To configure Firefox, go to the Tools menu and click on Options.

The Options dialog will come up showing the Main pane. If you ever want to change your homepage, the controls for that are at the top.

To get to the next pane, Privacy, click on that word on the top of the dialog. From here you can clear any of the History, Forms, Cookies, Download History, or Cache entries Firefox has stored for you.

If you want, Firefox can store login names and passwords for websites you use. This can be controlled from the Security tab. Be warned that anyone who can use your computer will be able to log in as you at any of those websites. If that is not what you want, click beside Remember Passwords to unselect that option.

Now click on Content on the left. Firefox blocks almost all popup windows by default. If you need to access a site that uses popups, you can allow them by clicking on the [Exceptions] button.

You can also allow or disallow Java (must already be installed) or Javascript, and fine tune what javascript on websites can do to your browser and windows. To do that, click on the [Advanced] button.

A dialog will appear showing setting for what scripts are allowed to do. We recommend unchecking everything except the top option, as there are very few good reasons to raise and lower windows, no good reasons to mess with context menus, and no good reasons to mess with the status bar.

If you wish, you can stop images from loading that do not come from the same website as the page. In practice this will block banner ads, but it may also block other images, especially for very heavily used sites that get other companies to serve some of their content. You can always right-click and choose View Image if you think you are missing something.

There are many extension that add functionality to Firefox. To install them, first go to the Add-ons menu and click on Extensions.

Then click on Get Extensions. A new browser window will appear diplaying Mozilla Update :: Extensions, where you can choose from dozens, including a Google Toolbar.

You can also install additional themes for Firefox. These can also be found in the Add-ons menu.

Then click on the Get Themes link. A new browser window will appear diplaying Mozilla Update :: Themes, where you can choose from many distictive themes for the appearance of Firefox.