AllThingsD » folders

Using Phones Globally

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 17 Nov 2010 22:40:27 +0000

My Motorola Android phone does not work outside of the U.S. Does the Samsung Galaxy have the same problem? Will the forthcoming Verizon iPhone work in Europe?

I combined two reader questions here, because they both touch on a common source of confusion. I presume that the Motorola Android phone that only works in the U.S. is sold by either Verizon or Sprint, because they use network technology that is primarily found in the U.S., and not, say, in Europe. Thus, phone makers like Motorola and Samsung tailor their Verizon and Sprint models to this U.S.-centric technology, called CDMA.

However, both Motorola and Samsung also make Android phones for AT&T and T-Mobile, which use a network technology called GSM that is standard in most of the rest of the world. These models should work outside of the U.S. There are a few “world phones” sold by Verizon and Sprint, which include both network technologies. For instance, Verizon sells two Android phones, the Droid Pro and the Droid 2 Global, which fall into that category.

As for the reported forthcoming Verizon iPhone, I don’t know if it will be limited to CDMA, which would make it essentially a U.S.-only device, or whether it will also be compatible with GSM, which would make it a world phone.

I live in South Africa, and want to buy the Samsung Tab to make my job easier, but to do that I must be able to work with Microsoft Excel documents. Editing and using dropdown boxes is essential. Can this be done?

The Tab, and other Android devices, can view and edit Excel documents using either a built-in mobile office suite (ThinkFree was pre-installed on the Tab I tested) or one you can obtain through the Android Market, like Quickoffice. You can also use online spreadsheet apps.

However, as with the same or similar apps for the iPad, these are limited compared to using Excel on a PC or Mac, and I cannot say whether they’d have the features and two-way document fidelity you personally might require. I didn’t test editing Excel documents on the Tab.

I am considering purchasing the iPad but have learned that it does not allow users to create folders in which documents can be stored. This would be incredibly useful for me for business purposes while I travel (i.e., separate client folders with client-specific documents in each). I have heard that Apple’s new operating system upgrade might make this possible, but I haven’t been able to confirm it. Do you happen to know whether that is the case?

The new folder feature coming to the iPad is meant for grouping apps, not documents. Apple’s operating system for its mobile devices, called iOS, doesn’t have a global document folder capability.

However, individual iPad apps, such as the very powerful GoodReader, do allow you to create folders that can hold all manner of documents, and you can name and organize these folders as you wish. But these folders are only accessible from within the app that creates them.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns at the All Things Digital website, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

What Facebook Messages Means and Why You Should Care

Liz Gannes — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 20:18:57 +0000

Facebook yesterday launched an interesting product that tries to get at the heart of how highly connected people communicate casually. CEO Mark Zuckerberg and others from the company reiterated over and over again (see my live notes; the repetition is excessive) that the product is “not email.”

In large part, that’s because if Facebook Messages were evaluated as an email system, it would look terrible. There’s no incorporation of IMAP so you can access your mail from other clients, there’s no way to save drafts, there’s no way to cc people, there are no folders.

Even more jarring, there are no subject lines or time stamps, and you only ever have one continuous conversation with a contact. Instead, like instant messaging, when you type a message and press enter, it gets set loose to your contact.

But maybe Facebook has a point, and we don’t need all that cc, bcc gobbledygook for personal communications. Maybe we just want to more casually correspond with each other. And some of these email conventions have probably outlived their usefulness. Facebook says prior to the change its top three subject lines were blank, “Hi!” and “Yo.”–if that tells you anything.

The problem is, the way Facebook Messages works is a bit complicated and unfamiliar. You can see why the company is rolling it out very, very slowly–it’s the kind of new experience that aggravates people and makes them whiny.

Facebook Messages treats the correspondence between you and another person as a single conversation, whether it’s by IM, within the Facebook Messages interface, received as an email or as a Facebook-delivered SMS. Often those channels overlap. Messages that are not from Facebook members, and those from entities other than individuals, get shunted to a second-tier inbox.

Yesterday I was playing with the new Messages, first within the Messages interface on the Facebook Web site, then on IM on the Web site, and then via text message when I closed my computer. A few things confused me–for instance, chat is disabled and disappears when you go into Messages. I guess it’s redundant to have the same conversation in two places. But as someone who felt like I was in an IM chat, it was super weird.

Another thing that’s odd is that those life-time conversation threads only really work for one-to-one relationships. Group messages seem like a little bit of an afterthought; for instance, group threads show a split-screen image of two of the participants’ profile pics, no matter how many people participate. The system is prejudiced against people who email you from outside Facebook (say, your mother emails your @Facebook.com address from an @Yahoo.com address), until you explicitly say you want to see them in your main Facebook inbox. If a person sends you messages from two email addresses, Facebook doesn’t allow you to help it understand that they are the same person.

While I will probably acclimate to the Messages experience over the next few weeks, one thing that’s going to continue to be very annoying, and accentuated by Messages, is redundant Facebook notifications. Already a problem for those of us who use Facebook on multiple platforms like the Web and a phone app, redundant notifications run rampant in Facebook Messages. Say someone sends you a message from the Web site and checks the box to send it to your phone. Without changing any defaults, you could get a text message from Facebook, an email message from Facebook, a new IM on the Web site and a flag that you have a new message in the Facebook nav bar.

I spoke to Messages product manager Dan Hsiao yesterday, and he said the team had thought carefully about trimming down notifications but decided it would be worse if users weren’t alerted to the fact that they had a message.

Hsiao said that his mantra in building the product was to make it “email compatible but not email complete.”

I think there will be two main outcomes from the new Facebook Messages:

Other Web mail outfits will (and should) better integrate their email and instant messaging conversations, based on Facebook’s example. Folks like Gmail can go one better, and incorporate additional forms of communication like voice messages. Facebook is right–there’s no reason this shouldn’t all be condensed and scannable.
Provided the Facebook Messages product doesn’t have major usability issues, it will continue to supplant email, especially for young people. There will be a bigger distinction between formal, especially corporate, correspondence via email and personal messages. If you think about it, we all already make a distinction between messages from people and messages from mailing lists, and Facebook is right to say the ones from people are more important.

The thing is, Facebook Messages splits out a part of the communication experience that is, for most, a part of other tools and services.

Facebook Messages won’t replace email for people who use email for professional purposes, people who prefer desktop mail clients or people who firmly associate themselves and their archive of emails with an existing address.

