%brandDTD; %platformDTD; ]>

# &brandFullName; &pref.pluralCaps;

This document explains all of the &pref.plural; available in the &pref.pluralCaps; window of &brandFullName;.
In this section:

- General &pref.pluralCaps;
  - Fonts & Colors
  - Languages
  - Connection Settings
- Privacy &pref.pluralCaps;
- Web Features &pref.pluralCaps;
- Download &pref.pluralCaps;
- Advanced &pref.pluralCaps;

## General &pref.pluralCaps;

### Home Page

Here you are able to specify the page (or tab group) that &brandShortName; will show when you launch it or press the Home button. Enter the address in the Location(s) field.

Click Use Current Page(s) to use the page you're currently visiting. You can also use multiple home pages. If more than one browser tab is currently opened, this button will set the whole tab group as a start page.

To specify the home page(s) using a bookmark, click Use Bookmark.... You can even select a whole bookmark folder to be used!

If you don't want a home page to be loaded, click Use Blank Page.

### Fonts & Colors

Click the Fonts & Colors... button to change the default fonts and colors used by &brandShortName;.

Fonts for:
Normally, web pages are displayed in the default font set by your browser or in a font chosen by the web pages' authors.

To change the default fonts:

1. From the Fonts for drop-down list, choose a character set. For instance, to set default fonts for the Western (Roman) character set, choose Western.
2. Select whether proportional text should be serif (like "Times New Roman") or sans-serif (like "Arial"). Then specify the font size you want for proportional text.
3. Specify the font to use for Serif, Sans-serif and Monospace fonts. You can also change the size for `Monospace fonts`.

You can also specify the display resolution, which is normally 96 dpi.

Finally, you can set the minimum font size to be used on screen. This can be useful on some sites that use very small fonts that are barely readable.

Text and Background
Here you can change the default text and background color to be used on web pages that haven't specified that information. Click on the color samples to select colors.

Use system colors
Check this &pref.singular; to use the colors defined in your OS settings instead of the colors specified above.

Link Colors
Here you can change the default colors for Web links. Click on the color samples to select colors.

Underline links
By default, links are underlined on web pages. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable this. Note that many sites specify their own styling rules and this &pref.singular; has no effect on those sites.

Always use my:
Fonts
By default &brandShortName; uses the fonts specified by the web page author. Enabling this &pref.singular; will force all sites to use your default fonts instead.

Colors
By default, &brandShortName; uses the colors specified by the web page author. Enabling this &pref.singular; will force all sites to use your default colors instead.

### Languages

Some web pages are offered in more than one language. Click the Languages button to specify your preferred languages.

Language Selection
To add a language, press Select a language to add..., choose the language, and click the Add button. Remove a language by selecting it in the list of active languages and clicking the Remove button.

You can reorder languages to determine the preferred one in case a page is provided in two or more of your selected languages. Do this using the Move Up and Move Down buttons.

Character Encoding
The character encoding selected here will be used to display pages that do not specify which encoding to use.

### Default Browser

You can set &brandShortName; as the default browser by clicking Set Default Browser. This will ensure &brandShortName; is used whenever an application is trying to display a web page or when you open an HTML file.

### Connection Settings

Your organization or internet service provider may offer or require you to use a proxy. A proxy acts as an intermediary between your computer and the Internet. It intercepts all requests to the Internet to see if it can fulfill the request using its cache. Proxies are used to improve performance, filter requests, and hide your computer from the Internet to improve security. Proxies are often part of a corporate firewall.

Configure Proxies to Access the Internet

Direct connection to the Internet
  This is the default &pref.singular;. Choose this if you don't want to use a proxy.
Manual proxy configuration
  Choose this if you don't have a proxy location (URL). Ask your system administrator for the names and port numbers of the servers running proxy software for each network service and enter the information in the appropriate fields.
Automatic proxy configuration URL
  If your workplace has a proxy configuration file, ask the system administrator for its URL and enter it here. Click Reload to load the settings.

