Dec 12

Portable Firefox 1.5 RC3 Review

Posted in: Reviews, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on December 04, 2005 by CyberNet.

I have been an avid user of Mozilla Firefox for quite some time now. At school, however, I was unable to install Firefox because of not having the proper permissions. They do have Firefox installed, but only version Firefox 1.0.6 and I like 1.5 much better. Since I am allotted a given space at the University, I am able to put the Portable Firefox on my roaming profile so it will follow me to any computer I go to on campus.

I decided to give the Portable Firefox a shot to see how it would work with the extensions I like to use. Well, let’s just say I can’t tell a difference between Portable Firefox and the real Firefox. I currently have IE Tab, CustomizeGoogle, Foxpose, and Tab Mix Plus installed. I have no troubles with any of them. If you are looking to Download Portable Firefox then don’t hesitate, because it works great.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 12

Awesome Firefox Extension: Faviconize

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on November 16, 2006 by CyberNet.

Faviconize Faviconize is one of those Firefox extensions that you would have never thought about needing but once you have it you’ll fall in love with Firefox all over again. Well, maybe it isn’t quite that good but I have put this to good use several times already.

The concept is really simple. Essentially the text in the tabs is “collapsible” which means you can save a lot of room on your Tab Bar for those sites that can easily be identified by their favicon. It can be used for any tab but I only use it for the ones that I am familiar with such as Google and CyberNet (of course :) ). I had done it with Gmail but I forgot that it shows when you have a new message in the text so I didn’t want to do that.

To hide the text you just right-click on any tab and select “FaviconizeTab.” The text will then be hidden but you can re-enable it by right-clicking again and clicking on the same option. It is also configurable so that when you double-click, Alt-click, etc… on a tab it will automatically enable/disable the feature.

These space-saving Firefox extensions are always my favorite. They are typically small in size (in more ways that one) but do great things. Just like the one yesterday that I wrote about called Search Bar Autosizer…and now I don’t think I would use Firefox without it. Faviconize is quite as useful but it is pretty close.

Thanks for the tip Chris!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 11

Mozilla Responds To Microsoft’s Offer To Help

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on August 23, 2006 by CyberNet.

Microsoft Windows Vista Firefox A few days ago big news hit that Microsoft wants to help Open Source developers, such as Mozilla, make their applications compatible with Vista. It looks like the Microsoft Open Source team had troubles contacting Mozilla through email so they decided to use the Mozilla Developer’s thread in Google Groups instead. Now we all get to see it. :)

The Open Source Software Lab Director at Microsoft, Sam Ramji, started off the message in a wonderful way:

I sent this invitation to s…@mozilla.org as well, but in case their
spam filters are set to block @microsoft.com email addresses, I’m
posting here.

Mike Beltzner, the User Experience Leader for Firefox, responded by saying “Heh, no such blocking exists, I assure you.” That was the more amusing part of the ‘conversation’ so let’s move on to the interesting stuff.

Beltzner then goes on to respond to the invitation that Microsoft has offered:

As Mike Schroepfer indicated, I think we’re already in discussion with
someone on your team about this, but for the record: yes, we’d
definitely be interested in getting some 1:1 support. We have, of
course, been testing on Vista, and Rob Strong has done some work with
Ed Averett to ensure that we take advantage of the new “Default
Program” infrastructure.

Ah ha! The answer to the article I wrote about two weeks ago now arises. It was quite a heated topic and I was hoping that it was something Mozilla had to fix. I guess it is and hopefully I will soon be able to ‘easily’ set Firefox as my default browser in Vista.

A few other areas that Beltzner said they would like to integrate Firefox and Thunderbird into Vista:

– effects of running in the new application security mode
– interacting/integrating with InfoCard
– integration with the common RSS data store and services
– integration with the Vista calendar and address book

Hey, the more stuff that Firefox and Thunderbird are compatible with the more people that will use it, hopefully. Beltzner is a pretty cool guy and was nice enough to ask whether other open source groups that are based on Firefox, such as Flock, could get an open spot to for some help from the Microsoft product team developers.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 10

Updating Portable Firefox with a Script

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

This article was written on July 31, 2007 by CyberNet.

