My 2c about the default Firefox Start Page

[Lakin Wecker]

I submitted a bug, http://bugzilla.ubuntu.com/show_bug.cgi?id=21901,
and was told that the discussion should happen on this list:

The current conversation about the default behavior of the URL bar in firefox
got me to think about new users and their experience with firefox.   A new user
who is not yet familiar with web browsing is given no information on what to do.
 They mouse over on the big blue mystery icon at the top of their screen tells
them that firefox allows them to browse the World Wide Web, so they click on it.
 What do they do now?

The current information displayed in the Firefox starting page, is great
information, but is utterly useless for browsing the web.  This information is
important and should be shown to users, but it shouldn't be the default start
page for firefox.   When, and where it is shown is probably another discussion
altogether, and not something I want to get into in this thread.

Perhaps, we could design another start page which explains to a user the common
use cases for browsing the internet:
"If you know the URL of the webpage that you want to visit, type it into the URL
box at the top of this window, <insert screenshot>.  If you don't know what a
URL is, or don't know which page you want to visit, you can search for webpages
using the google bar, <insert screenshot>.  "  etc.  This could also be a place
to explain basic web security information that we take for granted.  And
finally, the page could include information on what a home page is, and how to
set it, such that they don't have to see this page everytime they
start firefox.this

Even better would be if this page didn't fill in the URL bar, such that typing
in a new URL would be easy from this starting point.


Lakin
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