## Privacy &pref.pluralCaps;

The Privacy panel contains &pref.plural; related to your privacy. As you browse the web, information on where you have been, what pages you have visited, etc. are stored here. You can click the Clear button on each section to clear that information. Alternatively you can clear all information stored while browsing by clicking Clear All. A confirmation dialog will be shown before clearing the information.

To display section-specific &pref.plural;, expand a section by clicking on the small + button.

### History

Here you can specify for how many days you want the browser to remember what pages you have visited. The default is 9 days.

### Saved Form Information

Save information I enter in web page forms and the Search bar
When you enter information in web forms, &brandShortName; remembers what you type and automatically makes suggestions when you enter information again. To stop this behavior, uncheck this &pref.singular;.

### Saved Passwords

Remember Passwords
&brandShortName; can securely save passwords you enter in web forms to make it easier to log on to web sites. Clear this checkbox to prevent &brandShortName; from remembering your passwords.

View Saved Passwords
You can manage saved passwords and delete individual passwords by clicking the View Saved Passwords button.

Set/Change Master Password...
&brandShortName; can protect sensitive information such as saved passwords and certificates. If you create a Master Password, &brandShortName; will ask you to enter it once per session as soon as it is needed. You can set, change or delete the master password by clicking this button.

### Download Manager History

The Download Manager (accessible from Tools or by pressing &accelKey;+`J`&accelKey;+`Y`) stores shortcuts to your recent downloads. The Download &pref.plural; are available in the Downloads panel.

### Cookies

A cookie is a file created by a web site that stores information on your computer, such as your preferences when visiting that site.

To display the Cookie Manager click View Cookies.

Allow sites to set cookies
By default cookies are enabled. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable the use of cookies. Note that some sites may not work properly when cookies are disabled.

Learn more about cookies, the individual &pref.plural;, and how you can gain control over what sites are allowed to store cookies on your computer by reading about Managing Cookies.

### Cache

Pages you view are normally stored in a special cache folder for quicker viewing the next time you visit the same page. Here you are able to specify the amount of disk space the cache can use.

## Web Features &pref.pluralCaps;

Block Popup Windows
By default, &brandShortName; blocks annoying popup windows on web sites. Unchecking this &pref.singular; will disable popup blocking.

Some web sites make legitimate use of popup windows. Therefore, you can allow these sites to open popups anyway. To do so, click Allowed Sites, enter the site name, and click Allow.

To remove a web site from the list, select it and then click Remove Site. To clear the list completely, click Remove All Sites. Click OK to confirm your changes or click Cancel to discard them.

Allow web sites to install software
By default, web sites are allowed to install software such as extensions and themes. However, &brandShortName; will always ask you to confirm software installations. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to completely disable extension and theme installation.

Enabling this &pref.singular; is sufficient to install themes. Extensions are more powerful than themes, however, so you must explicitly allow a web site to install its extensions. To do so, click Allowed Sites, enter the site name, and click Allow.

Load Images
By default images are loaded on web pages. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable images completely.

- for the originating web site only
  Enabling this &pref.singular; will make sure that only images located at the current web site are loaded.

Depending on if you enable images, you can change which sites are blocked or which sites can load images by clicking Exceptions. Enter the site you want to allow/deny images from and click Allow to allow images, or click Block to block the images. Click OK to confirm your changes, or click Cancel to discard them.

Enable Java
Java is a popular programming language for the web developed by Sun Microsystems. A single Java program can run on many different kinds of computers, thus avoiding the need for programmers to create a separate version of each program for each kind of computer. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable Java applets in &brandShortName;. Note that in order for Java applets to work, you must install the Java plugin.

Enable JavaScript
JavaScript is a scripting language commonly used to construct web pages. JavaScript is often used to dynamically validate forms and select buttons. Disabling JavaScript may cause some sites to not work properly.

