Firefox Settings

What is Firefox?
(selected text from their website)

Our Opinion

A Browser that works. This is an alternative to Internet Explorer and from our experience, its much more reliable and consistent on a day-to-day basis and is much more robust. It is more difficult to crash Firefox than Internet Explorer which seems to crash by simply plugging in a coffee pot in the Employee break room next door. There is more information available at their site, including:

Open Source, More Secure

At the heart of Firefox is an open source development process driven by thousands of passionate, experienced developers and security experts spread all over the world. Our openness and active community of experts helps to ensure our products are more secure and updated quickly, while also enabling us to take advantage of the best third party security scanning and evaluation tools to further bolster overall security.

Accessibility

Firefox delivers a better browsing experience for everyone - including those who are visually impaired. Firefox includes support for DHTML accessibility. Web developers can create pages that reduce the amount of tabbing required to navigate a document to minimize keystrokes for those with mobility disabilities. Firefox also includes support for Microsoft Active Accessibility, Microsoft’s accessibility API standard for Windows. This support allows Firefox to work with screen readers such as GW Micro’s Window-Eyes and Freedom Scientific’s JAWS. Firefox 2 (Windows version) meets US federal government requirements that software be easily accessible to users with physical impairments.

We fought the change to Firefox. "We want our Microsoft to work!" was the cry for years. Good Luck. After 3 decades of writing software and managing hardware from mainframes to Novell networks and 500 station Nuclear Power Plant systems that had to be reliable, the CEO of Gold Pact Power finally gave in. "Its a more secure and reliable product, so ok, I'll try it. Why not?"

The result for our programming team was unexpected. We found the CODE USED IN FIREFOX (i.e. Javascript) and the associated syntax is more strict: which is a pain!

But this demonstrates that Microsoft is actually running a very sloppy Browser; you can code html and Javascript incorrectly and it runs in Microsoft one day and then crashes the next.

In Firefox, the same sloppy code might run, but you get warning messages and a very nice error console and the errors make sense: you forgot the quote, you forgot the ID tag, you forgot something and the error was a valid error message. Many of the errors from Internet Explorer have no message or can't be fixed since you don't know why it isn't working.

Firefox doesn't have these issues. If a web page or script doesn't work the error message is easy to deal with, making the fix a very simple process and the results are consistent and reliable.

Therefore, if you want a reliable, robust browser, you select Firefox. If you insist on continuing to use Internet Explorer, results may vary greatly from one PC to the next and sometimes from one day to the next; very strange.

Firefox also has a lot of nice features such as spell checking and Session Restore: when your PC crashes because you are running Microsoft products, and you reboot, Firefox can go back and resume right where you left off...pretty neat trick.

If you can't get Internet Explorer to work correctly, it isn't your fault! Microsoft products often behave like unreliable junk and the team that designed IE should have been fired right after they fired the team that released it without thoroughly testing it on 1000s of web sites. Dump IE and get something that works.

Firefox isn't perfect, but it often works better than Microsoft Internet Explorer and is free and will work on your PC.
Click here to return to the Home Page

TIME: depending on how fast you are with computers this requires 5 - 30 minutes.

Have you already installed Firefox? If so, click here.

Be careful downloading Firefox from forged web sites. These versions could have viruses. The same thing can happen with any software, even Internet Explorer.

Firefox is made and distributed by www.mozilla.com. The URL address in your ADDRESS BAR at the top should reflect that URL or a web page such as http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox.

Firefox has won
its share of awards

The smart thing is to try them both for a week or two and then see which you prefer or use them both. You can have both of them installed and switch back and forth whenever you want. At the Gold Pact Power websites, you'll find Firefox works more reliably, especially when doing accounting that crunches numbers for $100,000,000 wind farms.

So far much of the world is making a switch to Firefox and since Firefox is an OPEN SOURCE program, it will be around for a long time and get better with age. Its free, its more reliable, it is being upgraded constantly and it works. What else do you want?

Note: the IMAGES below are just samples.
The actual screen you see as you follow
the instructions may be slightly different.

Follow along with the instructions on the right
Use the DOWN ARROW KEY to review each instruction
and make changes to your own settings.

After installing Firefox and
clicking TOOLS-OPTIONS
you should see something like this.

 Firefox Settings: (1 of 9)

Firefox is a lot easier to configure than Internet Explorer. The control panel is very easy to use. Here are the recommended settings that seem to work well with our system.

AFTER you have read the instructions above and to the left, and Firefox is installed, click the TOOLS - OPTIONS menu.

 Firefox Settings: (2 of 9)

Next, click the MAIN tab at the top and set your HOMEPAGE to Google or some favorite place. If you are using this Browser strictly for our system, set it to http://goldpactpower.com.

If you have already Bookmarked our site with Firefox you can click the USE BOOKMARK button.

If not, here is a test of your PC skills that will get the job done.

Try to CUT AND PASTE the phrase

http://goldpactpower.com

into the Firefox Home Page.

  1. Left-click and drag the mouse over the URL above.
  2. It should highlight to a different color.
  3. Then right-click and copy.
  4. Then left click in the area on the Firefox settings where you type the home page URL. This isn't the image at left. This is in the REAL FIREFOX TOOLS-OPTIONS page you opened in the instructions above.
  5. Then right-click PASTE and the URL should appear in the Home Page box.

Practice cutting and pasting text to save typing.

