Having preached about Firefox so much in the past I may as well be a fully ordained Mozilla priest, I and many of you would have no trouble installing the browser on a PC. However, it’s not as easy for somebody who uses a PC for only a few things, and never needs new applications.

But don’t let that put you off! You can still make the much-needed switch to more secure, speedy browsing. Webuse.info have a great total beginner guide to installing Firefox. The step-by-step guide also includes helpful screenshots to make sure you don’t lose your way and get totally lost.

If it’s for you, first off well done for reaching this page. I’m not being patronizing. Well I am, but seriously, well done.

If it’s not for you, print it off and give it to as many Net beginners as possible. You know it makes sense.

Step-by-Step Instructions for Installing Firefox (Cheers to Lifehacker for that one)

RSS Calendar allows you to create events in an online diary and let others read them straight from their news-reader or Firefox live bookmarks. All changes or comments on your events are then updated in your reader’s feeds, allowing you to keep everyone up to date easily.

With so many extensions and add-ons for Firefox floating around right now (there are over 500 just on the official Update site), it’s difficult to know which ones you need and which ones would help you little. Here we have ten extensions that should give you a head start in picking what to download first. Obviously, some will be irrelevent to you, while others that you find imperative will be useless to others. (more…)

One of the best, and little-known, features of Firefox is its custom ’search term’ function, which allows you to search your favourite sites from the address bar. Here’s how you’d go about setting this up for this very site:

1. Right click in the search text box over there on the right. Its position will obviously differ from site to site, but most sites feature a search function these days.
2. Click Add a keyword for this search.
3. For the name call it anything you like - Infinity Plus would be relevent here.
4. The keyword should be short, and easily memorable. inf is a good ‘un.
5. Press OK, and you’re done. You can now search IP by typing inf followed by your search term in the address bar. Useful, eh?

If you’re a Firefox user, especially in a boring workplace, you can’t go without the StumbleUpon extension. The free add-on allows you to select your interests from a vast range on their website, and when called upon sends you to a website recommended by similar browsers to yourself. Here’s what they say about themselves:

“StumbleUpon is a community-oriented and personalized approach to web surfing. Offering users (Stumblers) a free service to easily discover great web sites, StumbleUpon is not a search engine or directory, but a browser add-on which automates “word of mouth” recommendations of quality web sites.”

With over 250,000 members now, it can scarily accurately predict just the kind of thing you’d want to look at in a spare five minutes, and it has taken me to a variety of different sites that have now become personal favourites of mine - sites that I’d never have discovered without it.

You can download the plugin from Mozilla Extensions.