%brandDTD; ] > # #Contributors: # David Tenser (original author)

# &brandFullName; Options

This document explains all of the options available in the Options window of &brandFullName;.
In this section:

- General Options
  - Fonts & Colors
  - Connection Settings
- Privacy Options
- Web Features Options
- Download Options
- Themes Options
- Extensions Options
- Advanced Options

## General Options

### Home Page

Specify the page or tab group that &brandShortName; will display after it is opened or when the Home button is clicked. Enter the address in the Location field.

Click Use Current Page(s) to use the page you're currently visiting. You can also use multiple home pages. If more than one browser tab is currently opened, this button will set the whole tab group as home page.

To specify the home page(s) using a bookmark, click Use Bookmark.... You can even select a whole bookmark folder to use as multiple home pages!

If you don't want a home page to be loaded, click Use Blank Page.

### Fonts & Colors

Click the Fonts & Colors... button to change the default fonts and colors used by &brandShortName;.

Fonts for:
Normally, web pages are displayed in the default font set by &brandShortName; or in a font chosen by the web page's author. To change the default fonts:

1. From the Fonts for drop-down list, choose a character set. For instance, to set default fonts for the Western (Roman) character set, choose Western.
2. Select whether proportional text should be serif (like "Times New Roman") or sans-serif (like "Arial"). Then specify the font size you want for proportional text.
3. Specify the font to use for serif, sans-serif and monospace fonts. You can also change the size for monospace fonts.

You can also specify the display resolution (normally 96dpi) by selecting Other... in the drop-down list of resolutions.

Finally, you can set the minimum font size to be used on screen. This can be useful on sites that use very small or unreadable fonts.

Text and Background
Here you can change the default text and background color to be used on Web pages that haven't specified that information. Click on the color samples to select colors.

Use system colors
Check this option to use the colors defined in your OS settings instead of the colors specified above.

Link Colors
Here you can change the default colors for Web links. Click on the color samples to select colors.

Underline links
By default &brandShortName; underlines all links. Uncheck this option to prevent link underlining. Note that many sites specify their own link styling rules; this option has no effect on those sites.

Always use my:
Fonts
By default &brandShortName; uses the fonts specified by the Web page author. Enabling this option will force all sites to use your default fonts instead.

Colors
By default, &brandShortName; uses the colors specified by the Web page author. Enabling this option will force all sites to use your default colors instead.

### Default Browser

On Windows you can set &brandShortName; as the default browser by clicking Set Default Browser. This will ensure &brandShortName; is used whenever an application tries to display a Web site or when you open an HTML file. This feature has no effect on Linux or Macintosh.

### Connection Settings

Many organizations block access from the Internet to their networks. This prevents outside parties from gaining access to sensitive information. This protection is called a firewall.

If your organization has a firewall, &brandShortName; may need to go through a proxy server before connecting you to the Internet. The proxy server prevents outsiders from breaking into your organization's private network.

Configure Proxies to Access the Internet

Direct connection to the Internet
  This is the default option. Choose this if you don't want to use a proxy.
Manual proxy configuration
  Choose this if you don't have a proxy location (URL). Ask your system administrator for the names and port numbers of the servers running proxy software for each network service and enter the information in the appropriate fields.
Automatic proxy configuration URL
  If your workplace has a proxy configuration file, ask the system administrator for its URL and enter it here. Click Reload to load the settings.

## Privacy Options

The Privacy panel contains options related to your privacy. As you browse the web &brandShortName; stores information on where you have been, what pages you have visited, and other browsing statistics. Click the Clear button on each section to clear that information. Alternatively you can clear all information stored while browsing by clicking Clear All. A confirmation dialog will be shown before the information is cleared.

To display section-specific options, expand a section by clicking on the small + button.

### History

Here you can specify how long you want &brandShortName; to remember what pages you have visited. The default is 9 days.

### Saved Form Information

Save information I enter in web page forms and the Search bar
When you enter information in web forms, &brandShortName; remembers what you type and automatically makes suggestions when you enter information again. To stop this behavior, uncheck this option.

### Saved Passwords

Remember Passwords
&brandShortName; is capable of securely storing passwords you enter in web forms to make it easier to log on to Web sites. You can manage the saved passwords and delete individual passwords by clicking View Saved Passwords. To stop saving passwords alltogether, uncheck this option.

