Firefox 3.0's Killer Feature

      by Wyatt Walter

It seems like every time I try out a new version of a piece of software that I use, there’s a feature that really makes me mad and then later I realize I can’t live without it. Firefox 3.0 was no exception. When I first started using the beta, the first thing that I noticed that was different was that it searched both the URL and the page titles of your history when typing into the address bar. I use the history in my browser to a great extent and it seemed to get in my way when I was trying to get at what I needed to and I struggled to find it.

I was really frustrated when the software didn’t react as it used to. For example, I use Webmin to a great extent both personally and at work. Whenever I wanted to webmin.com, I’d start typing ‘webmin’ in the address bar and once my history started popping up, I’d hit the down arrow, hit enter and I was there. Now, when I do the same thing I get taken to my Webmin login pages since “Webmin” is in the title of the page and I tend to go there first. That change frustrated me to no end until one day I wanted to get logged into one of my systems. Absent-mindedly, I started typing in “webmin” into the address bar, hit the down arrow and hit enter. Without even realizing it, I was brought to the place I wanted to go without typing in the address. Now, it comes second nature. In my work I use the Zimbra wiki a lot and tend to go to a lot of the same pages for reference, and I can just type in “wiki Zimbra” and then the topic I want to find the pages very easily. Even though Firefox 3 is still fairly new, I don’t know what I’d do without that feature anymore. Mozilla did a great job of giving the me what I really needed, not what I thought I needed.

Filed under Uncategorized : Comments (0) : Aug 24th, 2008