First of all let me get this straight.  I love Safari - great browser and I loath Internet Explorer with a passion.  But Firefox has that little bit extra, that makes it the browser of choice for me.  So why is it that Firefox is the browser that I choose to use all the time?  Here we explore the benefits of using Mozilla Firefox over any other browser.

There are the obvious advantages that are advertised all over the Firefox website such as the increased speed and security and the great built in browser search features that let you search sites you have already visited before.  But to be honest it is not these functions that excite me.  As a web designer I think that Firefox lends the greatest helping hand yet when it comes to coding a site.  Frankly I can remember how I coped without the Firefox addon called Firebug.

Firebug is quite simply amazing.  So what does it do?  Well it enables you to debug your code when creating a site that is otherwise very difficult.  It also enables you to check which pieces of the code are doing certain things and it also tells you which part of the style sheet is responsible for styling any area of the page.  It is a remarkable little plugin or addon for Firefox that makes my life a whole lot easier.  It integrates really well with the browser in that you can have it at the bottom of the screen as a bar or you can use it in its own window when viewing the code for sites.  Another great feature is that you can even edit the HTML code and CSS styling in the Firebug window and the changes are reflected in the web pages itself.  This is great for checking whether some code with work on not before committing to it for real.

Firebug is a truly magnificant piece of software running as an addon for Firefox 2 and 3 that is a must for all web developers and designers.  It saves you masses of time, and I recommend downloading it today.

RSS feeds are a great way to keep up to date with your favourite blogs and websites without having to visit the sites every day.  In Firefox you can subscribe to RSS feeds from your favourite sites without having to use additional software.  In this tutorial I will show you how to subscribe to an RSS feed in Firefox 3.

The first thing that you need to be aware of when using Firefox is knowing when a website has an RSS feed that you can subscribe to.  In Firefox 3 this is simple.  In the main address bar at the top of the screen, to the right hand side in the address bar you will notice a small RSS icon.  Click this icon to view the pages feed.  Sometimes a site will have more than one type of feed (for example atom and RSS), so here you can choose which to use.

The feed for that page is displayed on the page, which in Firefox will be a list of page titles and a small excerpt of what each pages content is.  At the top of the screen you have the option to choose which program you want to use in order to subscribe to that feed.  Make sure that the selection box says “Live Bookmarks” and you can then press the subscribe button.  Firefox 3 will then ask you where you want to store the feed.  You can either store this in your bookmarks toolbar or in the bookmarks menu.  Select where it is to be stored and press OK.

Thats it.  Go to that feeds bookmark that you have just created and then you will see a list of all the articles or updates from that feed, which keeps you up to date when there has been a new article written.  Really easy and very very handy.