In its basic state Firefox is not pretty, inspiring or particularly secure though it is far better than Internet Explorer out of the box. To set it up requires some more steps to install add-ons and set-up the options which enhance Firefox's security and the user interface.

Setting up Firefox Options.

Before you set up Firefox, run it and go to your normal homepage unless you imported it from IE in which case the homepage will be the same as usual. I use Google as a homepage as it is clean, not full of junk and advertising I don't want and is not running flash video, sound or all the other rubbish MSN / Yahoo etc favours. Furthermore from Google I can find anything I need without relying on Microsoft or Yahoo to direct me to "preferred sites".

1. At the top of the browser select Tools > Options.

2. You should then see the following. This is the main options screen, make sure all your boxes and buttons are identical to the screenshot. To keep Google as default home page click in the "Use Current Page" box.

3. Click the "Tabs" icon then set up as below.

4. OK tricky one,click on the Content Icon and you will see the following, what we want to do here is prevent websites from blocking your browser functions to prevent you downloading photos and various other dirty tricks, we do this by tweaking the Advanced Java Script options. Click on the "Advanced" box opposite "Enable Java Script"

4. In the following screen ensure the tick boxes are identical to the screenshot (Advanced Javascript Settings) then click "OK"

5. Applications Tab below allows you to choose what Firefox does with various forms of files it downloads. Unless you know exactly what you are doing don't touch anything.

6. Privacy Tab below (shown as default setup); the only thing to change here is possibly "Keep my history for at least" XX days. I set mine to 1 day because anything more than a day old in my browser is ancient history, you set yours to what you like.

7. Security Tab - should look like it does below but if its a shared computer it is a very good idea to untick "Remember passwords for sites".

8. After this you will be back on the main options screen again, click on the Advanced Icon, then select the "Updates" Tab. Set your tick boxes as below then finally click "OK"

9. Thats the basic security options done, next we make Firefox look a lot better, run a lot faster and be far more secure by installing a few themes, and extensions known as "add ons"

Installing Add Ons >>>

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