While it is usually recommended to keep JavaScript enabled, there are some functions that you may want to disable. Click the Advanced... button to display these &pref.plural;.

### Allow scripts to:

Move or resize existing windows
  Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable moving and resizing windows using scripts.
Raise or lower windows
  Uncheck this &pref.singular; to make sure scripts cannot raise or lower windows.
Disable or replace context menus
  Uncheck this &pref.singular; to prevent web pages from disabling or changing the &brandShortName; context menu.
Hide the status bar
  Uncheck this &pref.singular; to force the status bar to be displayed in popup windows.
Change status bar text
  Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable annoying status bar text scrolling and Web address hiding.
Change images
  Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable changing of images. Disabling this can make some menus harder to navigate.

## Downloads &pref.pluralCaps;

This panel controls how &brandShortName; handles different file types such as applications, compressed files, and multimedia files.

### Download Folder

Ask me where to save every file
&brandShortName; will ask you where you want the file to be saved whenever you download a file.

Save all files to this folder:
This is the default &pref.singular; in &brandShortName;, and the default folder is the Desktop. You can specify a different folder where all downloads will be saved, such as the "My Downloads" folder. You can browse to a specific folder by selecting Other... from the drop-down list of available folders. To show the folder, click the Show Folder button. This will open the folder in the default file manager.

### File Types

This list contains file types that you have downloaded. You can choose what &brandShortName; should do when clicking on a specific file type. Select the file type you want to modify and click the Change Action... button.

This will display the Change Action window, where you can choose to have the file type opened by an application or saved to disk. For example, if you view lots of media files on web pages, you might want to specify that &brandShortName; always open media files in your media player instead of asking where you want each media file to be saved.

- Open them in the Default application:
  Select this &pref.singular; to open this file type in the default application for that file type (determined by the operating system).
- Open them in this application:
  Select this &pref.singular; to specify another application that should handle this file type. You will see a dialog asking you to specify the application to use.
- Save to Disk
  This &pref.singular; will save the files to disk. If you have the Save all files to this folder &pref.singular; enabled, the files will be saved automatically.

To remove an automatic rule for a file type, select that file type and click the Remove button.

From the Downloads panel, you can also control the plug-ins for &brandShortName;. Click the Plug-Ins... button to display the Plug-Ins window:

From this window, you can control which plug-ins for &brandShortName; can run. For example, if you don't like Flash animations in general but still find a need to have the plug-in installed, you can disable the plug-in here. This will block any Flash ads and animations until you enable the plug-in again.

## Advanced &pref.pluralCaps;

The advanced panel contains many &pref.plural; that are less likely to be used by most people but are still useful and sometimes critical &pref.plural; for some people.

### Accessibility

Move system caret with focus/selection changes
Specifies whether to move the system caret whenever the focus or selection changes. Some accessibility aids, such as screen readers and screen magnifiers, use the system caret to determine which area of the screen to read or magnify.

Begin finding as you begin typing
When this &pref.singular; is enabled, &brandShortName; will find within the current web page what you type as you type it. While you are finding typed text in the page, the Find Toolbar will automatically display at the bottom of the window to show information about what you've found.

### Browsing

Resize large images to fit in the &brandShortName; window
This feature is similar to the one seen in Internet Explorer. It makes images that are larger than can be fit on the screen shrink automatically so you can view the whole picture. Click on the image to view it at full size.

Use autoscrolling
Autoscrolling is a useful feature which allows you to scroll the page by just holding down the middle mouse button (usually the scroll wheel) and move the mouse up or down. Some people find this annoying, so autoscroll can be disabled with this &pref.singular;.

Use smooth scrolling
Smooth scrolling is still somewhat experimental in &brandShortName;, but it can be very useful if you read a lot of long pages. Normally, when you press the Page Down key, the view jumps directly down one page. With Smooth Scrolling, it slides down more smoothly, so you are actually able to see how much it scrolls. This makes it easier to resume reading from where you were before.