Rather than killing Gmail (and its much larger competitors Hotmail and Yahoo), Facebook Messages will probably have the biggest impact on usage of IM services like AIM and GChat. The only thing the new product will fully replace is the previous version of Facebook Messages–which, by the way, has 350 million active users, and four billion messages sent per day.

Please see the disclosure about Facebook in my ethics statement.

New iPhone Keeps Apple Top of Class

Walter S. Mossberg — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 23:02:18 +0000

Just three years ago, Apple wasn’t in the mobile-phone business at all. Since then, its game-changing iPhone has become the most influential smartphone in the world. Now, on June 24, the company will roll out the fourth generation of the device, called the iPhone 4.

[ See post to watch video ]

While attractive, capable new smartphones emerge regularly from competitors, a new iPhone deserves special attention for two reasons. First, the device lies at the center of a huge ecosystem of 225,000 apps, plus popular related gadgets like Apple’s iPod Touch connected media player and iPad tablet, which collectively are approaching 100 million units sold. Second, the iPhone’s multitouch, gesture-based interface; elegant Web browser; sophisticated music and video playback; and other features have been emulated on many competing devices, so what Apple does affects the whole industry.

I’ve been testing the iPhone 4 for more than a week. In both hardware and software, it is a major leap over its already-excellent predecessor, the iPhone 3GS.

It has some downsides and limitations—most important, the overwhelmed AT&T network in the U.S., which, in my tests, the new phone handled sometimes better and, unfortunately, sometimes worse than its predecessor. I’ll get into that below. But, overall, Apple (AAPL) has delivered a big, well-designed update that, in my view, keeps it in the lead in the smartphone wars.

The iPhone 4 is a dramatic redesign. It manages to pack a radically sharper screen; a second, front-facing camera; a larger battery; a better rear camera with flash; and a faster processor into a body that is 24% thinner, a bit narrower, and retains the same length and weight as its predecessor’s. In fact, Apple claims that the iPhone 4 is the world’s thinnest smartphone and sports the world’s highest-resolution smartphone screen.

With the front-facing camera, and clever new software called FaceTime, Apple has brought simple, high-quality video calling to mobile phones, albeit, for now, only over Wi-Fi and only among iPhone 4 owners. In multiple tests, this feature worked very well for me and is a classic example of the value of having one company do integrated hardware and software.

In addition, the iPhone now includes an updated operating system—which also can be installed free on the prior model—that introduces catch-up software features such as limited multitasking (the ability to run apps simultaneously); folders for grouping related apps; and, for email, a unified inbox for multiple accounts and the ability to present messages as threaded conversations. This software is called iOS4.

The iPhone 4 will cost the same as the iPhone 3GS: $199 for a model with 16 gigabytes of memory and $299 for 32 gigabytes, with a two-year contract from AT&T (T). The 3GS model will drop to $99 with a two-year contract and 8 gigabytes of memory.

Design

Physically, the iPhone 4 is attractive and feels great in the hand. Even the back is now clad in glass, which Apple claims is a superstrong variety 30 times tougher than plastic. I dropped it several times from a few feet onto a hard surface with no problem, and it acquired no scratches at all in my testing, even though I didn’t use a case or coddle it.

Although it is the same weight as its predecessor, the iPhone 4 feels denser and tighter—more like a fine possession than a disposable gadget. It still looks like an iPhone, but it manages to make the 3GS appear bulbous by comparison.

While its 3.5-inch screen, once considered huge, is now smaller than those on some other smartphones, the high resolution packs in a lot of material and makes text appear almost like ink on fine paper. The software is simply richer looking and smoother to use than on competing phones I’ve tested, with fewer confusing menus and settings, and far more apps.

Screen, Voice, Battery and Camera

Always brilliant at marketing, Apple has dubbed its new screen the “Retina display.” At a resolution of 960×640, it has four times the pixels of its predecessor and displays a whopping 326 pixels per inch. I don’t know how it compares with the human retina, but I do know that, just as Apple claims, text on the screen shows no jagged lines, even when expanded to giant size.

Voice quality was quite good, even on long speaker-phone calls, and data performance over Wi-Fi was excellent. Video and audio streamed from the Web played smoothly.

Apple claims longer battery life for most functions—seven hours of talk time, for instance, versus five hours on the earlier model. I didn’t perform a precise battery test, but, even in heavy use, the iPhone 4′s battery never reached the red zone on a single day of my tests.

The new rear camera is another big plus. My test pictures came out sharp and clear, even in low light and close-up situations. It isn’t the best cellphone camera I’ve tested, but it is a big improvement.

The iPhone 4 records video in high definition and, in my tests, these videos came out very well in most conditions. Apple also is selling for $5 an iPhone version of its Macintosh video-editing program, iMovie, for editing the videos.

FaceTime

Video calling is one of this device’s best features. As noted, it currently requires an iPhone 4 and Wi-Fi connection on both ends, though Apple says it is making the technology free to others and hopes to have millions of compatible devices. There is no setup and nothing to learn. You just press a FaceTime button, and if the other person accepts the invitation to talk face to face, his or her image appears, with your own image showing in a small corner window.

You can tap an icon on the screen to swap the front camera for the rear one, so you can show your caller around the room, or include other people near you who are behind the phone.

You can even begin a video call as an audio cellular call, push a button, and switch it to a Wi-Fi FaceTime call. It worked great for me, except for a couple of brief freeze-ups.

Multitasking

After years of complaints, Apple finally has brought multitasking to the iPhone. But it has done so in a limited way that won’t please everyone. On the iPhone 4, multitasking doesn’t mean every app can work fully in the background. To prevent a disastrous drain on battery life, Apple has allowed only certain apps to fully multitask. These include streaming audio services like Pandora, which keep playing music from the Web while you do other things, and voice-prompted navigation apps, which keep working while you’re on a call. Others that fully work in the background include Internet calling apps, and those that perform long downloads.

But some logical candidates, such as Twitter and Facebook, merely pause in place when you switch away from them. You can get back to them quickly, and they update more rapidly than before, but they don’t constantly update in the background. They only wake up in the background if you have set them to notify you of an update, and then only for a limited time. Apple says constant fetching of hundreds of social-networking updates in the background would kill the battery too quickly.

In fact, for many scenarios, such as games, Apple’s version of multitasking is really just fast switching among open apps that save their place. And, even to achieve this, the apps must be updated. For some users, this limited version of multitasking will be a disappointment.

To use multitasking you just press the iPhone’s home button twice and a row of icons representing running apps appears. Click on the one you want and, if it has been updated for the new operating system, it will appear just as you left it.

