May 25

Firefox’s Start Page A Forgery?

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 19, 2006 by CyberNet.

Dan emailed me this link and told me to open it. He didn’t say much other than it was a forgery site so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It was obviously a link to some sort of Google site but in Firefox 2 I was prompted with this:

Firefox Forgery

I decided to help out by clicking the “This isn’t a web forgery” link so I’m not sure how long this will remain flagged as a forgery. I also tested the link in Internet Explorer but it is okay there. I wonder how this ever happened?

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 23

Firefox 5 beta for desktop and mobile now available

Posted in: Android, Mozilla, Today's Chili, web

Mozilla’s Firefox channel system is now complete, with the first Firefox 5 beta releases being pushed for both desktop and mobile users. There aren’t many recognizable differences from Firefox 4 at the moment, apart from the introduction of the channel changer mechanism and the relocation of Mozilla’s Do Not Track opt-in to the privacy tab […]

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May 21

CyberNotes: Best Greasemonkey Scripts for Popular Sites

Posted in: CyberNotes, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

This article was written on February 27, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

As you may have noticed by now we’ve been trying to cover a variety of Greasemonkey scripts on the site with our Best Greasemonkey Scripts series, and today we’re going to put it into overdrive. Below we’ve taken five extremely popular sites that have dozens (or hundreds) of Greasemonkey scripts available, and grabbed only the ones we’ve found useful.

I’ve tested all of the scripts below in Firefox 2 running the latest version of Greasemonkey, and can verify that they work on the sites as of today (02/27/2008). Some of the scripts will likely get broken in the future as sites are redesigned, but then we just have to keep our fingers crossed that the developers will update them.

Alright, now on to the five sites: eBay, Gmail, YouTube, Flickr, and Digg:

–eBay–

  • greasemonkey ebay negative feedback Show Only Negative Feedback – This adds two new tabs to the feedback screen for “complaints left” and “complaints received.” It might give you a better perspective on the person you’re buying from since you can see negative and neutral feedback without going through a mile long list.
  • My eBay Autologin – If Firefox automatically fills in your username and password this script will submit the login form for you. This makes the “auto-logout after a day” feature eBay has much less annoying.
  • eBay Search Pictures – Not every seller decides to pay for a gallery image, but they often still include images of the auction item within the post. When performing a search on eBay this script will go fetch images for the results that don’t have them, and then place them next to the listing as if they were a gallery image.
  • Display Totals with Shipping – When comparing items on eBay do you have a hard time adding the selling cost + shipping to get the final total? With this script a new column is added which totals the two amounts together for you. Thank goodness because that 4th-grade math can really be killer! ;)

–Gmail 2–

–YouTube–

  • greasemonkey youtube embed Videoembed – You how it can be annoying when a site links to a video on Youtube without actually embedding it? No problem, this script will recognize those links and automatically embed the video after the link. It works with about 20 different sites including YouTube.
  • Download YouTube Video – Does exactly what you think it would… lets you download a YouTube video to your computer.
  • YouTube Cleaner – You can toggle the comments and related videos on or off, which cleans up the interface… especially when you have those videos with hundreds of pointless comments.
  • YousableTubeFix – The best thing about this script is that it resizes the video to fill up your screen. Underneath the video you’ll find several links for dynamically resizing the video.
  • YouTube Prevent Autoplay – When viewing videos on the YouTube site you won’t have to worry about them automatically playing. Thank goodness!

–Flickr–

  • greasemonkey flickr sizes Flickr Photo Page Enhancer – Adds links underneath the “Additional Information” section in the sidebar which link directly to the different size photos, and also provides hyperlinking code.
  • Flickr Link Original Images – Adds a small button to the upper-left corner of the images which links directly to the original image.
  • Flickr Remove Spaceball – Removes the empty image that is sometimes placed over Flickr photos to prevent them from being saved to your computer.

–Digg–

  • greasemonkey digg mirrors Add Mirrors – This is the most condensed way I’ve ever seen to add mirror links to each Digg article. The links are shown as four small icons immediately underneath each “Digg It” button.
  • Old Comments – Makes the nested comments look way better.
  • Digg Me Later – This is really clever, and a script that I’ve been using for quite some time now. Whenever you click on an external link on Digg a green bar will be placed at the very top with a “Digg It” link. That way you don’t have to return to the Digg site just to Digg the article after you’re done reading it.