### Tabbed Browsing

Open links from other applications in:
When other applications on your computer display a web page, &brandShortName; opens the page in the most recently displayed tab or window. You can make &brandShortName; open the page elsewhere by changing this &pref.singular;.

Force links that open new windows to open in:
&brandShortName; opens new windows from links when web pages request them. If you prefer to use tabs as you browse, this behavior may be counterproductive. You can force &brandShortName; to open links that would normally be opened in new windows to be opened elsewhere. To do so, select the checkbox for this &pref.singular; and choose the behavior you desire.

Hide the tab bar when only one web site is open
If you're only viewing one web page in a &brandShortName; window, the tab bar is not shown. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to always show the tab bar.

Select new tabs opened from links
When you middle-click on Web links (or hold down &accelKey; while clicking with the left mouse button), the links will be opened in a new tab. That tab will not be shown directly; it will be loaded in a background tab. Check this &pref.singular; to load the link in a foreground tab instead, which will show that tab directly.

Select new tabs opened from bookmarks or history
When you open bookmarks or web pages from your browsing history in a new tab, &brandShortName; automatically selects the tab and displays the newly-opened web page. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to load bookmarks and pages from your browsing history in a background tab.

Warn when closing multiple tabs
When you close a window with multiple tabs, &brandShortName; will ask you to confirm your choice. This prevents you from accidentally closing the whole window when you wish to close only the current tab. Uncheck this box to skip past the warning and have &brandShortName; automatically close the window.

### Software Update

&brandShortName; can check whether a new version of your installed extensions or of &brandShortName; itself is available.

&brandShortName;
By default, &brandShortName; will periodically check and notify you when a new version is available. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable the periodic check.

My Extensions
By default, &brandShortName; will periodically check and notify you when a new version for one of your installed extensions is available. Uncheck this &pref.singular; to disable the periodic check.

Click the Check Now button to manually perform a check for updates to &brandShortName; and installed extensions.

### Security

Use SSL 2.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information through SSL2 (Secure Sockets Layer Level 2), the standard protocol for secure transmissions. All secure web sites support this protocol.

Use SSL 3.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information through SSL3 (Secure Sockets Layer Level 3), a protocol that is intended to be more secure than SSL2. Note that some web sites may not support this protocol.

Use TLS 1.0
Specifies whether you want to send and receive secured information through TLS (Transport Layer Security), an open security standard similar to SSL3 (Secure Sockets Layer). Note that some web sites may not support this protocol.

### Certificates

Certificates help perform encryption and decryption of connections to secure sites.

Client Certificate Selection
When a web site requests a secure connection, &brandShortName; will by default automatically use an appropriate certificate. If you wish to manually choose a certificate (for example, if you wish to use a certain type of encryption instead of what is automatically selected), select the &pref.singular; "Ask Every Time" and you'll be in complete control of what certificates you use while browsing.

Manage Certificates
Click the Manage Certificates... button to view stored certificates, import new certificates, and back up or delete old certificates in &brandShortName;.

Manage Security Devices
Security devices can encrypt and decrypt connections and store certificates and passwords. If you need to use a security device other than the one in &brandShortName;, click the Manage Security Devices... button.

### Validation

Validation ensures that certificates used by &brandShortName; are not obsolete.

CRL
&brandShortName; can use CRLs (also known as Certificate Revocation Lists) to ensure that your certificates are not invalid. If you need to add a CRL to &brandShortName; or wish to view information about CRLs you have installed, click the Manage CRLs... button.

OCSP
OCSP (Online Certificate Status Protocol) is a way to validate your certificates every time they are viewed or used. &brandShortName; does not use OCSP by default, but if you want to enable it, you can do so here. You will most likely only need to change this if your Internet environment requires it.

14 October 2004

Copyright © 2003-2004 Contributors to the Mozilla Help Viewer Project.