Multitasking also will work on updated iPhone 3GS models, but not on models older than that.

Folders

Because iPhone users can easily accumulate hundreds of apps, it can become difficult to organize them. So the new iPhone OS now allows you to group them into folders. For instance, I grabbed the icon for The Wall Street Journal app, dragged it on top of the one for the Washington Post app, and a folder was instantly created called “News,” based on the apps’ built-in categories. You can change the name to anything you like, or alter or disassemble the folders.

The Big Downside

The most important downside of the iPhone 4 is that, in the U.S., it’s shackled to AT&T, which not only still operates a network that has trouble connecting and maintaining calls in many cities, but now has abandoned unlimited, flat-rate data plans. Apple needs a second network.

Both Apple (AAPL) and AT&T (T) told me they worked to make the iPhone 4 do a better job with AT&T’s network. For example, the phone itself is surrounded by a prominent stainless-steel trim piece that acts as a large antenna. And Apple said it also tuned the phone to try to grab whatever band on the network was less congested or less affected by interference—to stress the quality of a signal over its raw strength. AT&T said it, too, made some changes to its network with the new iPhone in mind.

But, in my tests, network reception was a mixed bag. Compared with the previous model, the new iPhone dropped marginally fewer calls made in my car, both in Washington and in Boston, and was much louder and clearer over my car’s built-in Bluetooth speaker-phone system.

Yet, in some places where the signal was relatively weak, the iPhone 4 showed no bars, or fewer bars than its predecessor. Apple says that this is a bug it plans to fix, and that it has to do with the way the bars are presented, not the actual ability to make a call. And, in fact, in nearly all of these cases, the iPhone 4 was able to place calls despite the lack of bars.

However, on at least six occasions during my tests, the new iPhone was either reporting “no service” or searching for a network while the old one, held in my other hand, was showing at least a couple of bars. Neither Apple nor AT&T could explain this. The iPhone 4 quickly recovered in these situations, showing service after a few seconds, but it was still troubling.

Just as with its predecessors, I can’t recommend this new iPhone for voice calling for people who experience poor AT&T reception, unless they are willing to carry a second phone on a network that works better for them.

For everyone else, however, I’d say that Apple has built a beautiful smartphone that works well, adds impressive new features and is still, overall, the best device in its class.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

More iPhone 4 Coverage »

Making Hotmail Hot Again

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 01:07:27 +0000

Like it or not, your personal email address says something about you. Gmail tends to be considered the cool email to have today. Apple’s (AAPL) .Mac addresses (now .Me) identify users who own Macs and don’t mind paying $100 a year for email and related services. AOL (AOL) emails are tied to adults who haven’t changed their address since the dial-up days. And Hotmail is seen as old school.

[ See post to watch video ]

Since its debut in 1996, Hotmail has soared to 400 million users world-wide. But it also lost users along the way—particularly in 2008—due in part to a general perception that Hotmail wasn’t as modern as other email services.

Starting this week, Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) will try to change the way Hotmail is perceived by rolling out a revamped version. The company, which bought the program in 1998, has scrapped its attempts to get people to use its site for social networking, acknowledging that companies like Facebook and Twitter are already doing the job. And it has cleaned up its once confusing nomenclature: Hotmail is the sole name for Microsoft’s Web email program.

To spread the word, Microsoft recently launched a massive marketing campaign, involving online, radio and outdoor ads running through the end of the year, that will cost the company tens of millions of dollars, according to Microsoft general manager, Brian Hall. Mr. Hall says that “The New Busy” campaign is intended to demonstrate how Hotmail’s organizational features help busy people with full lives. Part of the campaign will focus on reintroducing current Hotmail users to new features.

But should you really consider reviving your old Hotmail account or opening a new one? I’ve been using this new version of Hotmail for the past few weeks and I’ve found it handled large files with ease, performed browser-like tasks within the inbox and integrated third-party social networks and email accounts. Though the Hotmail name still conjures up frustrating memories of too much spam and the belief that storage was restricted, Microsoft has revamped its old email service into one that’s smart, robust and reliable. It deserves a second look.

The new Hotmail displays more on one screen, including photos.

Hotmail is still big on sorting emails according to your existing “Contacts” versus everyone else. This works well if you’ve taken the time to add all of your friends to the Contacts list, a procedure that takes a couple seconds per person and is done as you send emails to people. This prompting can be a bit of a pain, but if you haven’t done it, you might miss emails from people you care about. A Microsoft representative said that by the end of this summer, users will be able to opt out of this sorting.

At first glance, the new Hotmail doesn’t look dramatically different. But a closer look reveals intelligent organizational tools. Shortcut tabs at the top of the inbox display only messages from social networks (think of all those email notifications from Facebook and Twitter), pre-made email groups or contacts. Many other email programs only do this if users manually set up folders.

Another organizational tool is called Quick Views. It automatically sorts four types of emails into folders: Flagged, Photos, Office Docs and Shipping Updates. These categories come preset and cannot be customized.

Quick Views saved me from digging through my inbox for specific emails and from dragging certain emails into folders for saving. When I ordered gifts online for a friend’s wedding, the shipping notification emails from the delivery service arrived in my inbox and were also viewable in the Shipping Updates folder. Emails with attached Office documents were neatly sorted into the Office Docs folder.

Behind the scenes of the revamped Hotmail, Microsoft is powering all inboxes with Windows Live SkyDrive—an ever-growing, server-based storage repository that guarantees you’ll never be asked to clean out your inbox. (As with many Web-based email programs, Hotmail stores your emails on servers rather than taking up space on your hard drive.)

SkyDrive also gives Hotmail users more freedom when sharing photos: Images can be quickly uploaded to SkyDrive and shared with friends via a Web link. One message can include up to 200 photos of 50 megabytes each, or 10 gigabytes total. Meanwhile, Gmail limits attachments to about 25 megabytes per message.

When Word, PowerPoint or Excel documents are attached to any message received, they are opened right in the Web browser, without having to open another program. This works thanks to a program called Office Web Apps, which functions regardless of whether or not Office 2010 is installed on the computer. Just as photos are shared from Hotmail using a SkyDrive link, so, too, are Office documents.

Hotmail’s inbox now has a Sweep feature, which lets you move or delete all emails from a particular sender. (A similar option in Microsoft Office 2010 wipes out all emails sent prior to the last message in a thread.) Another option for tidying up your inbox is Conversation View, which sorts all emails sent in the same conversation into one group. Users can opt in or out of this, unlike Gmail, which offers only threaded emails.