One of the requests that I frequently receive with every Firefox 3 Alpha release is to put together a portable build that people can play with. That way they don’t need to worry about messing up their existing Firefox installation or profile, and when they have had enough with it they can simply delete the folder it resides in.

Download Squad found a site that ingeniously created a script which automatically downloads the latest nightly release of Firefox. That means right now it is grabbing the nightly builds of Firefox 3, and after that branches off it will begin grabbing Firefox 4 nightly releases.

Firefox Updater

All you have to do is download the version of Portable Firefox that includes the updater (Download Mirror). After you extract the files you’ll see a file called Updater.exe, and that’s what you need to run first. The download of the latest Firefox 3 nightly build will be initiated, and you should see the download progress in the System Tray (similar to the screenshot I took above). After the download is done the Updater will extract the contents using 7-Zip (already included), and it will place the files in the appropriate directory.

How long the actual process takes depends on how fast your Internet connection is, and for me it was done in less than a minute. Overall this is a great idea, and I think it would be even more awesome if there was an option to specify the URL of the download. That way you could pick and choose which version you wanted to run!

Instructions on doing this process manually can be found here, which also includes details on copying your existing Firefox profile over to the portable setup.

Get the Portable Firefox Updater (Download Mirror)

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Dec 09

Firefox Hits 200 Million Downloads

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on August 01, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox Hits 200 Million DownloadsFirefox just hit the big 200 million download marker. Spread Firefox was the place that posted the big news but I wonder who the lucky number 200 million was? It would be cool if they gave us some specs of the location the person was downloading it from and exactly what time they were downloading it. So what are the numbers at right now:

Of course there are many people that have downloaded it 2, 3, 4, … , 15, … , 30 times. The numbers are starting to become more realistic now that Firefox 1.5 has an auto update feature which prevents you from having to re-download Firefox in order to upgrade. Well, I guess congratulations are in order for Firefox!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 04

CyberNotes: Mouse Gestures in Firefox, IE, and Opera

Posted in: CyberNotes, Firefox 3, Freeware, Internet Explorer, Linux, Mac, Opera, Software, Today's Chili, Windows

This article was written on May 28, 2008 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

mouse gesture.pngKeyboard shortcuts step aside! Mouse gestures have been around for quite some time, and are often used as a way to quickly issue commands. One of the places that these are used the most is in the web browser, and that’s because a lot of repetitive actions are performed there. Just think about how many times each day you click the back or refresh buttons.

Today we’re going to demonstrate the various ways that you can use mouse gestures in Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. The only problem you’ll run into is trying to absorb everything you can do with the mouse gestures. ;)

–Firefox–

arrow Windows Windows; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
As you can imagine there are quite a few Firefox extensions out there that provide some sort of mouse gesture support. Here are two of my favorites (they both work with Firefox 3, although they are not officially compatible yet):

  • FireGestures [Homepage]
    This is everything that you would expect from a mouse gesture system, and more. There are dozens of different commands you can associate with your own gestures, and you can even take it one step further by creating your own commands. My guess is that you’ll be more than satisfied with the built-in commands though.

    (Click to Enlarge)
    firegesture-1.png

  • Easy DragToGo [Homepage]
    This isn’t a full-fledged mouse gesture extension like the one above, but it does use mouse movement to perform useful actions. What you can do is set it up so that when you drag-and-drop text, links, or images in a certain direction it will perform a special action. This can be an easy way to open links in a new tab, perform a Google search for text, or save images to your computer.

    (Click to Enlarge)
    easy dragtogo-1.png

–Opera–

arrow Windows Windows; Mac Mac; Linux Linux arrow
Opera has got to be the easiest browser to use mouse gestures simply because they are included out-of-the-box. You can perform a gesture by holding down the right mouse button and moving the mouse in one of the basic patterns described here, or one of the more advanced gestures here.

The first time you perform a mouse gesture it will prompt you with a box asking whether you want the gestures to be enabled. Alternatively you can open the Preferences and go to Advanced -> Shortcuts to turn them on. While you’re in the preferences you can also have it flip-flop the back and forward gestures if you’re left handed.

