Feb 13

CyberNotes: Customize Firefox Sidebars

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

This article was written on February 20, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

One of the areas that I’ve always felt Firefox has lacked in is sidebar configurability. Other browsers, such as Opera, come with way more sidebar options out-of-the-box making it easy to throw a sidebar onto any side of the browser. The beauty of Firefox, however, is that there are plenty of extensions to solve any complaints.

We sifted through over a hundred different extensions that deal with the sidebars in Firefox, and handpicked three of them that offer outstanding customization options. Things like adding multiple sidebars, undocking the sidebars, and much more.

–MultiSidebar (Homepage)–

Hat tip: I have Tonino to thank for pointing out this extension to us.

MultiSidebar is a great example of the functionality I would love to see Mozilla incorporate into the browser by default. Once installed you can right-click on the header of any sidebar and have it open on the left, right, top, or bottom side of the browser. So if you want your bookmarks open on the right side, and your history open on the left side it’s a piece of cake:

Firefox MultiSidebar

The best part is the MultiSidebar remembers your options for the next time you go to open a particular sidebar, and that saves a lot of headaches. It even works great with the websites that you’ve setup to open in the sidebar.

–All-in-One Sidebar (Homepage)–

The All-in-One Sidebar is pretty much what the name says it is. It’s a highly-configurable extension that will let you place one “almighty” sidebar on either the left or right side of the browser. You can then add icons to the slim toolbar located next to the sidebar so that you can easily switch between the different sidebars that are available. One of my favorite features, however, has got to be the quick access to your downloads and extensions:

Firefox All In One Sidebar

This also works well for those of you who are trying to conserve your precious screenspace. That *really* thin bar along the left side serves as a quick way to collapse the sidebar, and it can be set to expand the sidebar when you hover over it with your mouse.

–Ez Sidebar (Homepage)–

Sometimes it is nice being able to undock the sidebar from the browser for one reason or another. Personally what I like to do is open up my bookmarks in the sidebar, undock them from the browser, and align the window along the left side of my monitor. That space on my computer is, for the most part, reserved solely for my bookmarks. By doing that I can have extremely fast access to any bookmark no matter what application I’m in.

This is all made possible because of Ez Sidebar which provides docking and undocking capabilities for the Firefox sidebar:

Firefox Ez Sidebar

The other thing that is really cool about this is that you can add “panels” which is equivalent to setting a website to open in the sidebar. Using Ez Sidebar to do this is nice for two reasons: it’s a much faster process and doesn’t clutter up your bookmarks.

–Overview–

So those are three tools that any frequent sidebar user is sure to drool over. If you know of any other sidebar configuration tools I would love to hear about them in the comments below!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Feb 13

Best Greasemonkey Scripts: LookItUp2

Posted in: Features, Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 21, 2008 by CyberNet.

lookitup2.jpg

I’m sure you often find yourself in a situation where you’re reading an article, and then come across a word that you want to lookup. Maybe you jump over to Wikipedia or an online dictionary to get a definition, but the LookItUp2 Greasemonkey script can save you a lot of time.

The screenshot above sums up everything that the script is capable of doing. When you highlight a word on the page just press Ctrl+Shift+Space to activate LookItUp2. Along the right side of the window you’ll be shown the Wikipedia page by default, but you can click on any of the tabs to navigate between other services. They include Google Images, Google, Urban Dictionary, Answers.com, Merriam-Webster, Wictionary, and more.

If you click on the drop-down menu you can see a full list of the services that are supported, and they are listed in order as they appear in the tabs. Using a single letter for each of the tabs may not always help identify which service is associated with a tab, but they do serve a dual purpose. If, for example, you highlight a word on the page and press the “w” key on the keyboard it will bring up the Wikipedia result for that word. Similarly highlighting a word and pressing “m” will bring up results from the Merriam-Webster dictionary. So the single-letter tabs also double as keyboard shortcuts. What’s awesome is that this only works if you have a word highlighted on the page, which means it plays nice with Firefox’s find-as-you-type feature.

