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May 03

Easily Organize The Status Bar In Firefox

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

I am a very organized person and I like to have things the way that I want them. That’s why I just started using the Firefox extension called Organize Status Bar. It will let you customize the order of anything that appears in your Status Bar…or you can even hide certain things if you don’t need them.

It is very easy to use but it would be cool if the extension allowed for drag-and-drop ordering. I’m not going to complain though because once I set the order that I want there is really no need for me to go back and continuously adjust it. This one will definitely be going into my list of favorite extensions!

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Apr 27

Make Firefox Remember Passwords without a Bookmarklet

Posted in: Freeware, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on February 13, 2009 by CyberNet.

A few years ago we wrote about a handy bookmarklet that would make Firefox remember passwords on some sites that ordinarily wouldn’t, like Yahoo! or Paypal. Some people on the article were reporting that this no longer works in Firefox 3, but one anonymous commenter referenced a rather clever workaround.

The trick requires the modification of a JavaScript file that Firefox uses for managing login-related tasks. Once the workaround is applied Firefox will start ignoring any attributes in the login forms that try to tell the browser not to remember a password. You’ll still be able to choose whether or not you want a password remembered for a particular site, but at least now the choice will be left up to you.

First things first. We need to open the nsLoginManager.js file in a text editor. The location of the file is a bit different depending on what OS you’re using:

Windows:
You’ll find the file in the components folder where Firefox was installed:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\components\nsLoginManager.js
Mac:
Find Firefox in your Applications folder, right-click on it, and choose the option to Show Package Contents. Then within the Firefox.app navigate to the file:
Firefox.app\Contents\MacOS\components\nsLoginManager.js

Alright. This is where my instructions get a little different than what’s provided by the person who found this workaround. They want you to remove a few lines of code from this file, but all you really need to do is flip a value from true to false. That way it’s a lot easier to revert back to the file’s original state should you ever need to.

Now you need to perform a search on the file for:

_isAutocompleteDisabled

You should be taken to a section of the file that looks something like this:

You’ll notice that I’ve highlighted line number 770 (your line number may be different), and it says:

return true;

You need to change that to say:

return false;

It should now look like this:

Save the changes to this file, and then restart Firefox. Now when you go to a site like Paypal you should see a prompt to save the password just like it does for most other sites:

The only downside to this trick is that you may need to re-apply it after updating or reinstalling Firefox. Other than that it works great, and is a little nicer than the bookmarklet since it doesn’t require any additional interaction after being set up.

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Apr 20

Excellent Pagination Bookmarklet Firefox Extension

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

This article was written on April 07, 2009 by CyberNet.

It’s not often that I come across a bookmarklet that I’ll use everyday, but in the last few days PageZipper has become an unbelievable tool in my daily arsenal. Basically what it does is look for links on the page that say “Next”, and as you scroll down past that link it will automatically append the next page for you. That’s right, you’ll never have to click the “Next” button again (well, almost never).

I tested out the bookmarklet and it works exactly as advertised. You can use it on sites like Google, Digg, and it even works on our site. When you come across a page that you want this to activate for just click the bookmarklet, and then keep scrolling. The next page will eventually show up once you get all the way to the bottom.

Here are some of the PageZipper features:

As you scroll to the bottom of a page, PageZipper automatically adds the next page to the bottom of the page you’re on.
On image galleries, press Control+Down to skip directly to the next image in the gallery. Control+Up returns you to the previous entry. You can also use these keyboard shortcuts on any page that PageZipper works, making it easy to jump to the next page of results.
PageZipper automatically resizes images in photo galleries to fit your browser window. So you always see the entire image without having to scroll

What I really like about this is that it’s not making a ton of unnecessary page requests. By that I mean it only fetches the next page once I get towards the end of the results, and it will only work if I decide to activate it via the bookmarklet. So it leaves me in control.

PageZipper is also available as a Firefox extension for those of you who would prefer not to have yet another thing on your bookmarks bar (the extension uses a toolbar icon). Either way, it is a must-have utility that I believe works way better than the alternatives out there.

PageZipper Homepage [via MakeUseOf]

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Apr 13

Download Portable Firefox 2.0 With Safe Browsing Activated

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

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

Firefox 2.0 finally has the Safe Browsing feature enabled and is implemented just in time for the Alpha 3 release on May 26. Safe Browsing prevents phishing attacks on a user (phishing is stealing personal information such as PIN numbers, Credit Card numbers and more by spoofing a web site or email). This has already been implemented into IE7 and in my opinion is one of the most important features that Firefox 2.0 could have. Maybe Firefox 2 will be able to draw some of the less tech-savvy computer users because it will be able to protect its users so well.