–Overview–

We know that many of you use Greasemonkey scripts on a regular basis, and we would love to hear what your favorites are! Just post them in the comments below.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 21

FireTorrent: The Best BitTorrent Extension for Firefox Yet

Posted in: Firefox 3, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on June 13, 2007 by CyberNet.

This was surely a long time coming, but it looks like there is a real add-on available for users who want to download BitTorrent files in Firefox. Previously we had reviewed FoxTorrent that worked as expected, but it had to install an additional application that was used to do the dirty work. It basically just used Firefox as a Web interface for the application.

The new add-on, called FireTorrent, doesn’t install any additional applications on your computer. On my Vista machine I had some troubles getting it installed because the add-on does modify Firefox’s chrome located in the directory where you installed Firefox. For that reason I’m not sure if this should really be classified as an extension. This also means that it isn’t stored in your Firefox profile folder like other extensions, so you will need to reinstall this each time you wipe Firefox from you computer (even if you have your profile backed up).

With that being said the FireTorrent add-on works extremely well after you install it. I clicked on a link to a Torrent and I saw the exact same popup that I would see if I was downloading a normal file. It asked if I wanted to open or save the file, and after picking an option I was taken to the normal Firefox download manager except it had a new "Torrent" tab on it:

FireTorrent

I like that it is so well integrated into Firefox because it now seems like a natural process to download Torrents, just like with the Opera browser.

Clicking on the "More Info" link next to a download will reveal things like how many sources you’re downloading from as well as how fast you’re uploading. I had almost though they forgot to include this essential information, but instead they just did a good job of keeping the interface free of clutter.

It also has several options available that lets you customize things like the upload/download speed limitations in addition to the port number that’s used. Here are two screenshots that show all of the settings it has to pick from:

FireTorrent FireTorrent
Click to Enlarge

Graphically FireTorrent seems to be lacking a little bit as seen in the screenshots. The background color seems to be a little off, but that might be attributed to me using this on a Firefox 3 nightly build.

As far as download speeds go I would say that they are pretty good. Not quite what I get from a dedicated BitTorrent application, but I didn’t expect to get outstanding results. The entire point of having BitTorrent capabilities built-in to the browser is for the added convenience. If I had a huge file to download (several gigabytes) I would using a BitTorrent program to download it since I’ll get the best performance.

If you’re looking to add some BitTorrent goodness to your Firefox I would recommend checking FireTorrent out. Alternatively they also create a browser called Wyzo that is based on Firefox and has the BitTorrent integration already installed (and actually has a pretty cool skin).

Source: Mozilla Links

Thanks to netster007x for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 20

CyberSearch 2.0: Bing Support, Search Details, and More

Posted in: Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Google, Newly Released, search, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on October 23, 2009 by CyberNet.

cybersearch_fulllogo.png

I’ve been working on a new version of CyberSearch for a little while now, and I’ve been trying to come up with ways to add all of the most requested features. It wasn’t until about August 2009 that I started to get inspired to work on the extension again, which is when we all of a sudden saw a huge surge in downloads that has remained constant ever since. In the last 3 months we went from getting about 300 downloads a day and 10,000 active users to an astounding 3,000-7,000 downloads a day and almost 90,000 active users. I believe the rapid increase has been coming from the fact that we’re now a Mozilla “recommended” add-on, and as some users have pointed out to me our add-on sometimes shows up in the add-on management window within Firefox. So a big thanks to Mozilla for giving me the motivation to push out a new version, because without them the CyberSearch growth graph probably wouldn’t look like this:

cybersearch growth.png

CyberSearch 2.0 is almost a complete rewrite of the previous version, and I did that for performance concerns. Since I wanted to add more features I knew I had to squeeze every last ounce of juice out before I could move on, otherwise I could have ended up with something sluggish enough that people wouldn’t even want to use it. To put it in perspective… CyberSearch 2.0 actually does about half the number of computations that CyberSearch 1.0 did for each search that is performed.