If you’ve been looking for a way to lookup words and definitions faster this simple Greasemonkey script can definitely do the deed.

Get LookItUp2

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Feb 12

Import/Export Firefox Extension Preferences

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

This article was written on March 23, 2008 by CyberNet.

opie extension
(Click to Enlarge)

Earlier this year we wrote about two different solutions that could be used to backup your Firefox profile, but it’s possible that you aren’t looking to back everything up. One of the areas that is extremely valuable to most Firefox users is the extensions, and some of them really take awhile to get configured just the way you like them.

Don’t worry, the same developer who created the FEBE extension for backing up your Firefox profile has also created an extension for saving only extension preferences. The Ordered Preference Import/Export (OPIE) extension will present you with an intuitive interface for selectively saving preferences in any of the extensions that are installed in the browser.

One reason that I really like this is that it’s now a bit easier to wipe out your Firefox profile and start fresh. With OPIE you can only restore the settings for the extensions that you plan on reinstalling, and leave behind the additional clutter. Believe it or not your preferences are normally not removed when you uninstall an extension, and so I always like to start with a fresh profile (after backing up my bookmarks of course) every few months.

OPIE Homepage
Kudos to Mark for the tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Feb 12

Firefox 3 Features That Might Make the Cut

Posted in: Pre-Release, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 11, 2007 by CyberNet.

Firefox 3 Gran Paradiso Another milestone for Firefox 3, Alpha 2, is planned for later in this month with an estimated release date of January 29. Even with Firefox 3 Alpha 1 we didn’t see much in the way of new features, and Alpha 2 will be similar except that it will pass the Acid 2 test. There is no need to worry because there are new features planned for Firefox 3 as Mozilla Links points out. The list of features below is gathered from Firefox 3′s Product Planning Guide (Firefox 3′s codename is Gran Paradiso).

Mandatory features that will make the cut as long as there are no unexpected delays (I’ve added my own notes/opinions to each of the features):

  • Make it easier to use extensions and add-ons by requiring less than 3-clicks to install. Also notify users when add-ons have new updates that should be installed (sounds similar to when Firefox has a new update).
  • Have a Restart Firefox button always available
  • Synchronize bookmarks with a remote service. With the Google/Mozilla partnership I wouldn’t be surprised to see the service work with Google Bookmarks.
  • Improved search, retrieval, and startup performance.
  • The print preview should look like the actual print layout, and the layout should be zoomed/cropped to fit the page. Internet Explorer 7 does a really good job of this.
  • Firefox shouldn’t remember passwords if a login fails. The identity management user interface will also be simpler and the password manager will be more useful.
  • Better identification methods for identifying the trustworthiness of websites. Users will be given information like encryption, identity, previous interaction/knowledge of the site, and the overall level of trust. This sounds like it is an extension of the Safe Browsing that Firefox 2 already offers. They are trying to take a new approach to gathering information on phishing sites instead of just using a blacklist or URL’s like they currently do.
  • Google’s Airbag service will replace Talkback which is Mozilla’s error reporting tool.

Highly desirable features that they would like to implement, but I would guess they won’t have time to do:

  • Private browsing mode which probably means that browsing history and cache are deactivated.
  • Easily archive Web pages by doing things like saving them as PDF’s. Sounds like a pretty cool feature and possibly useful if you could do it in just one-click. If you had to choose a “Save As” destination each time I think it would defeat some of its usefulness by making it more of a hassle.
  • Upgrade the phishing protection to also block malicious websites.
  • Allow downloads to be paused/resumed even across browsing sessions. I think they need to upgrade the download manager in general. There are a lot of features that they could add to it to satisfy more users.

“Nice to have” features that will probably only get implemented if they have some spare time…I’m sure that will happen. ;)

  • Allow add-ons to be installed without needing to restart Firefox to begin using them. This would be really awesome and I wish it was a high priority. :D
  • Ability to use a search engine temporarily and then have it automatically restored back the the default. I really like this feature and it almost reminds me of how Flock’s Search Box works.
  • Group similar tabs together.
  • Enable a Tab Expose feature that will tile all of your open Windows. Internet Explorer 7 already does this and so do many extensions for Firefox. I definitely don’t think this one will make the Firefox 3 release.

