Chapter 2. Installing and Configuring Firefox

Getting Firefox is incredibly easy: just head over to the official Mozilla Organization web site, at http://www.mozilla.org. At the time of this writing, it's impossible to miss Firefoxthe top half of the web page is a gigantic graphic encouraging you to download the browser. You can also go directly to the Firefox page at http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/, or use the easy-to-remember http://www.getfirefox.com.

The Mozilla web site will automatically detect the operating system you're using and will provide an appropriate Firefox download.

Where is it?

If you're looking for the Windows download, but you're not using a Windows machine to download the browser, click the link for "Other Systems and Languages," or go directly to http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/all.html.

Click the download link and save the installer to your hard drive (note that Mozilla, in order to spread the load and make downloads easier, has allowed official sites all over the world to offer copies of the installer, so you will probably not download it from mozilla.org directly). If you have a folder to which you always save downloads, use that; otherwise, make things easy on yourself and just save the Firefox installer on your desktop, where it will be easy to find.

Take your pick

If you do a lot of poking around on the web site, you may eventually notice that there are actually three different versions of Firefox available: stable, beta, and nightly. The nightly build will be as up to date as you can possibly get, but it will suffer from potentially serious bugs and other defects; the beta will be better but will still have issues. If stability and security are your goals, stick to the official releases, which occur a couple of times each year.