### Download Manager History

The Download Manager (accessible from Tools or by pressing `Ctrl`+`E`) stores shortcuts to your recent downloads. The Download options are available in the Downloads panel.

### Cookies

A cookie is a file created by a Web site that stores information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting that site.

Learn more about cookies and how you can gain control over what sites are allowed to store cookies on your computer by reading about Managing Cookies.

To display the Cookie Manager click Stored Cookies.

Enable Cookies
By default cookies are enabled. Uncheck this option to disable the use of cookies. Note that some sites may not work properly when cookies are disabled.

for the originating Web site only
  Selecting this option will restrict cookie usage to the originating Web site only, meaning that no foreign cookies will be stored. To learn more about this, read about managing cookies.
for the current session only
  If this option is selected, cookie information will be removed when you restart &brandShortName;. Web sites requiring the use of cookies will still work, but if you restart &brandShortName;, the Web site will think that you logged into the site for the first time again.
but ask before accepting
  When this option is enabled, a confirmation dialog will be displayed each time a site tries to save a cookie on your computer.

### Cache

Pages you view are normally stored in a special cache folder for quicker viewing the next time you visit the same page. You can specify the amount of disk space the cache can use here.

## Web Features Options

Block Popup Windows
By default, &brandShortName; blocks annoying popup windows on Web sites. Unchecking this option will disable popup blocking.

Some sites make legitimate use of popup windows. Therefore, the popup blocking feature has a simple whitelist mechanism to allow certain sites to open popups anyway. To add a site to the whitelist, click Add Site....

To remove a site from the whitelist, select that site from the list and then click Remove Site. To clear the whitelist completely, click Remove All Sites.

Enable Java
Java is a popular programming language for the web developed by Sun Microsystems. A single Java program can run on many different kinds of computers, thus avoiding the need for programmers to create a separate version of each program for each kind of computer. Uncheck this option to disable Java applets in &brandShortName;. Note that in order for Java applets to work, you must install the Java plugin.

Enable JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language commonly used to construct web pages. JavaScript is often used to dynamically validate forms and select buttons. Disabling JavaScript may cause some sites to not work properly.

While it is usually recommended to keep JavaScript enabled, there are some functions that you may want to disable. Click the Advanced... button to display these options.

### Allow scripts to:

Move or resize existing windows
  Uncheck this option to disable moving and resizing windows using scripts.
Raise or lower windows
  Uncheck this option to make sure scripts cannot raise or lower windows.
Hide the status bar
  Uncheck this option to force the status bar to be displayed in popup windows.
Change status bar text
  Uncheck this option to disable annoying status bar text scrolling and Web address hiding.
Change images
  Uncheck this option to disable changing of images. Disabling this can make some menus harder to navigate.

Load Images
By default images are loaded on Web pages. Uncheck this option to disable images completely. If images are loaded, you can still specify not to load images from certain sites by clicking Permissions....

- for the originating Web site only
  Enabling this option will make sure that only images located at the current Web site are loaded.

The Image Manager window lists all servers for which you are currently blocking images. To block a server (often an advertising server), right click on an image on a Web page and select Block Images from <server>. To unblock a site, select that server from the Image Manager and click Remove Site. To unblock all sites so all images are shown, click Remove All Sites.

## Downloads Options

This panel controls how &brandShortName; handles different file types such as applications, compressed files, and multimedia files.

### Download Folder

Ask me where to save every file
This is the default option. &brandShortName; will ask you where you want the file to be saved whenever you download a file.

Save all files to this folder:
Alternatively, you can specify a default folder where all downloads will be saved, such as the "My Downloads" folder. You can browse to a specific folder by selecting Other... from the drop-down list of available folders. To show the folder, click the Show Folder button. This will open the folder in the default file manager.

### File Types

This list contains file types that you have downloaded. You can choose what &brandShortName; should do when clicking on a specific file type. Select the file type you want to modify and click the Change Action... button.

This will display the Change Action window, where you can choose to have the file type opened by an application or saved to disk. For example, if you view lots of media files on Web pages, you might want to specify that &brandShortName; always open media files in your media player insted of asking where you want each media file to be saved.

