Last night I was trying to watch a Quicktime streaming video in Firefox and I kept on getting this annoying message about not having the appropiate plug-ins installed. So I wondered, how am I meant to know which plugins are correctly installed for Firefox? The answer came to me in the shape of a nice Mozilla trick: just type “about:plugins” in the browser’s address bar and you’ll see a list of all the plug-ins you’ve installed so far.
This little tip reminded me of a couple other Firefox tricks I’d like to share. You may already know them but hey, there are always novice users out there.
First, here’s another “about” tip which you can use. Type “about:config” in the address bar and you’ll obtain a large list of configuration variables that rule your browser’s behavior. What’s more, you can customize them in order to change the default search properties, make pages render more quickly or control the private data stored by Firefox; and much more besides.
Second, there are some keyboard shortcuts which are really useful for web browsing, even if you’re more comfortable with the mouse. Combinations include CRTL+T to open a new tab, CTRL+L to focus on the address bar and CTRL+K to activate the search box on the right side of the Firefox interface.
One last tip: try typing “about:mozilla” in the browser’s address bar and see what you get. Don’t you love Easter eggs?