Firefox Places (bookmarks, subscriptions)

There is also some concern that Places (pictured above) might have been removed from Firefox 3 because under the “Nice to have” features it mentions a “Unified bookmark/history/subscription manager.” That is essentially what Places is supposed to be, but I would still expect to see it implemented in Firefox 3. They had completed a lot of work on it during the Firefox 2 development cycle and have continued to fix bugs in it. It was removed from the Firefox 3 nightlies because there were some conflicts with the new theme, but they said once the kinks were fixed it would be back in.

Let’s also not forget to mention the nice anti-aliased corners that Alpha 1 of Firefox 3 already produces. That feature was demonstrated in my last post I made about Firefox 3 features that are expected…which did indeed include Places. I for one won’t be disappointed if Firefox 3 doesn’t include a lot of new features simply because it already has significantly improved the rendering speed and quality of websites. I see having new features implemented as being a welcomed bonus.

On a little bit of a sidenote, it looks like Paul Thurrot finally got around to writing up a full review on Firefox 2. I can sum it up real quick by saying he was hardly impressed. Here are some of the key points from his article:

As a long-time Firefox user–I was using the product back when it was originally called Phoenix–you might have expected me to jump all over Firefox 2.0. But the truth is, Mozilla really let me down with this one. Unlike its major competitor, Internet Explorer 7 (see my review), Firefox 2 doesn’t include any truly major new features. And its graphical overhaul is ugly, especially in Windows Vista. Most egregious, however, is Firefox’s pathetic new anti-phishing feature, which is almost laughably bad.

A lackluster Firefox upgrade doesn’t signal the end of times. But coming as it did right as Windows Vista development was winding down, Firefox 2 was a bit of bad timing for me. The problem was, I needed to test Vista features like IE 7 regularly, and since IE 7 was so good, I had little reason to jump ship to a new version of Firefox that, frankly, was rubbing me the wrong way. Had IE 7 been a dog like previous versions, or had Firefox 2 been a bit more exciting, things would have gone differently. As it was, I was surprised to see myself evolving into an IE user over the last few months of 2006.

While Internet Explorer 7 might be a good browser, I think that one also has to look into the future before making a switch. Mozilla should have another milestone release of Firefox by the middle of 2007, but Internet Explorer 8 isn’t expected for 18 to 24 months. The slow development cycle of Internet Explorer is something that has always turned me away from the browser, and one of the big reasons I have always looked at alternatives like Opera and Firefox. I do believe that Internet Explorer 7 does some things better than Firefox, like handle feeds, but there are also things that Firefox does better like support a large range of user-created extensions. I think Paul’s review has some very good points and acknowledges things that Mozilla should look at, but none of the things would warrant a switch in browsers for me.

Thanks to “Jack of all Trades“, “Claus“, and “Fx Extension Guru” for pointing this out!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Feb 08

What You Need To Know To Be A Firefox Nightly Tester

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

This article was written on May 14, 2006 by CyberNet.

Mozilla is known for how quickly they update their software. Firefox has become one of Mozilla’s most popular applications and their newest version, Firefox 2.0, is very much anticipated. Everyone loves to see the new features that they implement from build-to-build but many people don’t realize that you don’t have to wait for an official release in order to do some testing.

Testing definitely isn’t for everyone but it does give you that special feeling to know that you are using the latest and greatest software. Testing software, like Firefox, means that there could be some stability issues and you could even lose some important information (like your bookmarks). If you decide that you want to test the software anyways then make sure to backup some of the information that you do not want to lose.

Terminology
First, we need to make sure that you are familiar with the terms that we are going to talk about in this article. These terms are very important and will help you understand some important details.

