allows you to deal with sites like this quickly and painlessly. Hitting  Control/Apple  and  -  de-creases  the  size  of  the  page, while Control/Apple  and  +  increases  it. Control/Apple and 0 resets to the original size.  By default, the behavior will scale all elements of the page, and doesn’t seem to break any layouts, so it’s just like zooming in or out while viewing a digital photograph.  Very handy.  If  you  want to  resize  the  text  only,  go  to View menu,  and  under  the  Zoom  submenu, select “Zoom Text Only”.

Use Small Icons
Firefox 3 sports some pretty massive icons - in particular, the back and forward buttons. They look great, but we can easily trim the fat for a better browsing experience. Just right click the Reload, Stop or Home button and select “Customize...” from the context menu. At the bottom of the window that pops up, check the box next to “Use Small Icons” and click “Done”. Easy.

Auto Hide Statusbar
While  you  can  remove  the  status bar  by  deselecting  the  “Status Bar” option under  the View menu,  I find it’s pretty handy  to keep around  for a couple of reasons. For starters, you can hover over a link to determine the URL that the link is pointing to. It’s also handy to see what’s happening while a page is loading. The thing is,  it’s  pretty  useless  the  rest  of  the time, and it takes up another 20 or so vertical pixels. The autoHideStatusbar extension allows you to hide the status bar until over a user-definable area  at  the bottom of  the  screen, or hover over a link for a user definable period of time. It will also unhide it-self while a page is loading, if you want.https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/frefox/addon/1530

Personal Menu
How often do you use the File (and other) menus?  If  you’re  like me,  almost  never,  and much  likes the  status  bar,  it’s  just  wasting space  for  the  rest of  the  time. The Personal Menu extension allows you to hide them all behind a button to the right of your search bar. Then you can right click the Stop, Reload or Home buttons and deselect “Menu Toolbar” and reclaim another 20 or so pixels.https://addons.mozilla.org/frefox/addon/3895

Close Other Tabs
While  this  isn’t  related  to  screen real estate, it’s a handy tip for people like me who are still used  to having 50 or more tabs open on a more powerful  machine  with  a  much  bigger display, and can’t seem to break the fen dish habit. When you find things grinding to a halt, just right click the tab  you’re  currently  viewing,  and click “Close Other Tabs” to give that Atom  CPU  a  break  and  get  things rolling again.

Download the Firefox 3.1 Beta 2
Using  Firefox  3.1  Beta  2  is  a good  idea for notebook users, as  it is much  snappier  than  the  current stable  Firefox  3  release.  All the functionality and extensions mentioned in this article function perfectly with Beta 2

http://www.gizmag.com/7-ways-to-optimize-firefox-3-for-low-resolutions-on-a-netbook/10966/