As far as new features go we’ve got quite a few! The first thing is Bing support. You can now create keywords that use either Bing or Google, which is pretty cool if you think about it. That means you can make one keyword that searches Bing, and another that searches Google. If you don’t like the results that one search engine shows just try using the other… and all you have to do is change the keyword. The real reason I wanted to add Bing support, however, is because they have some API functionality that Google doesn’t offer. Thanks to Bing you can actually create keywords that will do conversions/calculations using their Instant Answer technology, or lookup the spelling of a word. You can do this all from the comfort of your address bar.

cybersearch_gloc_fastfood.png

Next up: search descriptions. This is undoubtedly the most requested feature. You wanted some way to view the descriptions of all the search results just as if you were at the search engine page. I struggled with this for awhile because I didn’t want to try and cram the descriptions into the Address Bar menu which is already cramped, and could require a lot of scrolling to see all the results. That’s when I came up with the idea to use the area behind the menu for this! That way I have a large amount of space to work with, and am able to display way more details than I originally anticipated. For example, if you’re using a keyword with the Google Local service just press the arrows on your keyboard to highlight one of the results. You should see the background behind the menu dim down, and location details will appear… including a thumbnail of a map for where that place is located (as seen in the screenshot above)! All of the different types of searches provide you with customized details (video searches show the duration, book searches provide the ISBN number, blog searches show the publication date, etc…), and screenshots of them all can be found on the CyberSearch homepage.

Those are the two main highlights of the extension, but that doesn’t mean that’s all that changed. You’ll also find little things throughout CyberSearch 2.0 that should make your life a little easier. Things like a “snapback” button in the address for pulling up the last search phrase you used, or the ability to import/export your configuration and keywords so that setting up multiple machines with CyberSearch is a breeze! These were all your ideas, and hopefully they are exactly what you wanted.

When I describe my extension to people they often ask if it’s similar to Google Chrome’s “omnibar,” which is the name for their browser’s address bar. It eliminates the need for a search box just like CyberSearch does, but it isn’t nearly as powerful. Just watch this 3-minute video I put together and tell me if Chrome can do this:

The next thing I want to try and work on is localization so that CyberSearch supports other languages/countries, but it will probably be a little while before I can get to adding any big features like this again. If you find any bugs please report them so that I can try to get them fixed right away. Thanks again for all of your support and feedback!

CyberSearch Homepage

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 17

Foxmarks Introduces Sync Profiles

Posted in: Features, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 08, 2008 by CyberNet.

I can’t even count the number of times I’ve been asked whether there is some way that users can synchronize select bookmarks with their work computer. It’s often because they like having access to some of their bookmarks from both home and work, while some they want left exclusively for one of the locations.

Foxmarks is once again coming to the rescue! A new version of the Firefox extension was just uploaded yesterday, and it includes the ability to create custom profiles. That way you can have some bookmarks show up on your home computer, some on your work machine, and so on. From what I can tell you can create as many profiles as you would like.

To get started you’ll want to go to Tools -> Manage Sync Profiles on your my.foxmarks.com page. Add the profiles you want to use, and select which bookmarks each profile should have access to:

foxmarks sync profiles.png

All that you have to do after that is tell the Foxmarks extension which profile it should use. To do this open up the Foxmarks settings in Firefox, and navigate to the Profiles tab. From here you can select which profile the computer should be synchronizing with.

Pretty cool, huh? This feature is sure to make a lot of people happy because it’s now possible to have a central location for managing all of your bookmarks that are spread across multiple computers. Talk about convenience!

Get the Foxmarks Extension for Firefox

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 11

Firefox 3.1 to Get More JavaScript Speed Optimizations

Posted in: Firefox 3, Freeware, performance, Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 25, 2008 by CyberNet.

fast firefox

Mozilla is looking to drastically improve the JavaScript performance in Firefox 3.1 when it is released later this year. When Firefox 3 was released back in June it included a significant boost in the JavaScript performance arena, but will they be able to do it again?

If you decide to download a nightly build of Firefox 3.1 to test out the improved JavaScript performance it’s important to know that the new JavaScript engine, dubbed TraceMonkey, isn’t enabled by default. To enable it you’ll need to open the about:config and find the javascript.options.jit.content setting. Set the value to true by double-clicking on it, and the changes will be applied without needing to restart the browser. Refer to this article if you need help using about:config.

I know you’re wondering how much better it performs, and so I’ll turn your attention to the Sunspider test, which we’ve used in the past to compare the various browsers. I ran all of the following tests on the same MacBook Pro computer with the Mac OS X operating system (lower amount of time is better):

  1. Safari 3.1.2: 3062.0ms
  2. Firefox 3.0: 2997.2ms
  3. Firefox 3.1 nightly without TraceMonkey: 2510.2ms
  4. Firefox 3.1 nightly with TraceMonkey: 1610.4ms

That’s a rather significant difference. Compared to Firefox 3.0 the new Firefox 3.1 nightly build is nearly twice as fast, and my results are consistent with those that Mozilla got. Bravo!

