: Firefox has this awful "feature" called tabbed browsing.

Andy,

funny you should say that as that is the feature I like the best. at >edit >preferences >main I have "when firefox starts: Show my windows and tabs from last time. This way I don't need to go find my gmail, calendar, KBBS, and google reader. They open when FF starts.

you can set how links behave here: >edit >preferences >tabs select "when I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately"

My set-up has "a new tab" selected, and the first 3 square blocks selected.

for java, I have this: >edit >preferences >content I have the first 4 blocks selected.

I'm running Ubuntu Linux and am not at all worried about virus' because any applications of this type is usually written for windows and, if written for Linux, (unlikely) it would require a password and 'root' access to be installed.

At >edit >preferences >security select the top 3 items for a bit more control of what your browser does.

When I view KBBS, it shows up in frames,the message index on the left and the message I select is shown on the right.

A configuration control for hundreds of things is here: open a new tab, type in about:config and hit enter. This brings up a list of how things are configured. at the filter bar, type in frames this sorts it down to a few items. double click the line "browser.frames.enabled" to make it read "true" double clicking toggles from true to false in this case.

Below is a screen shot, the browser is on my right monitor and the brown background with folders and the preferences dialog is on my left.

Hope this helps a bit..
tony