The code has been locked down for Firefox in preparation for Alpha 3. It looks like there are still some check-ins that need to be completed but we probably won’t see the new user interface until Beta 1.

I have put together a portable version of the latest nightly build so that you can see what the Safe Browsing is like (I also took a screenshot above of a fake PayPal site). Only SOME of the phishing sites are actually caught by Firefox unless you enable the Safe Browsing to perform remote lookups on the sites:

Open Firefox.
Type “about:config” into the address bar and press “Enter”.
Find the property that says “browser.safebrowsing.remoteLookups” and change it to “True”.
Restart Firefox.

By enabling the feature above I have had it catch every phishing site I have tried (the Portable Firefox below already has the feature enabled for you). Here are two sites that you can test, but don’t put your information into the PayPal site: Google Phishing Site and FAKE PayPal site.

A bug report has been submitted to try and get Mozilla to turn on the Remote Lookups by default (hopefully they will to maximize security). The next Portable Firefox version that I post here will be Alpha 3 when it gets released in the next few days, so check back soon!

How to use the Portable Firefox:

All you have to do is download the Portable Firefox 2.0 file below. Then you unzip the file and browse for the file PortableFirefox.exe. Just execute that file and you will be running Firefox 2.0 with Safe Browsing activated! The profile is kept with the PortableFirefox folder so you don’t have to worry about messing up your other profile and the uninstallation process is simple…just delete the folder!

Download Portable Firefox 2.0 Nightly Build With Safe Browsing

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Apr 09

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Candidate Now Available

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on July 08, 2006 by CyberNet.

The first set of release candidates for Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 have been posted to the Mozilla FTP. You can get this build for Linux, Mac, or Windows (Installer or ZIP). Remember, this is just a release candidate and may not represent what the official Beta 1 release is like but they have closed the build from further checkins.

The official release is still scheduled for Tuesday, July 11.

Update:

Firefox 2.0 Release Candidate 2 is now available and so is a portable version!

Because of popular demand I have put together the Portable version of this build.

Also, I have put together a nice guide on tweaking Beta 1 and some of its new features.

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Apr 08

Firefox 3 Download Manager, Resizable Toolbar Items, and More

Posted in: Features, Firefox 3, Freeware, Mozilla, Pre-Release, search, Software, Today's Chili

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

Pretty soon Firefox 3 is going to be feature complete, and all that will be left for them to do is fine-tune the things they have implemented. As we build up to that big moment there are some new features that are coming out of the shop for testers. This includes a spruced up download manager, resizable toolbar items, a plugin manager, and better looking menus.

So let’s go ahead and take a look at all the enhancements that have come about since Alpha 7 was released:

–Download Manager–

The download manager has gotten a lot more useful with the features they’ve added. First off it sorts your downloads with the ones currently in progress up top, and those that are completed down below:

Firefox 3 Download Manager

For any of the completed downloads you can click on the blue "i" for more information, such as the location it was downloaded from.

Then there is also the search box located in the bottom-left corner. That does a live search of all your completed items, and the results are then immediately displayed:

Firefox 3 Download Manager

At first I thought this might be really really nice, except I always setup Firefox to clear my completed downloads after they are finished. The reason why I do that is because it’s supposed to improve the startup time of the browser, and this feature is therefore rendered useless for me. So if you have Firefox setup to clear completed items in the Downloads window, the new layout and features won’t really do much for you.

–Resizable Toolbar Items–

This is a super sweet feature that I’m glad Mozilla got implemented. There is now a "Resizer" item in the Customization screen that can be added to the toolbars. It is the most useful for placing between the search box and address box, where you will then be able to drag it back and forth to resize the two boxes.

Firefox 3 Toolbar Resizer

It also works when placed between toolbar buttons, but the results may not be what you expect. I noticed that the buttons scrunch together when trying to resize them, and if space gets really tight they are just hidden. It would be a lot better if Mozilla worked on a way to scale the buttons to a size that would allow all of them to remain visible, but that might be something they are working on.

–Plugin Manager–

Plugin management has been taken from about:plugins to the same place where you manage extensions and themes. One of the most notable things that I saw when opening the plugin management was that it easily lets you disable certain items. For example, if you don’t want Flash enabled you can disable it right from the plugin management screen.

Firefox 3 Plugin Manager

The only problem, which can’t be seen in my screenshot, is that plugins with more than one file associated with them show up repeatedly. For me the issue was with Java, which had about 10 entries all given the same title.