  • Trunk: A trunk is the name for a build that has the most current developments in it. This is for those people that want the latest and greatest software, but you must understand that a trunk will have the most bugs.
  • Branch: A branch is a split off of the trunk and will eventually make it to a release. This may not be the latest and greatest but it will be more stable than the trunk.
  • Nightly: A nightly is a daily compilation of Firefox that implements all patches and updates that were fixed that day.

The current Firefox example of a branch is Firefox 2.0 (currently in the alpha stage) while the current trunk is Firefox 3.0 (not even in the alpha stage). This means that Firefox 2.0 is not the most current version but it is far more stable than Firefox 3.0. When certain features get removed from the branch, such as Places getting pulled from Firefox 2.0, it will normally remain in the trunk build.

Using The Forums
Where do you get these builds from? You could constantly download the new builds from the Mozilla FTP server but you may not realize what they have fixed in each nightly build. The other way that I find to be the most effective is to watch the Firefox Builds forum. In the forum you will see posts like:

What You Need To Know To Be A Firefox Nightly Tester

What You Need To Know To Be A Firefox Nightly Tester

Those screenshots were taken on May 3, 2006 which means that the May 3 branch has been released but the May 4 branch has not. By viewing the topics you will see a list of fixes (Green), things they are currently working on (Yellow), and things they need to start working on (Red).

The next thing you will want to do is download the branch or trunk build. Enter into the thread for the build you wish to download (it can be a thread for a branch or a trunk). Locate the section that says “IRC channels” on the page which is normally in the first 5-10 lines. Immediately underneath that you will notice a link that says “The Official Win32 20060503 [Branch] build is out”. This is a hyperlink that you can click on to download the nightly build. If the nightly build is not yet available that link will read “The Official Win32 20060503 [Branch] build is not yet out”.

WINDOWS USERS:
If you would like to get the installation version then download the file that says win32.installer.exe in it. However, I test these versions in a different way so that I can keep my normal Firefox installation separate from the Firefox build I am testing. To do this you simply follow these steps:

  1. Download this version of Portable Firefox.
  2. Download the desired Firefox branch/trunk in ZIP format (not the win32.installer.exe version)
  3. Extract both the Portable Firefox download and the Firefox branch/trunk.
  4. Copy the “firefox” folder from the Firefox branch/trunk to the “PortableFirefox/App” directory (your Portable Firefox directory should now look similar to the image below).
  5. Now execute the PortableFirefox.exe located in the PortableFirefox directory.

What You Need To Know To Be A Firefox Nightly Tester

Testing The Build
What You Need To Know To Be A Firefox Nightly TesterThe worst part about testing a new version of Firefox is extension incompatibility. You have the huge list of extensions and you know that it will take forever to change the max-version on each one of them. That is where the Nightly Tester Tools Extension comes into play. The Nightly Tester Tools Extension will allow you to install incompatible extensions or to re-enable your extensions that got disabled. When you go to install an extension you will see a window popup like the one to the right. All you have to do before you click “Install Now” is check the box that says “Install using Nightly Tester Tools to override compatibility”. This will allow you to install extensions that are not normally compatible.

There are a lot of people that use the Google Toolbar, but if you are using an incompatible version of Firefox then Google will not let you download the Toolbar. However, you can use this direct link to the Google Toolbar Firefox Extension which is still coming straight from Google but you are getting around them checking for Firefox incompatibilities. The installation should popup immediately after clicking that link. Now you just need to follow the Nightly Tester Tools instructions listed above to override the compatibility.

The last thing I will talk about is your bookmarks. Some Firefox builds have been known to cause your bookmarks to disappear for one reason or another. The best thing that you can do to prevent losing your bookmarks is make sure you use a service like Google Bookmarks or Del.icio.us! If you don’t want to use Del.icio.us then you can get a recently released extension for Firefox that will allow you to have a button for your Google Bookmarks right on the Firefox toolbar. This is very similar to the button that Google has already implemented in the Google Toolbar for Internet Explorer.

