Get started with Firefox - An overview of the main features

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New to Firefox? Well you’ve come to the right place. This article covers all the basics and will get you up and running in just a few minutes. It also has tons of links to other great articles that you might want to explore later.

Browsing the web

One-click bookmarking

To create a bookmark, click on the star icon on the Location bar. That's it! For more about using bookmarks, including tagging and organizing, see Bookmarks in Firefox.
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To create a bookmark, click on the star icon in the navigation bar. That's it! For more about using bookmarks, including tagging and organizing, see Bookmarks in Firefox.

Built-In Search and Awesome Bars

  • Awesome Bar lets you easily find websites you've been to before. Just start to type the name or address of a website in the address bar and watch it appear. To learn more Awesome Bar tricks, including searching through your open tabs and searching the web, see Address bar autocomplete suggestions in Firefox.


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Private Browsing

Firefox’s Private Browsing feature allows you to browse the Internet without saving any information to your computer about which sites and pages you’ve visited.

To start Private Browsing, go to the top of the Firefox window, the menu bar, click the Firefox buttonTools menu and select Start Private Browsing. Read the Private Browsing - Use Firefox without saving history article to learn more.
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To open a Private Browsing window, go to the top of the Firefox window, the menu bar, click the Firefox buttonFile menu and select New Private Window. Read the Private Browsing - Use Firefox without saving history article to learn more.
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Top open a Private Browsing window, click on the Menu button The image "new fx menu" does not exist., and select New Private Window.

Tabs tabs tabs!

Tabs let you have multiple websites open inside a single window, keeping your screen clutter-free and making it easy to switch between sites. To make a new tab, click the new tab button (+) on the right side of the last tab. To learn more about working with tabs, see Use tabs to organize lots of websites in a single window.


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Pinned tabs: Want to keep your favorite sites open? Pin them! Just right-clickcontrol-click on the tab and select Pin Tab from the menu. To learn more about how Pinned Tabs work, see Pinned Tabs - keep favorite websites open and just a click away.

Customizing Firefox

Setting your home page

Setting your home page in Firefox is easy. Just drag the site's icon to the Home button. For more about your home page and to set what tabs show when you open Firefox, see How to set the home page.


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Add-ons and themes

  • Add-ons are like apps that you install to add bells & whistles to Firefox. You can get add-ons that compare prices, check the weather, change the look of Firefox, listen to music, or even update your Facebook profile. To learn more about Add-ons and how to install them, see Find and install add-ons to add features to Firefox.
  • Easily personalize Firefox's appearance. Try some themes on at Mozilla's add-on website.

Staying in Sync

Firefox Sync lets you securely access your history, bookmarks, tabs and passwords across all of your devices. See How do I set up Sync on my computer? to learn more or just go straight to syncing your computers or your Android device.