Tough spam filters caught every Viagra-related email sent to my Hotmail address. And if you identify a piece of mail in the Junk folder that isn’t actually spam, Hotmail remembers this and sorts differently in the future.

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, now plays a role in Hotmail. It’s built into the search box as an option for scouring Web content directly from the inbox. It can be accessed while composing a message: A small “From Bing” drop-down menu in the email you’re writing lets you search for content to add to emails, like maps, videos, images and movie show times. This content appears in a right-side panel and can be embedded in email messages with one click.

To keep people from straying away to different Web pages while using Hotmail, Web functions can be performed from right within its inbox. These functions include watching videos from YouTube or Hulu, or viewing photos from Flickr or SmugMug. I clicked on YouTube links in emails and watched videos in a handsome overlay screen. And if an email includes codes for tracking packages using the U.S. Postal Service, the package’s real-time shipping status appears within the email. A Microsoft representative confirmed that FedEx and UPS are in the works.

I added my Gmail account to my Hotmail account, so I could check several personal email messages on the same Web page. In a similar manner, Hotmail can pull multiple contacts from several networks—like phone numbers and emails from LinkedIn or birthdays from Facebook—into a single Contact list.

Hotmail may have burned you in the past, but this beefed-up new version saves you time and is a pleasure to use.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg. Email Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

Is Running Windows on a Mac Secure?

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 23:59:17 +0000

Thanks for your review of programs for running Windows on a Mac. But, if I use them, won’t I expose my Mac’s files to Windows viruses and spyware?

Yes, potentially, because both of the programs I reviewed, Parallels and Fusion, can access Mac folders and files—which means any malicious software that infects Windows can do so as well. That’s why both programs come with security software. You can choose to install the security products they provide, or obtain and install your own. But I strongly recommend you use security software on any computer running Windows, even if it’s a virtual PC operating inside a Mac.

Another protective step you can take is to set an option in these programs that prevents them from accessing your Mac’s files and folders. You’ll still need security software to protect your Windows installation, but, your Mac files and folders should be isolated.

I’m trying to replace my aging Palm PDA, but all I can find are smart phones with lots of bells and whistles and monthly fees. All I want is something that can hold appointments, contacts and notes, and sync with my PC. Is there anything like that out there?

The old-fashioned PDA is indeed fading fast. But there are still a few around. For instance, Hewlett-Packard still sells a $300 model called the iPAQ 111, which does have Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, but isn’t a phone and thus doesn’t require a monthly cellphone contract.

Are any of the e-readers on the market compatible with the free e-books available at public libraries?

This depends on the format your library uses. Sony explicitly says its e-readers can handle public library e-books, and others may as well. I suggest asking at your library. One tipoff might be if the e-reader you’re considering can handle the EPUB format, which more libraries stock. In addition to the Sony devices, the Barnes & Noble Nook also handles this format.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox, and my other columns, online for free at the All Things Digital web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

New Mozilla Email Is Easier to Use, But Not Easy Enough

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:04:53 +0000

The good thing about open-source software is that it harnesses the talents of techies around the world. The bad thing about open-source software is that it’s too often geared toward such techies, not average folks. That’s why there haven’t been many widely popular open-source products for mass-market computer users. The shining exception is the Firefox Web browser, which is published by the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation.

Now, Mozilla is trying for another win, with a new, overhauled version of the companion email program for Firefox, called Thunderbird. Unlike Firefox, Thunderbird never really caught on, partly because it was too complicated. The foundation has spent two years streamlining, simplifying and automating the email program. The result is the newly released Thunderbird 3, which will compete with products such as Microsoft Outlook on Windows and Apple Mail on the Mac.

[ See post to watch video ]

While many people these days are content to store and manage all their email using Web-based interfaces provided by Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG) and others, plenty of folks still want to use local programs. These save the messages to their own hard disks, include oodles of customized features, and can be more easily used offline.

But the choices among such local email programs are dwindling. Outlook, which can be bloated and slow for consumers, has driven out many competitors on Windows, and the new Windows 7 doesn’t even come with a built-in email program. On the Mac, most people seem to use Apple’s (AAPL) very good built-in email program, Apple Mail, but it’s hard for third parties to customize.

So, can Thunderbird 3, which is free and runs on Windows, Mac and Linux computers, become the Firefox of email, the go-to choice for average users looking for an alternative to the big guys?

After testing the new edition for about a week, I believe that Thunderbird 3 is a significant improvement over earlier versions of the product. It is indeed a step forward, with some interesting new features and generally simpler operation. But, in my view, all the techie rough edges still haven’t been sanded off and it’s still clumsy in a few places.

First, the pluses. Mozilla has brought tabs, now standard in Web browsers, to Thunderbird. If you simply double click on an email in a list, it opens in its own tab. That way you can consult key emails when you need them without opening a welter of overlapping windows. If you do a search, the search results appear in their own tab.

The new Thunderbird also has a very cool filtered search system. It not only brings up all messages containing your search term, but shows a graphical timeline of the message traffic on that search term. In a left panel next to the list of search results, it lists all the people mentioned in the messages turned up by the search—even if you weren’t searching for them—and lets you further refine the results by just clicking on their names.

There is also a rapid way to add email addresses in a message header to your address book: You just click on a star icon next to the name. There also are multiple ways to view folders. With one click, you can choose to see a list of only unread folders, or favorite folders, or recent folders.

Another cool feature is an attachment reminder. If you are writing a message and you include words like “attachment,” “attached,” or “enclosed,” Thunderbird will pop up a yellow warning at the bottom of the screen reminding you to attach a file.

And, throughout the program, the designers have tried to simplify things, so you don’t have to be an engineer to use it. One example, which is a catch-up feature, is an account set-up wizard that spares you from knowing the names of servers.

But there are still too many issues for me. Thunderbird can’t be set to automatically show a CC or BCC line in a new email you’re composing. Every new address you add is set as a “To” address, and you must click on a drop-down menu to change it to CC or BCC—an extra step that becomes tedious quickly.

In addition, unlike in Outlook or Apple Mail, you can only have a single signature for each account. The program also doesn’t support Microsoft Exchange for corporate mail, unless IT administrators make changes at their servers.

And I found that the program’s preferences and settings, while improved, can still be too techie. For instance, to tell the program to display certain graphics in email, even though they can pose a security risk, you must choose an option called “mailnews.message_display.disable_remote_image.”