Okay, I think that is everything that I have come across since I started being a nightly tester for Firefox about two months ago. It is very exciting to see new features and to see the browser development process. If anyone knows any tips that I have not placed here please feel free to let me know.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Feb 08

Browser & OS Stats for June 2008

Posted in: Linux, Mac, Opera, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites, Windows

This article was written on July 02, 2008 by CyberNet.

Now that the month of June has wrapped up we can see what browsers and operating systems have emerged as victorious. In both segments Microsoft is still dominating the market according to Net Applications, but there are some competitors that continue to crawl up behind them. In fact both Windows and Internet Explorer dropped in market share for June 2008.

I’ve got all of the detailed stats below including how each browser and operating system changed from May to June, but if you want a quick summary here are two pie graphs that I put together. The top one shows the operating system market share for June 2008, and the bottom one shows the top browsers.

market share.jpg

–Web Browsers–

Both Opera and Firefox had big releases during the month of June, but neither one was made available until halfway through the month. So we might not be seeing the full results from the new releases. They both still climbed in the overall market share usage for June, and I suspect that July will be an even better month for them.

May 2008June 2008Change
Internet Explorer73.75%73.01%-0.74%
Firefox18.41%19.03%+0.62%
Safari6.25%6.31%+0.06%
Opera0.71%0.73%+0.02%
Netscape0.62%0.67%+0.06%
Mozilla0.08%0.09%+0.01%
Opera Mini0.05%0.05%0.00%
Playstation0.03%0.03%0.00%
Konqueror0.02%0.03%+0.01%

–Operating Systems–

I was going to breakdown the stats for the operating systems on a general basis (Windows, Linux, and Mac), but I thought it would be fun to see what the stats are for each of the individual versions. Overall Windows dropped 0.24% in market share and currently sits at 90.89%, while the Mac is approaching 8% of the total market. Here’s the breakdown for the top 10 operating systems:

May 2008June 2008Change
Windows XP72.12%71.20%-0.92%
Windows Vista15.26%16.14%+0.88%
Mac – Intel5.02%5.25%+0.23%
Mac OS2.81%2.69%-0.12%
Windows 20002.25%2.11%-0.14%
Linux0.68%0.80%+0.12%
Windows NT0.68%0.69%+0.01%
Windows 980.48%0.43%-0.05%
Windows ME0.27%0.25%-0.02%
iPhone0.16%0.16%0.00%

I would have to say that the craziest thing about those stats is the fact that 0.25% are still running Windows ME. Yikes! My condolences go out to those people.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Feb 06

Firefox 2.0 Alpha 2 Expected By The End Of April

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on April 05, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox 2.0 Alpha 2 Expected By The End Of April

It looks like we can expect Alpha 2 of Firefox 2.0 by the end of April. Reading through the meeting notes makes it sound like we should see it in the next 15 – 22 days.

There is also some mentions of new features they might decide to add to Firefox 2.0. They appear to be focusing on how they can let users manage data in the most efficient way possible. One thing they talked about was incorporating the ability to take notes on a page or about a page. Opera currently has a similar feature and I would expect it to operate in a similar fashion: highlight some text, right click, and store the highlighted text for later. This would be a nice feature to have so that later on you could possibly insert that note somewhere. Many people would probably like to use this to insert their signature into text boxes and such.

They also talk about what they want their “One Killer Feature” to be for Firefox 2. One person recommended the ability to “extract search results for specific data and display them more usefully in the product chrome”. As you can tell they are actively working on making users as efficient as possible. This may be the way they need to go so that they can get businesses to start using their software.

I have been keeping a watch on some of the Nightly builds to see if there is anything exciting in them, but there has been nothing yet. I think everyone was expecting to see a ‘visual refresh’ in Alpha 1 and people were disappointed when it didn’t make the release. Hopefully we will see this refresh in the upcoming Alpha 2, but don’t be shocked if it’s not there yet!

News Source: Mozilla Firefox 2 Meeting Notes (4/4/2006)

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Feb 06

Want To Get That Pesky ‘X’ Off Of The Firefox 2 Tabs?