Behind the scenes the optimizations occur when repetitive tasks are done in JavaScript. For example, the folks over at Mozilla whipped up a quick image editor that lets you adjust the brightness and contrast of a photo. It’s nothing fancy, but there is a noticeable difference using Firefox 3.0 compared to Firefox 3.1 with TraceMonkey enabled. That’s because the JavaScript runs significantly faster due to the image editor consistently repeating the same task. Generally that’s how it works, but the nitty gritty details can be found here.

There’s still some work that needs to be done on TraceMonkey, and some bugs need to be ironed out before it will be ready for prime-time. I’m already getting pumped about Firefox 3.1 though.

Thanks natmaster!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 09

Where Does Firefox 2 Stand on Vista Compatibility

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 20, 2006 by CyberNet.

Several months ago I wrote an article about changing the default browser in Windows Vista Beta 2 and what a pain it was for anyone that had the User Account Control (UAC) enabled. While the purpose of the UAC is to protect the computer from hackers the simple task of modifying or installing something can be quite a pain. The concept of UAC is great, but I am still a little skeptical whether UAC will even help the inexperienced users that always click “OK” or “Continue” just to get the popup to disappear. At least Microsoft can say that they are doing their part.

At the time I was still learning Vista and wasn’t sure if this was some sort of bug in the operating system or if Mozilla had to fix Firefox (and the rest of their applications) in order to change the default program association. It is actually something that Mozilla has to handle themselves and they are working on making Firefox completely compatible with Windows Vista. The latest release, Firefox 2.0.0.1, fixes some of the compatibility issues that have existed, but there are still plenty that they need to conquer including setting the default browser. A comment in that bug report says:

We know it isn’t fixed yet. There is still lots more to be done. It is planned to be fixed for 2.0.0.2. Also, see bug 352420 for some of the additional bugs that need to be fixed.

While 20 bugs still need to be fixed the outlook does look positive since nearly 14 have been resolved (or supposedly resolved). Almost all of the bugs are due to the User Account Control “feature” which hopefully opens the eyes of other software development companies who are just sitting around hoping their software will work fine. I’m hoping that Firefox 2.0.0.2 ships in time for the January 30 release date of Vista, and as of right now it looks like both Firefox 1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2 are scheduled for “late January” so it might be close. I’ll cross my fingers and hope that I won’t have to hear the burning question “and why can’t I change my default browser?”

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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May 07

Tor to fork Firefox for simplified anonymous browsing, doesn’t think you’re paranoid

Posted in: privacy, security, Today's Chili, web browser, WebBrowser
Tor

Soon political dissidents, whistle blowers, and those trying to cheat MLB.TV’s blackout restrictions will have an easier way to protect their privacy thanks to a dedicated Tor Browser. For those of you unfamiliar with it, Tor is a tool for anonymizing web browsing and communications through encryption and proxy servers. Trouble is, it requires both a browser extension and a standalone app to work — leaving average users “horribly confused,” according to developer Mike Perry. So, the organization has decided to retire the Tor Button and create its own fork of Firefox with private browsing features baked in. As an added benefit, Tor will no longer be at the mercy of Mozilla to fix bugs that affect privacy and security. For now, the group will focus on its downloadable bundle with automatic configuration scripts for simplifying setup, but eventually the paranoid will have a browser they can finally call their own.

Tor to fork Firefox for simplified anonymous browsing, doesn’t think you’re paranoid originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 07 May 2011 21:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink PC World  |  sourceThe Tor Blog  | Email this | Comments

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May 07

WrapUp: Reasons to Jailbreak Your iPad, New Chrome OS Screenshots, and More

Posted in: ipad, jailbreak, Today's Chili, WrapUp

This article was written on May 24, 2010 by CyberNet.

Welcome to the WrapUp by CyberNet. This is a collection of news stories, downloads, and tips that we have collected over the last few days, but never got around to writing about. Don’t forget to send in your own tips, or just leave a comment on this page if you think you’ve got something we should include.