To be fair, because Thunderbird is an open-source program, it relies on third-party add-ons and extensions for some features, such as multiple signatures. But some of the add-ins I tried, like a built-in calendar that can synchronize with Google, took multiple complicated steps that would likely deter a mainstream user.

If you’re looking for a new email client, the new and improved Thunderbird is worth a try, but it’s not yet the Firefox of email.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Opening a Window on the Mac

Katherine Boehret — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 23:13:05 +0000

‘Tis almost the night before Christmas, and plenty of households are hoping Santa will slide down the chimney with a new computer in his pack. For longtime Windows users who receive new Apple (AAPL) computers, the unfamiliarity of the Mac operating system could leave them pining for their old PC.

I’ve put together a quick and dirty guide for new Apple users that explains some of the ways the Mac operating system differs from Windows. It’s true: The way you’ll quit programs is different, the keyboards are set up a little differently and even the mouse is different. But once you adjust to these changes, you’ll be fine. Here’s some help:

[ See post to watch video ]

Key to the Keyboard

Your keyboard is missing a Backspace button, so just use the Delete button, which is set up by default to work as the Backspace button does on a Windows keyboard.

If you want to delete forward on a Mac laptop or a new iMac, hold the Function key (FN) while pressing Delete. And for keyboard shortcuts like pressing Control+C to copy or Control+V to paste on a Windows keyboard, use the Command key, which has a flower-like symbol, in place of Control. Likewise, use the Option key rather than Alt to type special characters.

If you miss Control+Alt+Delete, you can end frustratingly slow applications on the Mac by pressing Command+Option+Escape to force programs to quit.

Mousing Around

The mouse on a desktop Mac looks like it has only one button, and the trackpad on most Mac laptops has no visible buttons at all—the whole pad is a single, large button. These designs send people who usually use two-button mice into a tizzy about how to right click.

Never fear, right click is still near! On Mac laptops, right click by placing two fingers down on the trackpad (it’s easiest with your pointer and middle fingers) and click the trackpad with another finger (like your thumb). New MacBooks also will right click when you place two fingers on the trackpad and press down. Using a one-button Apple mouse, just press Control and then click to see the same right-click functionality. On the Mighty Mouse, enable right-click functionality in System Preferences, then just touch where the right-click button should be and it will work.

If you’re sick of these new shortcuts, just plug in a mouse with a real right-click button and it will likely work on the Mac.

Scroll up or down on any screen by placing two fingers anywhere on the trackpad and motioning up or down. New MacBooks have a large, glass trackpad that responds to iPhone-like multi-touch gestures like pinching to zoom in or out on a screen. Four fingers on the trackpad initiate one of three gestures: Swiping up clears everything off the screen to show the desktop; swiping left or right opens the application switcher view so you can select which application you want; swiping down launches Exposé, which shows all opened windows.

Maximize, Close, Quit

In Windows, users can hit one button in the top right corner of each window to maximize the window; Macs have a small green circle in the top left corner that makes a window larger, but not maximized, so this can be irritating.

Windows lets users close an application by hitting the “X” in the top-right corner; the Mac version of this is a small red dot in the top left, but clicking it only closes a window rather than quitting the application. To do that, you’ll need to press Command+Q or choose to quit from the application menu at the top left of the screen.

Where’s My Stuff?

Rather than opening My Computer as you would on a Windows PC, double click on the desktop icon representing your hard drive to see all files, folders, applications and software programs. Spotlight, located in the top right corner of all screens, can be used to search for anything on your Mac. The Dock, located by default at the bottom of the screen, replaces the taskbar to hold applications, folders and files.Items can be dragged into the dock for quick access. Applications are located on the left side of the Dock; Stacks are on the right and these enable instant folder access from the Dock.Two built-in Stacks come pre-loaded for Documents and Downloads.

The Apple menu, represented with a small apple icon in the top left of any screen, works like parts of the Windows Start menu.

System Preferences in the Mac Dock works much like the Control Panel on a Windows PC. Here, you can change your screensaver, desktop picture, mouse and keyboard settings, energy-saving options, parental controls and network setup.

An optional Mac version of Microsoft Office runs Word, Excel, and PowerPoint programs that are compatible with Office files from Windows PCs. Instead of Outlook, Microsoft (MSFT) includes in Mac Office a program with similar functions called Entourage. Macs come out of the box with Apple-produced programs that include Mail, Address Book and iCal. Mail works with a range of email services.

Where’s Internet Explorer?

Instead of Internet Explorer, Apple comes loaded with its own Web browser called Safari, represented in the Dock by a blue and red compass. Browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox or Google (GOOG) Chrome will work on the Mac if you want to download and install them, but Internet Explorer still runs only on Windows.

Ejecting Hurts

On a Windows PC, anything inserted into the computer—from memory cards to USB flash drives—can be pulled out almost anytime with no repercussions. On a Mac, you must first eject these items before you yank them out. Ejecting can be done by dragging the icon representing that item from the desktop into the Trash, Apple’s version of the Windows Recycling Bin, or by selecting an Eject button beside its name. If you delete something on your Mac, it’s tossed into the Trash, and an option in Trash will empty it just as you can empty the Recycling Bin in Windows. Macs offer a Secure Empty Trash command in the Finder that securely deletes files so no part of them can be recovered.

Ask at the Store

If you buy a new Mac, Apple retail stores will recycle your old computer free, and if you buy Apple’s $99-a-year One to One membership, you can take your PC into an Apple retail store to have its data transferred to the Mac or to get personal tutorials. Stores also offer free workshops. More information is at apple.com/findouthow/mac.

–Edited by Walter S. Mossberg

Write to Katherine Boehret at mossbergsolution@wsj.com

ZumoDrive Service Is a Silver Lining In 'Cloud' Storage

By Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:15:28 +0000

As people acquire multiple digital devices, including tiny netbooks and super-smart phones, it becomes harder to coordinate all their documents, music and photos so they have access to them from whichever device they’re using at the moment.

People resort to all sorts of time-consuming methods for doing this. Some email the items to themselves. Others copy them to USB thumb drives and manually transfer them to each machine. Still others use Internet-based, or “cloud,” storage, uploading all their photos to a service like Flickr or Facebook, or using Web-based productivity programs like Google Docs (GOOG). And some use Web-based backup, storage or synchronization services.

Each of these methods, even the cloud-based ones, has limitations and frustrations. Some are complicated, or work only with certain kinds of files. Others work only when you have a Web connection, or don’t replicate your preferred folder structure. Still, others work OK with standard files and folders, but have trouble with specially arranged content, such as music that is organized in a jukebox program.

