This article was written on April 24, 2009 by CyberNet.
I still feel like I’m in search of the perfect page that is displayed when I open up a new tab in my browser. I used to be one of those people who always used a blank page for performance reasons, but when I started using Opera more I really started to like having the Speed Dial sites at my fingertip. Then other browsers like Google Chrome, Safari 4, and even IE8 started to catch on by trying to make the new tab page a little more useful.
Even though Firefox doesn’t ship with a feature like this it has a leg up on the competition because people can install extensions. Users can try out various alternatives until they find the one that works the best for them, and New Tab King is one of those extensions that’s definitely worth checking out. Here are some of the things it includes:
Access to most visited websites
See your bookmarks
See your recently closed tabs
Instant Google search box
It’s not the most graphical solution out there, but I know not everyone is a huge fan of pretty images. They’d rather just stick to a more text-based layout. If that sounds like you then New Tab King might be perfect. Give it a whirl and let us know what you think.
This article was written on November 28, 2008 by CyberNet.
Mozilla is on the verge of releasing Firefox 3.1 Beta 2, and it’s quite possible that in the next month or two the final version will be pushed out the door. A major new release like this means that some of your favorite extensions might not be working, and Mozilla doesn’t want that to happen. With over 1 billion extension downloads they are now reaching out to developers asking them to update their extensions for the upcoming release.
Being an extension developer myself I’ve tried to keep CyberSearch up-to-date and functional with all nightly releases of Firefox 3.1. In fact we just updated the extension over the weekend (version 1.0.7) to fix yet another change Mozilla made in the nightly builds rendering our extension inoperable.
Mozilla has assembled a compatibility chart that looks at all of their extensions, and determines how many of them are not yet compatible with Firefox 3.1. I’m not, however, quite sure about the accuracy of the chart. If you view the detailed report you can see a list of all the extensions and what version of Firefox they currently work with. CyberSearch isn’t even on that list.
This is a two-way street though. Developers need to start prepping for Firefox 3.1, and at the same time Mozilla needs to get better about approving new releases. CyberSearch 1.0.7 was just approved this week after about 2 months of submitting different updates, and so it looks like Mozilla has some catching up to do. Just make sure you check the homepage of your favorite extensions, because they may already have a Firefox 3.1-compatible release.
This article was written on October 15, 2006 by CyberNet.
Tracking Down Great Software For You!
As many of you know by now I use Google Bookmarks to manage all of my favorite sites. I used to use the Firefox extension called Google Bookmarks Button until I happen to stumble upon GMarks. Unlike the button, GMarks is an extension that will show all of your bookmarks in your sidebar along with a nice search box that will filter your results as you type.
It also has some unique features that make it even more like better than a traditional bookmarking system. It has the ability to support nested folders which is something that Google Bookmarks does not allow by default since it only uses a labeling system. It also has an amazing Quick Find box that can be activated if you press the Home key twice. It will show you a search box along with your bookmark results as you type into the text box.
The most recent update that GMarks received yesterday has made this extension even better by adding some cool things like Google Reader support. Here is a full list of what’s new:
Fixed errors in the options window when not using auto signin.
Fixed problems adding bookmarks for some users.
Fixed small problems with nested labels.
Stopped GMarks from validating favicons(Its an option now). Should stop GMarks from freezing or slowing down Firefox for those who had that happen.
Fixed Adding Bookmarks with Ctrl+D off.
Added Google Reader support(Option to show Google Reader starred items in GMarks) Off by default.
Option to hide certain labels from view.
Option to set a default label for unlabeled bookmarks.
Option to always open bookmarks in a new tab.
Updated French translation.
Note: My two favorite updates I put in bold above.
I have only touched on some of the features that GMarks has so make sure you go and check it out for yourself. I was originally very skeptical about using a sidebar for my bookmarks because I am very conscious about wasting screen space, but this is far from a waste in my opinion!
This article was written on August 21, 2008 by CyberNet.
Mozilla has announced the winners of the Extend Firefox 3 add-on contest. This is where extension developers submitted their add-ons to try and win prizes like a MacBook Air, and the winners definitely deserved it. I did submit our CyberSearch extension to see if it’d win, but it looks like it didn’t make the cut.
What extensions did scoop up the win? Here they are sorted by category:
Fire.fm – Direct access to the Last.fm music library.
Congrats to all of the winners! There are some other extensions I believe deserved to win, such as Foxmarks in the “best updated” category, but there’s not much any of us could have done since a panel of judges was designated to make the decision.