 Firefox Settings: (3 of 9)

Next, select the TABS tab at the top. I prefer to open a new window and I like a few warnings when I try to close everything.

It is rather important to SWITCH to a new open window immediately.

 Firefox Settings: (4 of 9)

Under the CONTENTS tab, make sure JavaScript is enabled. Java (which is different from JavaScript) is a bug laden crash and burn product made by other people and the Microsoft version of Java is horrible. It crashes and locks up constantly so I don't enable that. JavaScript MUST be enabled to use our website.

You can set the Fonts to any size you find confortable and then click the ADVANCED TAB next to the JavaScript setting. I checked everything so the scripts can move windows around easily. Actually even Firefox has problems and some of these settings don't work, but its as good as it gets.

 Firefox Settings: (5 of 9)

Skip the FEEDS setting and go to the Privacy settings tab.

I don't like Browsers to REMEMBER anything about my session except what I have downloaded in case I need to find something or something was downloaded without my permission. I do allow cookies, but as soon as my Firefox session ends, they are erased.

Also click the ALWAYS CLEAR MY PRIVATE DATA button to erase anything stored on your hard drive from your Browser session that may be sensitive (this only erases Internet Cookies and information about your session) and then click the ADVANCED PRIVACY setting and set it to erase everything you may have stored (cookies) during your session as soon as you exit Firefox.

 Firefox Settings: (6 of 9)

Under the SECURITY tab, I have it set to warn me if anyone tries to install anything without my permission and then tell me if any sites are forged or have problems.

 Firefox Settings: (7 of 9)

The ADVANCED - GENERAL tab is pretty simple: set your scrolling to whichever method is more comfortable (this is so easy you can try it and set it back) and then have it Spell Check for you as you type (optional).

 Firefox Settings: (8 of 9)

The ADVANCED - NETWORK tab I set mine for about 400 megabytes of stored space. That's plenty for most of the work you will do and you could set it for much less.

 Firefox Settings: (9 of 9)

The ADVANCED - UPDATES tab I set mine for NO AUTOMATIC UPDATES by unchecking everything. I don't want anyone downloading things to my PC unless I ask for it.

This is a big difference between Firefox and Microsoft which will download things constantly without you knowing about it and then maybe it will tell you later. Microsoft Internet Explorer is actually quite intrusive, it invades your privacy, your PC and is pure junk and isn't getting any better.

When you are all finished, click OK and try the tests at the top of this page again.

Bill Gates and the Head of General Motors both die in a plane crash. Bill says "Hey, why didn't you install Windows in all your cars?" and the Head of GM replied "We didn't think our customers would want to buy a car that crashed five times a day."

...badda-bing-badda-boom.

These suggestions are brought to you by someone who has run 3 computer stores and started writing software and fixing computers back when a 10 megabyte hard drive cost $500. You can ignore the advice, but here it is:

  1. DO NOT buy a new PC. Buy a used one with a guarantee that has Windows 2000 or XP on it. Windows 2000 with Service Pack 4 is actually more robust. If you need a PC for full multimedia action get XP and use it as a personal PC. Your business PC should be the most reliable device you own and that probably means Windows 2000 and not ME, XP or Vista. If you are still on 95 or 98, please move up.

    "A Genentech Doctor is a neighbor of the CEO of GPP and was laughing about Vista, the new Microsoft release, saying "Unfortunately when a friend installs Vista and it crashes and asks how do I fix this, I have to tell them the upgrade for Vista is XP - the older version of Microsoft's operating system."

    We suggest that if you want something even more reliable, stick with Windows 2000 until Uncle Bill comes up with a more reliable OS than either XP or Vista. If you have XP Home Version you are doomed to crash and burn web sessions and life with a crippled computer. Sorry. We think they planned it that way so you'd have to buy XP pro and therefore have been forced to make two purchases instead of one: a dirty trick to tap into your wallet.

  2. DO NOT expect that Millenium, Vista or XP Home Version will ever work right. They are pure junk. You got ripped off by Microsoft and there is nothing you can do about it except get rid of it and get a copy of XP pro.

  3. DO NOT buy an Apple or Mac. Pure junk that doesn't belong in the business world and we've had some nasty arguments with Apple heads who issue documents from their PC that simply aren't compatible with Microsoft and can't be read easily by the rest of the world. Sure, apples and Macs are great for photo and music processing. Sure, you can make it work with the rest of the world with enough adjustments, but hardware is more expensive, technical support is more expensive (and hard to find) and it just isn't the dream machine as advertised, although their swtch to a Unix OS was a step in the right direction. Where are you going to get a fully functional business PC for $50? Not an Apple or a Mac, but there are plenty of PCs out there in that price range that will do the job nicely.

  4. DO NOT run a PC without a hard Firewall in between your computer and the Internet. A router is a great item for $40 that can save you all kinds of problems.

  5. DO NOT download emails with Outlook. That is the fastest way to get a virus on Earth. Outlook is junk. Get your emails online.

  6. DO NOT visit Porn Sites. If you want to find every nasty virus in the world, the funny thing is, like disease, many of them come from Porn sites.

  7. DO NOT let your kids install game software they got at school. At lot of that stuff also has Viruses and problems in it.

  8. DO let your kids have their own PC. That way if they wreck it they can learn how to fix it at a Kids Computer Kamp lab and then you have your own Tech at home who can keep your PC alive too...a very smart idea.

  9. DO try Firefox. It will fix 99% of the Browser problems you are having with Internet Explorer.