I’ve been testing a cloud-based service that attempts to solve these problems. It is called ZumoDrive, and it comes from a small company called Zecter Inc. A new version is due out this week that aims to add some capability and make the task simpler.

ZumoDrive mimics a standard physical hard disk, which can contain numerous folders and files. It works on Windows, Macintosh or Linux computers, and also comes in a more limited version for the Apple iPhone. It presents itself as a standard hard-disk icon on all your computers. But it’s actually a single, identical virtual hard disk that lives on the company’s servers, not on the computers themselves. The files it contains are rapidly streamed down to your machines when you need them.

I tested the service on a desktop Windows PC, a netbook, two Mac laptops and an iPhone. I generally liked ZumoDrive and found it easy to use, and pretty fast. But I ran into a few glitches, and it can be pricey. The new version will offer 2 gigabytes of storage free, but will cost a monthly or annual fee for more storage, ranging from $30 a year for 10 gigabytes to $800 a year for 500 gigabytes.

Also, like all cloud-based storage, ZumoDrive isn’t fully accessible when you’re offline. It caches, or automatically downloads, some recently used files, making them available offline. But you may want to open a document or play a song that is available only when you are online.

There have been online storage services for years, including some that could appear as desktop icons. In particular, ZumoDrive competes with somewhat similar services such as SugarSync and DropBox. But it’s different.

Unlike DropBox, it doesn’t require you to remember to place files in a single, special folder. You can link your existing folders to the ZumoDrive. And, unlike SugarSync, it doesn’t copy all your shared files to the hard disks of all your computers. It keeps the files in the cloud.

Compared with SugarSync, which I also like, ZumoDrive uses much less of your hard disk space, and does a better job with iTunes libraries. But SugarSync doesn’t require you to be online to use the files it synchronizes, though it also keeps a backup copy that you can access from the Web.

You don’t need to learn any special techniques to use ZumoDrive. Your computer sees the ZumoDrive as if it were a physical hard disk, so you can add and delete files to it in the normal ways. A program like Microsoft Word (MSFT) also sees it as a normal disk, and can open files from, or save them to, a ZumoDrive without a second thought.

And, because a ZumoDrive can be large without taking up much space on your local drive, it is especially nice for netbooks, which may offer relatively little storage. It also allows you to share folders with others, and encrypts the data you store on it, for security.

To use ZumoDrive, you first upload all your key stuff from your main computer. Then, once you install the small ZumoDrive program on your other devices, all those file names show up on your screen and can be fetched from the cloud when you like. You can add files and folders from the other computers as well. And you can also access your files via a Web site or an iPhone.

You can link folders on your computers to identical folders on your ZumoDrive, and they will stay in sync, so you can keep using the folder structure you’re used to, and it will be up-to-date on the ZumoDrive.

ZumoDrive understands how to handle and centralize your iTunes music library. In my tests, I uploaded an iTunes library of about 900 songs from a Mac at my home, and was able to play the songs on a Windows XP netbook that had no music stored locally.

I ran into some glitches and limitations, all of which the company says it is fixing. For instance, at first my netbook didn’t fetch all the iTunes songs.

But, all in all, ZumoDrive is a harbinger of the new world of cloud computing, and it is worth a look.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Keeping Files In Sync

Walter S. Mossberg — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 22:02:02 +0000

My wife and I each use a different Windows laptop, so we end up having documents scattered between them. We back up data using a wired external hard drive, not knowing what has been saved where. Is there a solution that can allow file sharing and keep my files, my wife’s files, and the backup files synced up?

There are networked hard drives from several manufacturers that can back up both laptops wirelessly and allow sharing. One I reviewed recently is the My Book World Edition from Western Digital. Another approach would be to use a Web-based synchronization service. My favorite of these is called SugarSync, from a company called Sharpcast.

SugarSync can automatically, and almost instantly, synchronize files in folders you select among multiple computers, while also backing them up to a password-protected Web account. SugarSync starts at $5 a month or $50 a year for 30 gigabytes of files, and goes up in price based on the amount you use. The company offers a free two-gigabyte account and a free trial of larger accounts for 30 days. More information is at sharpcast.com.

I have been a Windows user for may years but have wanted to change to Mac. Yet every article I read says that Quicken, which I depend upon heavily, will not run—at least reliably—on a Mac, even with the Windows-compatible software. Is this true?

The native Quicken version for the Mac is a less capable program than the Windows version, and doesn’t use the same file format, which makes importing Windows Quicken files a tedious and imperfect process for many users. Intuit, the maker of Quicken, is promising a new, much better native Mac version early next year that it claims will solve these problems, but I haven’t tested it, so I can’t verify that pledge.

However, in tests I have run periodically, Quicken for Windows ran just fine on a Mac equipped to run Windows and Windows programs. This was true when I used either Parallels or Fusion, which allow you to run Windows programs on a Mac simultaneously with Mac programs; or when I used Boot Camp, which converts the Mac into a full-fledged Windows machine, with Apple’s operating system turned off.

I plan to get a new computer after Windows 7 is released in October, to replace my old Compaq running Windows XP. Will I have difficulty moving my files to the new one?

You shouldn’t have much difficulty with your personal data files. Microsoft is building in an Easy Transfer program to move personal files to a new Windows 7 PC. But the Microsoft program won’t move over your programs. You will have to reinstall all your programs, which means finding your installation disks or installer files and re-installing all the updates from that have occurred over the years. A company called LapLink is promising to sell software it says will automate the entire process, including moving programs, to spare you this re-installation burden. But it isn’t out yet, and I haven’t tested it with Windows 7.

You can find Mossberg’s Mailbox and my other columns at the All Things Digital Web site, http://walt.allthingsd.com.

A Program That Makes Your Inbox Less Scary

Katherine Boehret — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 04:02:03 +0000

For many people, email is the main way they communicate with friends, co-workers and family members. It contains bills, class assignments, trip itineraries, photos and love notes. But as much as it gets used every day, the software that we utilize to read and sort our email isn’t as clever or time-saving as it could be.

This week I tested Postbox 1.0, a program designed to handle your email in a smart, helpful manner. Starting Wednesday, this program is available at www.Postbox-Inc.com. Postbox sorts through your email and detects its contents so you can see Web links, photos, contacts and other items themselves with one button click—whether Microsoft Word (MSFT) documents, PDFs or spreadsheets—without digging through messages. Since its inbox is constantly being indexed, all search queries return near-instant results.

