Oracle of ONE1

I use Firefox regularly and am quite happy with its feature set and extensibility. There are a few options that I change to enhance my experience and security. These are:

1. Domain guessing
2. Internet keywords
3. Keyworded bookmarks

I turn off Domain guessing and Internet keywords; and instead use Keyworded bookmarks extensively. Accessing two of these settings requires entering about:config in the address bar. This provides direct access to Firefox’s configuration settings but is not recommended for novices. Learn more on about:config. When you are done with your settings just close the window/tab displaying about:config.

Domain Guessing

This feature converts a poorly formatted address and guesses what properly formatted address you really wanted. See Domain Guessing for details. I disable Domain Guessing as a security enhancement. I do not wish to be automatically taken to a web site based upon my mis-typing.

Disable it

1. Go to about:config
2. Search for the setting browser.fixup.alternate.enabled, easiest to just type fixup in the filter bar
3. Double click the entry to change it from true to FALSE

Internet Keywords

This feature submits any word entered in the address bar to a search engine and then automatically directs you to the first search result. See Internet Keywords for details. I disable Internet Keywords for security reasons.

Disable it

1. Go to about:config
2. Search for the setting keyword.enabled, easiest to just type keyword in the filter bar
3. Double click the entry to change it from true to FALSE

Keyworded Bookmarks

Now that I have disabled two features that provide shortcuts for address bar entries, I will add my own keyword shortcuts. Once done, I can just type in:

• mail to be taken to my corporate webmail
• wiki to go to my wiki
• blog to be taken to my blog’s login page
• etc

The simple steps are (in Firefox 3.3.6):

1. Add your most used web site pages as bookmarks
2. Use the menu Bookmarks > Organize Bookmarks (or Ctrl+Shift+B)
3. Select a bookmark
4. In the bottom left click the More button
5. Add you keyword
6. Close the window

Now type your keyword into the address bar and quickly access your most used sites.