When do you need user profiles ?

1. User profiles are mostly helpful when we need to use a single OS at work/home. In a single OS we can install a browser only once and hence all your colleagues and family members need to use the same set of bookmarks, passwords and addons as well as other settings too. This doesn’t secure your/their privacy.

2. For a blogger or a person whose job requires internet addiction, browsers are the best loyal friends. But with time and with more and more usage it gets loaded with more and more bookmarks, addons and passwords. So while using the browser for a simple purpose(other than professional) you do not need those settings, addons or bookmarks anymore. In that case you may use another user profile that is less loaded with addons, which will ensure faster browsing experience of your browser.

Create an user profile for Mozilla Firefox

NOTE : Even if you haven’t created a profile yourself there is a profile by default named default.

Creating a user profile for Firefox includes the following steps :

1. Open the Start > Run or just press Windows Key + R.

2. Now in the Run window type firefox.exe –P. Press Enter.

3. A window will open which looks like the screenshot below.

4. Now as we can see, there are three buttons to do three tasks.

As you can see I have two profiles named default (that was already there) and full (that I created for professional purposes). Ok now that we know how to do this, lets create a sample profile named Soumen’s browser.

1. Press the Create Profile button.

2. Now you will see the Welcome Screen. Just press Next to proceed.

3. In the following step, you will be asked to enter the name of the profile. I have entered Soumen’s browser there.

4. From the button coined Choose Folder, you can select the location where you want these profile to be saved. I’m keeping the default location, which is,

[system Drive Letter]:\Documents and Settings\[windows user]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles

5. Now press Finish and you will see you profile is created.

6. From now on, whenever you will try to open Firefox, you will get to see the box as shown in the start, in which you will have to select the profile and press the Start Firefox button to start that profile on Firefox.

Create an user profile for Google Chrome

Follow the steps to do the job

1. Go to the following address

[system Drive Letter]:\Documents and Settings\[windows user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome

2. Now open the folder Application.

4. There you will find a .exe file named Chrome having a chrome Logo. Right-click on it & create a shortcut there within the folder. Now rename the new shortcut to New. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and click Properties. In the target field replace the address with,

[system Drive Letter]:\Documents and Settings\[windows user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" --user-data-dir="[system Drive Letter]:\Documents and Settings\[windows user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data\New"

5. Now drag the newly created shortcut to desktop. Now double-click this new shortcut and a new user profile named New will be created. This can be located at the following address where a folder will be present named New.

[system Drive Letter]:\Documents and Settings\[windows user]\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Chrome\User Data

6. from now on, any time you wish to start using Chrome with the newly created profile use this shortcut.

That is all we have to do for creating new profiles in Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Repeat the above processes to create as many profiles as you want for yourself. If you have any difficulties feel free to ask and do not forget to share your experience with us via comments. Happy Browsing!!

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The Shortcuts

I have decided to provide the keyboard shortcuts in an order which will allow you to start Firefox, navigate a couple of your favorite websites using multiple tabs, then close Firefox once you are done.  The first step is to actually open Firefox as you normally would (with your mouse).  Although there are plenty of ways to open applications without the use of a mouse, we are concentrating specifically on Firefox keyboard shortcuts.

Alt + D / Ctrl + L

Selects the location bar. This will allow you to go directly into the location bar (sometimes referred to as the address bar) and type in the website address that you wish to navigate to, such as http://www.maketecheasier.com.

CTRL + Enter (.com) / Shift + Enter (.net) / CTRL + Shift + Enter (.org)

Once at the location bar we are used to typing an entire URL, such as www.maketecheasier.com. These three shortcuts make life a bit easier because they will complete the .com, .net, or .org addresses for you. For example, typing maketecheasier in the location bar, then pressing CTRL + Enter will automatically complete the address www.maketecheasier.com and load the website.

ALT + Enter

Opens the address in a new tab. This will allow you to open up the website in a new tab opposed to interrupting the page that you are current viewing.

CTRL + R

Reloads the current page. Did your Internet connection get interrupted or is the website simply responding a bit slower than usual? Try pressing the ESC key to stop loading the page, then this shortcut will attempt to reload (or refresh) the page with hopefully better results.

F11

Full screen. If the menu, toolbars and Windows (or Linux) taskbars are getting in the way, then toggling full screen mode is a great idea. Press it once to enable it, then press it again to disable it.

Tab

Once you have arrived at your favorite website and spotted a link that you would like to follow, the Tab key will help you jump over to and select that link, then pressing Enter is the equivalent of clicking on the link with the left mouse button.

CTRL + F

Find a specific word on the page. If know that there is a specific word on the page will take you directly to the paragraph or link that you are interested in reading, this shortcut will allow your to search for that word. Once you have started searching, use F3 or CTRL + G to find the next instance of that word, until you have found the correct one.

CTRL + T

Opens a new tab. If you are like me, you will be browsing multiple websites at once for multiple reasons. This shortcut will allow you to open a new tab, and combined with the location bar shortcut navigate to a different website.

CTRL + Tab

Selects the next tab. Now that you have probably opened up about five tabs to research a couple of different issues, you may need to navigate back and forth between the tabs. This shortcut allows you to move to the next tab to the right. However, you can actually navigate left and right by using CTRL + PG UP and CTRL + PG DN, respectively. Even better, you can CTRL + (1 to 8) to select a specific tab (as long as you have no more than 8 tabs open) since CTRL + 9 takes you directly to the last tab on the right.

ALT + Left Arrow / ALT + Right Arrow

Equivalent to clicking on the Back and Forward buttons to navigate within a website. Basically, once you have tabbed over to a link and explored it, you can use these shortcuts to go back to the page were arrived from or forward again.

CTRL + D

Bookmarks the current page. This shortcut will help you bookmark the page that you are currently view, which gives you the ability to access it in the future. If necessary, use CTRL + P to quickly print the current page and take it with you on the road.

ALT + Home

Guess what? This shortcut takes you back to your home page, which is the page that opens when you first launch Firefox. Maybe your home page is your favorite search engine or maybe it is your favorite technical website; this shortcut will take you there.

CTRL + W

Closes the current tab. Once you have read a couple of paragraphs and bookmarked the page, you may want to close the current tab by using this shortcut.

CTRL + Shift + T

Undo closing of a tab. Did you close the wrong tab by mistake. This shortcut will get it back for instantly and reloads the last page that was in that tab.

CTRL + Shift + DEL

Clears your private data. If you are like me and like keeping your browsing history, cache and cookies clean, then this shortcut will help you keep your Firefox sessions clean.

ALT + F4

Closes the window. This final shortcut will close the entire Firefox session once you have closed all of your tabs and are done browsing the Internet.

Download

The above listed shortcut keys are some of the more useful one that you can use for everyday tasks. However, we know that you won’t be satisfied with an uncompleted list, that’s why we have prepared for you a Firefox shortcut keys cheatsheet where you can print out and reference to easily.

The cheatsheet covers all the shortcut keys for the various OS. It’s free of charge, download the Complete Firefox Shortcut Keys Guide now.

Photo credit: psd

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