Postbox uses an Inspector Pane on the right side of each email to extract and display elements like images, attachments and contact information.

Postbox’s founders come from Mozilla Corp., maker of the popular Firefox browser, so Postbox is based on Mozilla technology and its security standards. Email is indexed locally on your computer, so none of it is sent back across the Web to Postbox. It uses Content Tabs (tabs are another feature borrowed from Firefox) to help visually organize folders, messages and content extracted from those messages. It displays the most important elements of each message in a right-side panel. Received emails can even be edited so they aren’t sitting in your inbox with subject lines like, “Fw: Re: Re: Sept.” Instead, you can rewrite the subject to something like “Flight times.”

But this program isn’t free like Gmail, Hotmail or other Web-based email programs, nor does it come preloaded on a computer the way Apple Mail (AAPL) is on every Mac. Users can try Postbox for a free 30-day trial period after which each license costs $40, allowing one person to use their license on multiple computers (i.e. at work, at home, on a laptop). For another $20, a Family Pack option will give up to five family members use of Postbox. An additional $25 buys a Lifetime Upgrades plan that entitles you to receive free of charge any major version of Postbox that’s released; other nonmajor releases are free upgrades.

I used Postbox on a Mac and a Windows Vista computer, filling it up with thousands of emails from Gmail, Hotmail and .Mac accounts. It didn’t run properly on my company-issued computer, which is plugged into a network firewall. Postbox says it supports open protocols like IMPAP, POP and SMTP, and that it would work with Microsoft Exchange if Exchange were set to use those open protocols.

For all of Postbox’s terrific features, it can be hard to suddenly see your email in a different way since most of our email programs haven’t changed much in years. Outlook, for example, has plenty of hidden features that many people never learn how to use. Postbox seems to know how slow users are to adapt to change and so it reveals many of its features whenever it gets the chance.

For example, Postbox pops up an alert that shows you how to connect this email program to Facebook and Twitter so that you can post status updates or tweets without leaving your email. These connections also let Postbox try to pull one representative photo for each of your email contacts by matching a name in an email with someone’s Facebook or Twitter name—if you follow the person. It also uses photos assigned to contacts in the Mac OS X address book, which is used by Apple Mail.

Or take a feature in Postbox called Topics. This is a way of auto-organizing messages into different groups after you label them as being part of a certain topic, say “Mom’s Birthday.” All messages in an email conversation are grouped into “Mom’s Birthday,” as are any future responses to the same conversation. Postbox gives you three ways to label an email conversation as being part of a certain topic: from the toolbar, using a Topics button in the message header or by pressing “T” from within a message. You can also select a topic as you’re composing an email, pre-sorting that conversation into a designated topic.

Not everyone will like Topics because, however helpful the feature is, it makes the user do more work when he or she just want to get through a huge pile of unread emails. Labeling each email with a certain topic doesn’t take long, but it’s still an extra step. I would like Postbox to create automatic topics for sorting emails. For example, I recently sent and received at least 50 emails related to rescheduling tennis matches. Even though all the messages had the word “tennis” in them, not all of them were related to the same email, so they wouldn’t sort into the topic I created, “Tennis Make-Up.” Postbox says it has considered automatic options like these and may try to incorporate something similar in future versions of the product.

If my 30-day trial ran out tomorrow, I’d miss Postbox’s Inspector Bar the most. This feature works like a filter, instantly sucking out the most important parts in each email—including messages, attachments, images or links—and displaying them in a blue, right-side panel.

Another useful tool in Postbox is the Compose Sidebar. This also appears as a right-side panel but it shows up when someone is writing an email. This panel can display attachments, images, links or contacts found in all emails so you can simply drag and drop that item into your email as you’re composing it. This took me a while to get comfortable using because I’m so used to hunting through emails for things that I need to find. But once it became a habit, I found myself using the Compose Sidebar often.

If you have Postbox running in the background and you get an email, small notifications appear in the bottom left of your screen telling you which email account received the message and who sent it.

In the Content Tabs, which fill up with all attachments, images, links or contacts found in your indexed email, a feature called the Action Bar lets you save, send, or instantly glance at a document. This saves you from opening each email and its attachment, a process that sometimes requires opening a slow-to-open program to see the document. A slider in this Action Bar lets you adjust the size of images from small to large.

Postbox shines a unique light on email and the way we work with it every day. Not all of its features will come naturally for long-time users of the same email program. But for someone who wants a fast search option built into email, Postbox is a winner.

Edited by Walter S. Mossberg.

Email mossbergsolution@wsj.com

For Some, Move To Windows 7 Will Be Tough

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:02:03 +0000

On October 22, Microsoft will finally release a new version of Windows that will be as good as the deeply disappointing Windows Vista should have been when it came out in January 2007. The new edition, called Windows 7, is a big improvement over both Vista and the sturdy, 2001-vintage Windows XP still widely in use. It will give Apple’s (AAPL) long-superior Mac OS X operating system a run for its money (though Apple might maintain its edge with a new version, called Snow Leopard, due in September).

But how will Windows users transition their current computers to the new Windows 7? While this latest operating system stresses simplicity, the upgrade process will be anything but simple for the huge base of average consumers still using XP, who likely outnumber Vista users. It will be frustrating, tedious and labor-intensive.

[ See post to watch video ]

In fact, the process will be so painful that, for many XP users, the easiest solution may be to buy a new PC preloaded with Windows 7, if they can afford such a purchase in these dire economic times. In fact, that’s the option Microsoft (MSFT) recommends for XP users. (Conveniently, this option also helps Microsoft’s partners that make PCs.)

By contrast, if you’re using Vista, the upgrade to Windows 7 should be a fairly easy, straightforward process. Because the new version shares most of the underlying guts of Vista, it installs itself on your current machine relatively quickly and smoothly, preserving all your files, folders, settings and programs. In a test of this process earlier this year, using a pre-release version of Windows 7, I upgraded a Vista laptop with no problems and little effort in about an hour.

But Windows XP users, including the millions who have recently snapped up cheap, XP-powered netbooks, will first have to wipe out everything on their hard disks in order to install Windows 7. on their current machines. In fact, Microsoft doesn’t even call migrating to Windows 7 from XP an “upgrade.” It refers to it as a “clean install,” or a “custom installation.” This disk wipeout can be performed manually, or automatically during the Windows 7 installation process.

If you’re an XP user, the disk-wiping will cause you to lose your current file and folder organization, and all your programs, though not necessarily your personal data files themselves.