–News–

googletv.pngGoogle TV Unveiled
Google has found their way on to your computer, on to your phone, and now wants to be on your TV. At their conference last week they announced Google TV, which merges your cable/satellite box, your TV, and the web so that it is all managed from one central interface. Sony will be building this into some of their TVs, and Logitech will be making a “companion” box running the Google TV platform… both of which will be on sale this Fall at Best Buy.


hotmail.jpgNew Hotmail Allows for Larger Attachments
From a global perspective Hotmail is the most used email service, but in the U.S. Hotmail is on the verge of giving up their second place position to Gmail (with Yahoo! in first). The new version of Hotmail, due out later this summer, will have a bunch of new features that will make managing your Inbox easier, but the big thing to me is the new attachment limitations. Hotmail will not only allow for 50MB attachments (Gmail is 25MB), but you can attach up to 10GB of files (Gmail is 25MB). That means you can attach 200 files that are each 50MB to an email, or that is equivalent to about 2,000 full resolution digital photos (assuming an average 5MB size). This is made possible thanks to direct integration with your SkyDrive account.


–News in Brief–

google ssl.jpgGoogle Offers Encrypted Search
You can now visit an HTTPS version of Google homepage to help hide your session from third parties.


att.jpgAT&T Early Termination Nearly Doubles on June 1st
Beginning June 1st the AT&T early termination fee will be upped from $175 to $325 for all smartphone users.


froyo.jpgGoogle Android 2.2 Revealed
The next generation Android OS will include significant speed improvements, tethering capabilities, Flash support, and more.


rotten itunes.jpgiTunes Store Includes Rotten Tomatoes Ratings
A silent update to the iTunes store adds ratings to movies from the Rotten Tomatoes site.


itouch camera.jpgLeaked iPod Touch Includes 2MP Camera
A leaked iPod Touch model has a small camera in it, which was rumored to have been supposedly pulled from the the current models at the last minute.


chrome os screenshot.jpgMore Google Chrome OS Screenshots
This article includes screenshots of the notification panel, tab navigation, and the open file dialog in the Chrome OS.


hotmail logo.jpgHotmail by Numbers
Find out some stats about Hotmail, such as that there are over 15 billion Office documents being stored right now.


android.jpgNexus One Won’t Be Offered Online Anymore
Google has decided that selling their Nexus One phone online is not the best route to go, and the device will be pulled from their online store once retail channels are in place.


–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

webm converter.jpgMiro Video Converter First Tool to Produce WebM Videos
We wrote about the free Miro Video Converter a little while back, and one shining point is definitely its simplicity. This free app is also one of the first to offer WebM (a video format announced by Google, Mozilla, Adobe and others) as one of the types you can save a video as.


jailbreak ipad.jpgReasons to Jailbreak Your iPad
Gizmodo has written up a great article that covers many of the jailbroken apps that have already been made iPad-compatible. I have personally jailbroken my iPad just so I could get some of the functionality that they mention… most notably the ability to run apps in the background. If you own an iPad check out this article to see if jailbreaking is right for you.


–Tips in Brief–

chromium.jpgGoogle Chrome Password Syncing
New Chromium builds let users sync their saved passwords so that they are accessible from any computer.


firefox android.jpgNightly Builds of Firefox for Android
Mozilla has begun rolling out nightly releases of Fennec, a mobile version of Firefox, on the Android platform.


aero blur tweaker.jpgWindows Aero Blur Tweaker
This free utility will let you disable the blurring portion of the Aero interface, which makes it fully transparent.


xbmc.jpgGuide to Setting Up XBMC
 A comprehensive guide to setting up XBMC on your computer, and getting everything tailored to your needs.


manage wordpress comments-1.jpgManage WordPress Blog Comments from Your Desktop
A Windows app to let you manage (approve/reply/delete) your WordPress blog comments.  


skydrive viewer.jpgQuickly Find your SkyDrive WebDAV Paths
The SkyDrive Simple Viewer lets you snag your WebDAV paths so that you can map your account as a drive letter on your PC.


hd trailers.jpgDownload HD Movie Trailers in Bulk
This doesn’t have a GUI, but by editing a configuration file you can set this app up to download movie trailers.


netbook os.jpgSome Alternative Netbook Operating Systems
This is a rundown on some operating systems you can run on your netbook, including a customized version of Ubuntu that comes with proprietary codecs for things like MP3 playback.


tweak prefetch.jpgConfigure Windows Prefetch and Superfetch
Tweak the way both Prefetch and Superfetch work in Windows, such as whether apps or the OS are able to use it.


flux monitor.jpgUse F.lux to Adjust Monitor Brightness Automatically
F.lux is a free Windows app that will adjust your screen brightness based upon the time of day.


–Downloads–

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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