–Menu Appearance–

The menus have also gotten a slight overhaul. Now Firefox 3 supports a Vista-like menu appearance. Some things take advantage of this, such as the History menu which shows the site’s icon next to the entries:

Firefox 3 Menus

–Overall–

Still to come in Firefox 3 is integration with Vista’s parental control system, a visual refresh/new default theme, Places enhancements, as well as a few other things that are pretty high priority. The next milestone, which is due September 18th, could be either an Alpha or a Beta build. Mozilla appears to be picking up the pace and getting some much-needed features implemented, so it wouldn’t be a surprise to me if they are able to move on to the Beta releases.

Sources: The Burning Edge, Ars Technica, Mozilla Links, Firefox Extension Guru & Kyle’s Cove
Thanks for the tip Mohan!

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Apr 01

Pause Animated GIFS in Firefox and IE

Posted in: Freeware, Internet Explorer, Opera, Software, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili

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

Have you ever been on a page with a ton of animated GIF’s, and all you’re trying to do is read the content? It can get quite distracting, but if you’re using Firefox or Internet Explorer just hit the ESC key. Doing so will immediately pause all of the animated GIF images on the page. Go ahead, try it with this image:

Stick Figure Animated GIF

The only bad part about pausing the images using the ESC key is that there’s no way to have them resume without refreshing the page.

One thing that I’ve never understood about browsers is why they don’t have a play, pause, and restart options on the right-click menu for GIF animations. That would be a really nice feature to have, but Firefox and Opera users do have a few advanced settings for GIF animations:

–Firefox Users Only–

In Firefox you can also completely disable GIF animations, or only allow them to play through one time. Here’s what you have to do:

In the Location Bar type about:config and hit Enter
Type “animation” in the Filter field (to quickly find the needed preference)
Double-click the image.animation_mode line and edit it to one of the following:

none — will prevent image animation
once — will let the image animate once
normal (default) — will allow it to play over and over

–Opera Users Only–

If you want to completely disable GIF animations in Opera here’s what you have to do:

In the Location Bar type opera:config#Multimedia|ShowAnimation and hit Enter
Uncheck the box next to Show Animation, and then save the settings

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Mar 23

Google Bookmarks Firefox Extension Updated

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

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

I love using Google Bookmarks because they allow me to keep my information private and at the same time I can access them wherever I go. Google made accessing the bookmarks easy for Internet Explorer users because they put it on the Google Toolbar but Firefox users were not so lucky.

I’m glad they didn’t put it on the toolbar because that made people want to create their own extensions to work with the bookmarks. The Google Bookmarks Button Firefox extension is the absolute best out of the ones that I tested. A new version was just released today and the updates are great!

Here is a list of what’s new in this release:

Uses Firefox dialogs for adding/editing Bookmarks instead of opening a Google webpage. (Pictured below)
Drop down menu for selecting labels from the existing ones on add/edit dialogs.
Rename/Remove labels
Import Firefox Bookmarks
Favicon support (can be enabled in the Experimental tab located in the options)
Label hierarchy! This is the coolest thing because now you can have subfolders by designating a certain character!
Context menu “Add this link to Google Bookmarks” option when right-clicking on a link.

This is my absolute favorite Firefox extension and I am glad that the developer, Pau, continues to work on it. It’s the first thing that I always install in a fresh Firefox installation and it looks like it will continue to be that way. Thanks for another great release Pau!

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Mar 12

CyberNotes: Best Firefox Extensions for Bookmarking

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

This article was written on September 12, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

Could you imagine having a browser without a bookmarking system? To me that would be like using a computer that doesn’t let you copy and paste…it’s almost impossible to fathom what that would be like! So I think it is safe to say that bookmarks are important for productivity, but the real question is, what can we do to make it better?

I crawled my way through all of the 218 bookmark-related Firefox extensions on the Mozilla add-ons site, and I quickly realized how poorly some of the extensions were categorized since many of them didn’t have much to do with bookmarking at all. I was able to find a pretty good amount of extensions though that I thought were pretty interesting.

–Synchronizing Bookmarks–

Circle Arrows One of the most common things people want to do with their bookmarks is synchronize them with some online service. That way they can be accessed whether they are at work, home, or on the go.