However, in order to preserve these personal files, like documents and photos, you will have to undertake a long, multi-step process, typically requiring the use of an external hard disk, to which all these files will have to be temporarily moved and then moved back.

That means you’ll have to buy or borrow an external hard disk, or clean out enough room on one you already own, to hold all your files.

And the pain doesn’t end there. If you’re an XP user, moving to Windows 7 on your current computer means you will also have to re-install all your programs and restore all the software drivers for your printers and other add-on hardware. That could require locating the original program disks, or downloaded program installers, and then re-downloading and re-installing the numerous updates that have been issued since these original disks or installers came out.

And, there’s another problem: XP hardware drivers won’t work in Windows 7. Microsoft says it can automatically replace thousands of common older drivers with newer Windows 7-compatible versions, but admits that there may be some for which it doesn’t have replacements. The company specifically warns that some netbooks may include obsolete drivers.

Netbook owners face another problem. Even though Microsoft says Windows 7 will work fine on netbooks, most of them lack a DVD drive, which is needed to run the Windows 7 installation disk. So they’ll have to buy or borrow an external DVD drive.

Microsoft has taken some steps to make this easier. It plans to offer a free “Easy Transfer” program (explained at http://bit.ly/M5Il7) that will automate the process of moving your personal files to an external drive, and then restoring them to your computer after Windows 7 is installed. But this program won’t transfer your programs, only your personal data.

Also, if you don’t want to use an external hard disk to temporarily store your files, you can transfer them over a cable or network to another computer. The company even has an alternative where it will stow your personal data in a special folder called windows.old, on the transformed PC. But you’ll then have to manually move all of these files back to their normal locations.

Finally, Microsoft officials point out that this XP migration issue may be moot for many owners of older XP computers, because their ancient machines lack enough memory, hard disk space, or graphics power to accommodate Windows 7 anyway.

And, even if a really old machine is marginally capable of running Windows 7, it’s a mistake to try and cram a new OS into it and expect a great experience.

But if you do own an otherwise capable computer that happens to be running Windows XP, you’re likely facing a painful process should you choose to transition it to Windows 7.

Find Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.

Mozilla Firefox 3.0 Is the Best Browser for Web -- For Now

Walter S. Mossberg — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 00:01:00 +0000

If you buy a new Windows Vista PC, it comes with a decent built-in Web browser, Internet Explorer 7. If you buy a new Macintosh computer, it comes with a decent built-in Web browser, Safari 3.0. So why would you want or need a different Web browser?

[ See post to watch video ]

That is the question that Mozilla, the nonprofit organization that makes the leading alternative browser, hopes to answer this month when it releases version 3.0 of its Firefox Web browser. In some tech-industry circles, Firefox already is preferred over Microsoft’s (MSFT) Internet Explorer and Apple’s (AAPL) Safari, but it still isn’t used by most people, and Mozilla is hoping to broaden its appeal.

The new version will be released simultaneously for Windows and the Mac’s OS X operating system, as well as for Linux. While each of the three editions will have the visual style of the operating system on which it runs, all three will have the same features.

I’ve been using prerelease versions of Firefox 3.0 for months, and have recently been testing a near-final version and comparing it closely to IE and to Safari. I have tested it on multiple Windows PCs and Macs, on desktops and laptops, over slow connections and fast ones. I have tried it with well over 100 Web sites.

My verdict is that Firefox 3.0 is the best Web browser out there right now, and that it tops the current versions of both IE and Safari in features, speed and security. It is easy to install and easy to use, even for a mainstream, non-technical user. It can be downloaded, free, at mozilla.com by clicking on “Firefox 3 Sneak Peek.”

This situation may change. Microsoft is working on a new version of IE, scheduled to be unveiled later this year, with some impressive new features. And Apple is always working on new iterations of Safari, though it is secretive and hasn’t disclosed its plans. But for now, in my view, Firefox 3.0 rules on both Windows and Mac.

I couldn’t find any significant downsides to Firefox 3.0. Every page I tried rendered properly and rapidly on both platforms. I ran into only one glitch, in a preference setting. That problem appeared on only one of my four test machines and was fixable with the help of Mozilla, albeit via a geeky method.

In the one or two cases where Firefox lacked a feature I thought important, such as the “auto fill” feature in Safari that can quickly fill out an online form, I was able to find an add-on that did the trick from Mozilla’s vast library of add-ons, which are written by people all over the world. (One caution: Some existing add-ons won’t work with the new version until their authors update them.)

When Firefox first came out, it was the fastest browser, but it lost that title over the years. However, in my tests, this new third version of Firefox regained the speed crown. It beat IE 7 handily on my test Windows computers and edged Safari slightly on my test Macs.

For example, using a new Dell (DELL) XPS One desktop, I opened identical folders containing the same 16 bookmarks on both IE 7 and Firefox 3.0. IE took 37 seconds to completely display the 16 pages, but the new Firefox did it in just 23 seconds. On a new Apple iMac, I did a similar, but more daunting, test — opening identical folders containing 24 bookmarks. Safari rendered all of the pages in 36 seconds, but the new Firefox finished the job in 32 seconds.

The latest Firefox has a number of new and improved features. If you type any word or phrase into its address bar, the browser instantly searches your history and bookmarks for a possible match, to save you from typing or combing through your bookmark list.

The whole process of managing bookmarks has been vastly simplified. Every Web address is accompanied by a star icon at the right. To bookmark the site, you just click the star once. No other action is required. To specify where to file the bookmark, you click the star twice. You also can remove bookmarks by clicking the star. And you can tag bookmarks with key words, to make it easier to find them.

There are also smart bookmark folders, which gather your most visited sites, or most recently bookmarked sites, automatically into folders. You also now can more easily back up and restore your bookmarks, complete with tags.

Security is also improved. The old version of Firefox would warn you when a site you were visiting appeared to be a fake, designed to steal your identity. (IE has a similar feature, though Safari doesn’t.) But Firefox 3.0 now warns you about sites that are known for trying to plant viruses, spyware and other malicious software on your computer, a warning the other big browsers don’t yet provide.

With one click, Firefox 3.0 also provides details about who owns the site you’re visiting, and whether it’s encrypted, if the site owner has adopted a special type of security certificate.

My bottom line: Even though you already have a built-in browser, Firefox 3.0 can improve your Web experience.

Find all of Walt Mossberg’s columns and videos online, free, at the All Things Digital Web site, walt.allthingsd.com. Email him at mossberg@wsj.com.