If you find yourself having trouble remembering the various gestures then you may want to consider adding this site as a panel in the sidebar. You can do this by bookmarking the site and choosing the option to show it as a panel. You’ll be more inclined to use the mouse gestures if you leave that site open in the sidebar for a few days while you grow accustomed to the various mouse gestures.

–Internet Explorer–

arrow Windows Windows only arrow
Of course Internet Explorer isn’t without mouse gestures. There are two plug-ins that I believe do a good job of executing mouse gestures in Internet Explorer, and the best part is that both come in 32-bit and 64-bit flavors! Here they are:

  • Mouse Gestures [Homepage]
    What I really love about this mouse gesture system is that it integrates very well into the browser. You can assign gestures to dozens of different commands, and it is also capable of opening a bookmark or simulating a keyboard shortcut.

    (Click to Enlarge)
    mouse gestures-1.png

  • IE7Pro [Homepage]
    This is a pretty popular plug-in for Internet Explorer, but if you’re looking only for mouse gestures this won’t likely be what you want. It’s a feature-packed add-on that does dozens of other things besides just gestures. Not only that but the configurability of the mouse gestures is not nearly as good as the previous plug-in that we mentioned. However, if you’re already using IE7Pro for some of the other features then you might as well take advantage of the mouse gestures.

    (Click to Enlarge)
    ie7pro.png

–Overview–

As you can see mouse gestures are all over the place, and can be found in all the major browsers. Do you use mouse gestures, or are they not your thing? Personally I’m more of a keyboard shortcut person myself, but I’m sure many of you would rather keep your hand on the mouse.

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 02

CyberNotes: Easily Configure Firefox’s “Hidden” Settings

Posted in: CyberNotes, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili

This article was written on May 30, 2007 by CyberNet.

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

At first glance it may seem like Firefox lacks a lot of configuration options, hoever, much of the fine tuning lies underneath. Most Firefox power users will know about the about:config window which can sometimes be a tedious tool ,but there are a lot of customizable options located there.

Mozilla actually warns users that they should not change settings in the about:config window unless they really know what they are doing. Often times it is compared to editing the Windows Registry, where one wrong setting can crash Windows.

To help users out we have provided our own guide to configuring Firefox using about:config, which also includes a long list of tweaks. If it just doesn’t seem worth the hassle, then you’ll want to continue reading this article because there are now much easier ways to tweak those “hidden” settings…

—Preferential (Homepage)—

Nogg3r5 pointed out this great extension over in the CyberNet forum. It is a great extension because it takes everything from the about:config and breaks it up into categories. To top it off, they provide a description for all of the entries so that you know what they do without needing to visit Mozilla’s knowledgebase!

After installing the extension you’ll notice a new entry in the Tools menu immediately below the Options choice:

Preferential

Then you’ll be presented with a bunch of collapsed menus which look something like this:

Preferential
Click to Enlarge

You can now start browsing through the settings to find the ones you are looking for. From what I have seen, the largest category of settings can be found in the browser section:

Preferential
Click to Enlarge

This is definitely something that Mozilla should look at including in Firefox as a better way to edit the entries in the about:config screen.

—Configuration Mania (Homepage)—

Now if that still seemed too complicated, you need something that breaks it down even further. How about something that puts the settings in an easy-to-understand interface similar to the existing configuration screen for the Options? Let’s now turn our attention to Configuration Mania!

This extension is cool because it puts a ton of settings together in a way that makes them very easy to understand and manipulate. Before now, almost all of these settings had to be configured through the about:config screen, but now they will almost seem as if they were naturally integrated in Firefox.

Just like the Preferential extension, Configuration Mania has its options located in the Tools menu:

Configuration Mania

Starting up that extension will present you with a screen similar to this one:

Configuration Mania
Click to Enlarge

As you can see this one also has collapsible menus, but it organizes the settings a little nicer. Oh, and don’t be deceived by the small appearance because there are a lot of settings there for you to tinker with. Here is a screenshot of what all the browser settings look like when they’re expanded:

Configmania3
Click to Enlarge

And that is only the settings from one of the 5 tabs! Here are a few more screenshots from the rest of the tabs:

Configuration Mania Configuration Mania Configuration Mania Configuration Mania
Click to Enlarge

As you can see there are a lot of different things available for you to configure and play with, but it will take some time to go through all of the settings presented here. Let us know if you find any you didn’t know about!