If you’ve tried out any of the extensions mentioned above let us know which ones you think deserved the win, and which of your favorites should have taken home the crown.
This article was written on April 01, 2008 by CyberNet.
One of the things that has always bugged me about Firefox is that when you go to download a file it will only let you save it to your computer. Some other browsers, such as Internet Explorer, also give you an option to “run” the file. The difference is that a file you run is downloaded and stored in a temporary folder that is periodically emptied by the operating system as opposed to being placed in a directory of your choosing.
It’s nice being able to run a file immediately because as soon as it is done downloading I know that it will be opened in the default application. Often times I only want to use a file just once, and so I don’t really need it cluttering up one of my other folders.
If you feel the same way as me you’ll want to checkout the OpenDownload extension for Firefox. All it does is add a Run option to the dialog that appears when you go to download a file (as seen in the screenshot above). Who would have thought that something so simple could make me so darn happy!
Note: This does work fine in Firefox 3 even though it is not shown to be compatible.
This year’s release of Firefox 3.5 gave us a lot of reasons to like it, but its extensibility remains everyone’s favorite feature. These add-ons and theme tools were the most popular in the year gone by.
This list is culled from a straight listing of the most popular posts that offered a Firefox extension for download in 2009. We’re not including posts about configuring Firefox, or even our own hand-rolled Firefox add-on packs—even if they were pretty popular, too. Let’s get to the good stuff.
One of the greatest things about Firefox is that its development happens way out wide in the open. When the design workers start coming up with preliminary sketches of a new release, anyone can peek at them and even compile them into a theme, which does just what the headline suggests.
Windows Vista and 7 feature some fairly nice looking transparency effects, but if your primary browser doesn’t use them, it can feel a bit disconnected. All-Glass Firefox v2 tweaks your browser to look just, well, proper in its fancy-pants surroundings.
Google Redesigned, a multi-site suite that trades Google’s blue/white/minimal look for a darker, sleeker feel, kept improving its transformative powers this year, adding a host of improvements in its 3.0 release, and later releasing a new version with GReader Redesigned for the RSS hounds.
“I’m having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!” That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the Dislike extension.
Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren’t in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. The TinEye extension makes it a simple right-click maneuver to search out similar copies of any image you come across.
Sometimes, great stuff has to be hosted on public download services, because the file—or the attention it’s getting—is just too much for our meek little personal sites. And the download sites often make it as painful as possible to grab those files. SkipScreen acts as an automated intermediary, jumping through the necessary hoops and entering the key presses required.
This neat little extension, winner of the Extend Firefox 3.5 contest, utilizes lots of Firefox’s built-in features, like geo-location and the extension framework, to offer wary laptop users a way to nuke their personal data, passwords, and history if necessary, track where their machine is logging on after a theft, and cull all kinds of data from the thief. FireFound is, in other words, a smart thing to install if your laptop ever leaves the home.
A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox’s about:config menus. Gui:config brings them into focus and offers a graphical way to manage them. As the How-To Geek puts it, it’s amazing that this isn’t something being considered for mainstream distribution in the browser.
(Windows only): Firefox is decently light with memory on startup, but extensions and plug-ins drag it down as you actually use it. Memory Fox monitors Firefox’s memory use and, once it reaches your pre-set limit, whips it back into shape.
(Windows only): Well, the headline and picture kind of say it all about Daum Blue, but it’s worth noting that beyond looks, it’s also fairly customizable, and looks even better on Vista and Windows 7 systems.
Sure, kind of anathema for this site’s stated mission, but giving your mind a break at work has real mental benefits, even if your boss doesn’t think so.
If you’re likely to do more at a web site than just simply bookmark it, UrlbarExt is like a Leatherman for your AwesomeBar. Head to a site’s root, search the site on Google, and do much more from a small array of address bar buttons.
Another headline that pretty much says it all. We weren’t a big fan of Xmarks‘ new “discovery” features, but its growing reach into Chrome and other browsers make the former Foxmarks’ expansion a good thing.
Given the recent legal crackdown on BitTorrent-centered sites, magnet links (explained here) are increasingly popular. Magnetiser makes it easy to track down a working torrent link to grab the file you’re looking for.
It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, Integrated Gmail also customizes every niggling detail of those combined apps, making it worth the try-out, even if you think you like your Google spaces separated into different tabs.
If you’re always looking at online purchases and wondering if you could save more before pulling the trigger, Invisible Hand affirms your hunches for you, dropping down and showing lower prices wherever it can find them.
