Chapter 1. Hitting the Ground Running with Firefox

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Installing Firefox

• Understanding Bookmarks and Favorites

• Synchronizing with Internet Explorer

• Making Firefox the Default Browser

• Installation and Configuration Secrets for Power Users

This chapter seems somewhat out of place with an advanced book such as this one. However, we have to start somewhere. Installing any application means that we first must have the product to install. We are going to work with several products in this book. Firefox is available from a few locations; however, I strongly recommend that you use http://www.mozilla.org/ as a starting point.

Caution

Careful! Do not confuse the site www.firefox.org with Mozilla or the Firefox web browser. This site is actually the site of a web designer and is not connected with Mozilla!

The Internet and Web have made this world of ours smaller. We, as Internet users, should try to accommodate people from various countries. Most of us speak English, but not everyone speaks it. Many other languages are spoken throughout the world.

If you want a language other than the default (English), click the hyperlink on the Mozilla site for Other Systems and Languages. This enables you to download Firefox Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux i686 versions in a number of languages. More languages are added from time to time, and if the language you are interested in is not listed, maybe you can do the translation!

Note

What should you do if the Mozilla product you are interested in does not support your language? This is where Open Source becomes valuable you can convert (and translate) the application as needed for your language. I won't say this is easy to do, but that is how these products support languages they were not originally written for. You could see how others have done this type of translation and do yours the same way. You should use a system that enables you to transport your language modifications to newer versions of the product as they appear.