Copyright © 2010 CyberNet | CyberNet Forum | Learn Firefox

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Dec 01

Firefox 1.5.0.3 Planned For Release Today

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on April 28, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox 1.5.0.3 Planned For Release Today

An updated build of Firefox is being released soon just days after Mozilla was notified of a critical security bug. It sometimes takes months for Microsoft to release security patches for Internet Explorer, but Mozilla is different. Mozilla does not leave security issues open for very long, and with the updated build expected today they definitely prove that (just 3 days after they were notified of the bug.

Those people running Firefox 1.5+ should automatically receive the update but you can always watch the Firefox Download page.

Firefox 1.5.0.3 Overview

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Dec 01

CyberNotes: Synchronize Bookmarks Between Firefox and IE

Posted in: CyberNotes, Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Internet Explorer, Software, Today's Chili, Web Sites

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

CyberNotes
Web Browser Wednesday

The bookmarks in your browser are probably one of the most valuable things you have invested in your browser…well, besides for your passwords. If you ever lost them I’m sure you would start scrambling trying to remember all the sites you had bookmarked.

Many of you are probably already using services like Del.icio.us that integrate well with most browsers. What if you could use the built-in bookmarking capabilities of Firefox and Internet Explorer (IE) all while harnessing the power of synchronization? I know, it almost sounds weird that people would want to keep their bookmarks synchronized between both Firefox and IE, but it is actually more common than you think.

Firefox IE Sync

I have lost count of how many people ask me if there is a way to synchronize the bookmarks between the two browsers. The most common reasoning behind it is that they use Firefox at home and Internet Explorer at work.

If you’re one of these people then you need to checkout Zinkmo. It is a free service that not only lets you share your bookmarks between the two browsers, but it also lets you synchronize them across multiple computers. Privacy is also very important to me, and Zinkmo definitely recognizes its importance by letting you choose which bookmarks/folders are public and which ones are private.

There is a small program that they require you to download and install before using the Zinkmo service. Here are a few screenshots from the installation with questions that they ask:

Zinkmo Zinkmo

 

Then I went ahead and looked at what the Internet Explorer integration had to offer:

Zinkmo Zinkmo Zinkmo

 

The Firefox extension has to be installed separately, and unfortunately it doesn’t have quite as many features as the Internet Explorer counterpart, but it does include the privacy option:

Zinkmo

 

After I had it all setup in both browsers I began synchronizing a few bookmarks. The service worked very well and was surprisingly fast. There are two things, however, that makes the online bookmark management so wonderful: it checks for broken and duplicate links! Thats right, you’ll finally be able to go through all of those bookmarks that you have had sitting around for years without doing the grunt work yourself:

Zinkmo

If you’ve been looking for a way to access your bookmarks no matter where you’re at, then Zinkmo will probably be just what you’re looking for. The service is completely free and definitely deserves a shot!

 

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Dec 01

Mozilla Will Support Firefox 2 Until Mid-December 2008

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

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

firefox 2 support-1.pngAfter yesterday’s article about Mozilla rolling out Firefox 3 update notifications it’s clear that there are still some of you who don’t intend on making the leap to Firefox 3 just yet. Maybe you’re still waiting for extensions to get updated, have problems running Firefox 3 on your computer, or just don’t want the new features it offers. Those of you tightly holding on to Firefox 2 will have to let it go by the end of the year if you want any future security and stability updates.

The Firefox 2 download page states that Mozilla is targeting mid-December as the cutoff date:

Firefox 2.0.0.x will be maintained with security and stability updates until mid-December, 2008. All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Firefox 3.

That means they’ll be supporting the older version of Firefox for about 6-months after the general release of Firefox 3. That’s about the same amount of time Firefox 1.5 was supported after Firefox 2 was released, and so this doesn’t really come as a surprise.

As we approach the end of the year we’ll be keeping an eye on how many of you decide to make the upgrade. As it stands about 25% of our readers have not jumped on the Firefox 3 bandwagon, but I’d predict that we can get that down to 10-15% by the end of the year.

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