- Open them in the Default application:
  Select this option to open this file type in the default application for that file type (determined by the operating system).
- Open them in this application:
  Select this option to specify another application that should handle this file type. You will see a dialog asking you to specify the application to use.
- Save to Disk
  This option will save the files to disk. If you have the Save all files to this folder option selected, the files will be saved automatically.

To remove an automatic rule for a file type, select that file type and click the Remove button.

From the Downloads panel, you can also control the plug-ins for &brandShortName;. Click the Plug-Ins... button to display the Plug-Ins window:

From this window, you can control which plug-ins for &brandShortName; can run. For example, if you don't like Flash animations in general but still find a need to have the plug-in installed, you can disable the plug-in here. This will block any Flash ads and animations until you enable the plug-in again.

## Themes Options

Switch themes and uninstall existing themes in this panel. Select a theme from the list and click OK to switch to that theme.

To download more themes, click on the Get New Themes link.

To uninstall a theme, select it and click Uninstall Theme. (Note that you can't uninstall the currently loaded theme or the built-in default theme. You also can't uninstall Modern if it exists in the themes list.)

## Extensions Options

You can enable, disable, or change settings for installed extensions in this panel. To install extensions, click on the Get New Extensions link.

Some extensions offer the ability to change settings. To change settings for an extension, select it and click Settings. This button is disabled if there are no settings for the selected extension.

To disable an extension, select it and click Disable Extension. You can't uninstall an extension yet. This is planned in a future release of &brandShortName;.

## Advanced Options

The advanced panel contains many options that are less likely to be used by most people but are still useful and sometimes critical options for some.

### Accessibility

Move system caret with focus/selection changes
Specifies whether to move the system caret whenever the focus or selection changes. Some accessibility aids, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers, use the system caret to determine which area of the screen to read or magnify.

Use Find As You Type
Find As You Type is a very useful feature in &brandShortName;. It is a fast way of finding links or text in a Web page without the need of displaying complex search dialogs. Read more about Find As You Type at mozilla.org.

- to search links only
  By default Find As You Type only searches text withing Web links. Uncheck this option to make Find As You Type search plain text as well.

### Browsing

Hide the tab bar when only one Web site is open
If you're only viewing one Web page in a &brandShortName; window, the tab bar is not shown. Uncheck this option to always show the tab bar.

Select new tabs opened from links
When you middle-click on Web links (or hold down Ctrl while clicking with the left mouse button), the links will be opened in a new tab. That tab will not be shown directly; it will be loaded in a background tab. Check this option to load the link in a foreground tab instead, which will show that tab directly.

Use autoscrolling
Autoscrolling is a useful feature which allows you to scroll the page by just holding down the middle mouse button (usually the scroll wheel) and move the mouse up or down. Some people find this annoying so here's the option for it.

Use smooth scrolling
Smooth scrolling is still somewhat experimental in &brandShortName;, but it can be very useful if you read a lot of long pages. Normally, when you press the Page Down key, the view jumps directly down one page. With Smooth Scrolling, it slides down more smoothly, so you are actually able to see how much it scrolls. This makes it easier to resume reading from where you were before.

### Multimedia

Resize large images to fit in the &brandShortName; window
This feature is similar to the one seen in Internet Explorer. It makes images that are larger than can be fit on the screen shrink automatically so you can view the whole picture. Click on the image to view it at full size.

### Security

Use SSL 2.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information through SSL2 (Secured Sockets Layer Level 2), the standard protocol for secure transmissions. All secure Web sites support this protocol.

Use SSL 3.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information through SSL3 (Secured Sockets Layer Level 3), a protocol that is intended to be more secure than SSL2. Note that some Web sites may not support this protocol.

Use TLS 1.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information through TLS (Transport Layer Security), an open security standard similar to SSL3 (Secure Sockets Layer). Note that some Web sites may not support this protocol.

### Certificates

The Certificates section is provisional and will be changed or removed in future releases. It is not covered in this document.

### Validation

The Validation section is provisional and will be changed or removed in future releases. It is not covered in this document.

20 September 2003

Copyright © 2003 Contributors to the Firebird Help Project.