There are several different services that can be used to store your bookmarks, and here’s a listing of what I believe are the best synchronizing extensions:

GMarks (for Google Bookmarks) – This is my favorite Firefox extension for synchronizing bookmarks. It makes use of the Google Bookmarks system so that everything you bookmark is kept private, and it is packed with features. You can have your bookmarks in a toolbar or in the sidebar, and it’s capable of importing your existing Firefox bookmarks.
Smarky (for Simpy) – This is based off of the GMarks extension mentioned above, except this one works with the Simpy bookmarking system.
Del.icio.us (for Del.icio.us, duh) – This is a simple Firefox extension that’s used for managing your bookmarks on Del.icio.us. You can add a description, notes, and tags to each bookmark you save.
Foxmarks (for Foxmarks or custom) – I really like this extension because it integrates right into your existing Firefox bookmarks. You can hardly notice that the extension is synchronizing your bookmarks, but it is. Lifehacker also has a great tutorial on how to setup Foxmarks to work with your own FTP.
Clipmarks (for Clipmarks) – Clip certain sections of websites so that only the content you want is saved.

–Making Bookmarks More Productive–

Now on to more of the gems. Some of these extensions I had heard of, or even written about prior to this, but there are still several that I hadn’t seen. You may not need to use some of them now, but there are certain times when each would serve a useful purpose.

Flat Bookmark Editor – This adds several fields to the bottom of the Bookmarks Manager so that you can edit the contents of a bookmark without having to pull up the properties. This is extremely useful if you’re trying to edit a bunch of bookmarks simultaneously.
Speed Dial – The idea for this type of feature was originally from the Opera browser, but as expected, a version with slightly less features has also been turned into a Firefox extension. Using it, you can set some of your favorite sites to be displayed on a Speed Dial page.
Visual Bookmarks – Have a hard time finding a site or image in your bookmarks? This could be just the solution since you can view all of the sites as thumbnails. Unfortunately this doesn’t integrate into the Firefox bookmark system so you’ll have to bookmark sites separately with this extension, but you can highlight certain portions of the screen that you want captured for the thumbnail.
Bookmarks Duplicate Detector – When you reach a few hundred bookmarks, sometimes it is difficult to remember whether you’ve already bookmarked a site or not. Have no fear…Book Duplicate Detector will scour through your bookmarks looking for ones that point to the same address.
Smart Bookmarks Bar – Sometimes you may want to put a lot of bookmarks on your toolbar, but the problem is that there just isn’t enough room. This extension will collapse all of your bookmarks down to just their icon, and when you hover over them with your mouse it will reveal their names.
Bookmarks LInkChecker – You can check your bookmarks to see if the links have been broken. This should become part of your regularly scheduled maintenance.
Enhanced Bookmark Search – This is a much more powerful search mechanism for finding bookmarks. You can even save searches into dynamically updating folders…it kind of reminds me of how the dynamic playlists in iTunes work.
Dog Ears – This lets you bookmark your place on a page so that you can quickly jump to the important portions using the Shift+Spacebar hotkey.
AddThis – Using this extension you can quickly bookmark a site on any number of different services.
Bookmark Permissions – This lets you enable or disable certain options, such JavaScript, on a per bookmark basis. That way you can disable JavaScript system-wide, but enable it for the sites that you trust. Of course you’ll have to open the site using the bookmark in order for the settings to be applied.

–Overview–

I think I’ve covered almost all of the interesting bookmark-related extensions, but I would love to hear of any others you can come up with. Don’t forget to checkout our URL-related extensions as well, but even more importantly, make sure that your Firefox extensions don’t have memory leaks.

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Mar 10

Firefox 2 RC1 And Firefox 1.5.0.7 Release Dates

Posted in: Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on September 13, 2006 by CyberNet.

Update:

Firefox 1.5.0.7 has been released.

There have been some bumps in the road for the release of Firefox 1.5.0.7 but it is expected to ship tomorrow. Up until today they have provided 6 release candidate builds for version 1.5.0.7 which hopefully means they got everything worked out. Despite the release date being pushed back a few times it has only slipped one-week from their original expectation.

Flock has also stated that they will be updating to version 0.7.5 tomorrow if Mozilla is able to get that release out. If everything goes smoothly in that version of Flock they will go ahead and enable the automatic update for current users on Friday.

On a similar note I am sure you have seen the updates I’ve posted about the Firefox 2 theme. Mozilla has been trying to get everything put together over the last few days because the code lockdown is scheduled for today. At that time they will be preparing for the release of Firefox 2 RC1 which is supposed to ship on September 19. Let’s cross our fingers and hope Mozilla keeps it on time.

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Hasta La Gadget!

Easily Organize The Status Bar In Firefox

Make Firefox Remember Passwords without a Bookmarklet

Excellent Pagination Bookmarklet Firefox Extension

Download Portable Firefox 2.0 With Safe Browsing Activated

Firefox 2.0 Beta 1 Candidate Now Available

Firefox 3 Download Manager, Resizable Toolbar Items, and More