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Using the Mozilla Firefox Browser with WordPress

Firefox is the second most popular web browser and has emerged over the years as a solid Internet Explorer (IE) competitor. WordPress Designers and developers tend to prefer Firefox over IE because Mozilla (the makers of Firefox) use a solid layout engine that adheres closely to open web standards and supports and renders CSS better.

Firefox is available for download and use on Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems, in 76 languages.

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One of the main reasons why Firefox is a browser of choice among WordPress designers is that it adheres to open web standards and renders CSS as it was meant to be rendered. Firefox is also an open-source software project with a vibrant development community that releases very helpful add-ons and tools, which extend its capabilities beyond just a web browser, turning it into a web development tool, in many cases.

You can find Firefox add-ons for just about everything from the appearance of your Firefox browser to browser-based games. At the time of this writing, Mozilla reports that 2,139,478,273 add-ons have been downloaded from its website.

Here are three Firefox add-ons make web design and development easier, more efficient, and just plain fun:

  • Firebug: Firebug integrates into the Firefox browser and provides you with a host of tools for web development, including the ability to edit, debug, and monitor the behaviors of CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live for any web page you view. This tool has many CSS editing capabilities. You can open a web page in Firefox, and then activate the CSS editing tool in Firebug and perform live CSS editing which makes your website development go faster.

  • FireShot: FireShot gives you the tools to take quality screen shots of any website you view in Firefox. Not only does FireShot allow you to capture any web page you’re viewing, but it also has an extensive editor so you can open the screen capture and edit it by adding text, graphics, annotations, and more.

    This is a very helpful tool for a designer because you can use it to take screen shots of your work to develop a portfolio/gallery to display on your website; and you can also take screen shots of client projects and add annotations to share with your client, as needed. Also, if you happen to be an author of a book, you can take screen shots of the figures to include in your chapters.

  • Web Developer: This add-on adds a very helpful toolbar in your Firefox browser, giving you access to several types of web development tools, such as CSS/HTML viewing and editing, image information, browser resizing, CSS/HTML validation tools, and more. You can use the Web Developer toolbar constantly to help you develop, test, and debug websites that you create.

It has been reported by many users that Firefox is somewhat of a resource/memory hog on your computer. You may have to shut down and restart you browser at least two times during a normal work day to prevent it from crashing your system with its resource usage.

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