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on March 22, 2006 by CyberNet.

Want To Get That Pesky 'X' Off Of The Firefox 2 Tabs?

Many people have been talking about how much they dislike having the ‘X’ on each tab in the new Firefox 2 Alpha 1 that was just released. Just like how there was an extension to get the ‘X’ on the tabs, there is now an extension to get rid of the ‘X’! Now, if you only want to get rid of the ‘X’ and do nothing else then the extension below called “Tab No X” is what you are looking for.

However, if you would like a whole set of tab features then go for the “Tab Mix Plus”. This will also give you the option to remove the ‘X’ from each tab along with many other features such as saving your sessions and controlling how tabs are opened. The link below is where you can find the developer version of the extension which is compatible with Firefox 2. I have been using this extension for months and I can’t imagine Firefox without it.

Still wondering how you can get the rest of your extensions to work? Well, then you might need to get the Nightly Tester Tool extension which allows you to install incompatible extensions. This DOES NOT guarantee that all of your extensions will work but it will allow you to use them. It also works for themes and such so that you can try to setup this Alpha build just like you have your original Firefox.

Tab Mix Plus Developer Version
Tab No X
Nightly Tester Tool

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Feb 04

Image Slideshow Extension for Firefox: AutoSlideshow

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on January 29, 2007 by CyberNet.

Here’s another Firefox Extension for you to try out!  It’s called AutoSlideshow, and  allows you to view a slideshow of images on any web page.  I tried it out on a post that we did for the Object Desktop Review/Giveaway.  There were quite a few pictures on the page, so I figured it would be a good candidate. It worked well.

First, you’ll need to go here to download the extension.  After you’ve installed it, you’ll notice a toolbar up at the top that will have all of the buttons you need for getting the slideshow started.  Press the slideshow button on any web page that has images, and linked images (only if they’re in pure html), and the show will begin.

There are a few options that you can adjust to customize the extension.  One of the first that you might want to change is how quickly the next image will appear.  The default is 3 seconds which may be too long or too short for your liking. There are also options for the crossfade effects.  You can either set it fade in/fade out, zoom in, or random.

 Within the options, there is one change that you’ll probably want to make.  Go up to tools, and then click on Add-ons. Under the ‘Images’ tab, you’ll want to un-check to zoom small images to windows size.  If the box is checked, it will stretch the images to fit your browser. If you have a large browser window because of a large monitor, it will really distort the image.

This extension has special support for web sites like Wikipedia, Google, and Yahoo, particularly the image pages on Google and Yahoo. Here are a few links that you can try it out on, I included a CyberNet article so you can see how it works with blogs:

I found it to be a really useful extension that could possibly save you some time, and even a few mouse clicks. Remember, it will only work with images that have html tags.

AutoSlideshow Download

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Feb 03

Google’s paying $20,000 to hack Chrome — any takers?

Posted in: Chrome, Google, hack, hacking, Hacks, Internet Explorer, Mozilla, security, Today's Chili

So far, Chrome is the only browser of the big four — Safari, Firefox, and Internet Explorer being the other three — to escape the Pwn2Own hacking competition unscathed the past two years. (Sorry Opera aficionados, looks like there’s not enough of you to merit a place in the contest… yet.) Evidently, its past success has Google confident enough to pony up a cool $20,000 and a CR-48 laptop to anyone able to find a bug in its code and execute a clean sandbox escape on day one of Pwn2Own 2011. Should that prove too daunting a task, contest organizer TippingPoint will match El Goog’s $10,000 prize (still $20,000 total) for anyone who can exploit Chrome and exit the sandbox through non-Google code on days two and three of the event. For those interested in competing, Pwn2Own takes place March 9th through 11th in Vancouver at the CanSecWest conference. The gauntlet has been thrown — your move, hackers.

Google’s paying $20,000 to hack Chrome — any takers? originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 03 Feb 2011 20:33:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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