3. Tell Firefox 3 to have Gmail handle mailto: links

Gmail, surprisingly, doesn't show up in the Firefox list of mailto: handlers. But you can add it. Just follow these steps:

1. In the address bar, type about:config and press Enter. Ignore the warranty warning.

2. In the filter box, type gecko.handlerservice.

3. From the entries that appear, double-click gecko.handlerServiceAllowRegisterFromDifferentHost. This will change its value from false to true.

4. In the address bar, copy this code, exactly as you see it, then press Enter:

javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto", "https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","GMail")

5. Below the address bar, you'll get a message asking if you want to add Gmail as the application for mailto: links. Click the Add Application button.

6. Next time you click a mailto: link, a screen will appear that lets you choose an appropriate application. Select Gmail, check the box next to "Remember my choice for mailto: links," then click OK.

From now on, Gmail will handle the links. As with Yahoo Mail, if you're not currently logged in, you'll first have to type in your e-mail and password, and then Gmail will create the e-mail.

4. Use the site identification button to download all graphics and media

One of Firefox 3's niftiest new features is the site identification button, the button just to the left of the Address Bar that displays an icon representing the site that you're currently visiting. The button is far more than mere decoration -- it can tell you a great deal of information about the site you're visiting and lets you do some nice tricks as well.

If you click the button, then click More Information from the dialog box that appears; you'll come to a Page Info screen with multiple buttons on the top. Once you get there, there are plenty of tricks you can try. Here are two of them:

Before Firefox 3, one of the most popular extensions was DownloadThemAll, which, among other things, let you download all of a Web page's graphics and media simultaneously. With Firefox 3, you can throw that extension away, because a similar capability is built right into the browser.

Just click the Media button on the Page Info screen for a list of the page's various elements. You can scroll to any graphic to see a preview, then click Save As to save it. Download multiple files by holding down the Ctrl key and selecting them, and then clicking Save As. To download them all, press Ctrl-A, which will highlight all the files, and click Save As.

If for some reason you want to block images from a site from being displayed in Firefox, check the Block Images box, and the site won't display images.