Not seeing your favorite add-on released in 2009 here, or covered anywhere at Lifehacker? Can’t believe your favorite app doesn’t get more attention? Let’s hear all about it in the comments.
This article was written on June 16, 2008 by CyberNet.
We wrote about PicLens for the first time last July and described it as a browser add-on that offers full-screen photo browsing. In the year since we first wrote about it, they’ve added all kinds of features, and now they offer much more than just photo browsing. Recently they added some new features with their latest release, PicLens 1.7 , so we thought it was about time to review all that they offer.
First, we should mention that PicLens 1.7 is for users running Firefox on a Mac or Windows. It is also available for Internet Explorer users. With this latest release, they added three major new features which include:
Discover
The PicLens team wants to make it easier for you to discover what’s going on with sports, entertainment, and current events. All you have to do is look for the “Discover” button and then a list will appear with your media channel options. Channels include US News, US Sports, International News and Sports, Entertainment, Movies/TV, Fashion/Lifestyle, Science/Technology, and more…
Shop Amazon
Shop Amazon in a whole new way! They’re calling it “virtual window shopping” because you’ll be browsing through products on Amazon visually. Using the PicLens search box, you’ll enter in the item you’re searching for, choose a category, and then you’ll be able to view the products that match your search visually. If you want more information on a particular product, all it takes is one click and then you’ll see the Amazon page that you’d typically see with all of the product information and reviews.
Return to PicLens
Getting back to PicLens was made just a bit easier with a new “Return to PicLens” button.
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With Firefox 3 coming out this week, some of you are probably wondering whether or not PicLens works with it, and it does. I installed PicLens 1.7 using Firefox 3 RC3 to try out all of these features and they all seemed to work well. As someone who shops Amazon pretty regularly, the “Shop Amazon” feature was great. All I did was type the product I was looking for in the PicLens search box and it pulled up a list of results that I could click on. Once I clicked on them, they enlarged and then I could use my arrow keys to go through all of the matching product results. The transitions between the products looked great as well.
We take a lot of screenshots in a day’s time, and a good majority of them are of websites being displayed within our browser. Instead of needing to use an external application to snap the screenshots why not get an extension for Firefox that includes an incredible editor!
Fireshot is a relatively large extension (in terms of filesize) for Firefox that has just about everything you need. With it you can capture an entire website, including the area that you need to scroll to see, or you can just have it capture what you’re currently viewing.
After a screenshot has been captured you’ll be able to annotate the screenshot, crop it, and even blur/gray out an area. In the screenshot that I took above I had applied the blur and grayed out effects to the area around the article’s body in an effort to make the article itself standout.
After you’re done with a screenshot you can save it to your computer (PNG, JPEG, or BMP formats), copy it to the clipboard, email it, or send it to an external image editor.
This article was written on March 14, 2008 by CyberNet.
(Click to Enlarge)
One of the things that I absolutely love about Opera is the Speed Dial that was introduced back in Opera 9.2 almost exactly one year ago. It basically adds thumbnail images of your 9 favorite sites to the page that is displayed when you open a new tab.
Well, like most great features it didn’t take long for a Firefox extension to appear that offered a similar concept. The extension fell short in a lot of different areas, and I didn’t feel as though it stacked up very well against what Opera was offering. It turns out that there is a better one available called Fast Dial that is much much closer to Opera’s Speed Dial, and actually has some rather unique aspects to it:
Up to 36 different sites can be added (6×6).
Hotkeys! Just like Opera you can use hotkeys to access your first 9 sites. However, with this extension you can actually customize the hotkey that’s used in conjunction with the number.
Specify a custom image to be used for the thumbnail. This way you can just use a site’s logo if you don’t want to actually have a screenshot.
Customize the appearance so that it looks the way you want it to. For example, I changed the background color in the screenshot above from being white to a darker gray. You can also change the font and several other colors used in the extension.
You can add files/images from your desktop! For example, you can add a link to a PDF or a DOC file that you frequently need to access. You’ll want to specify a custom image for the thumbnail image though because it won’t be able to generate a preview. Note: Firefox will prompt your with the open/save box assuming that the file can’t be displayed within Firefox.
Right-click on a site or tab to quickly add it to the Fast Dial.
Drag and drop to rearrange the different items.
The only thing that I’ve found this extension to lack is dragging and dropping bookmarks/URLS onto a blank square which I believe eases the setup process. Admittedly this extension is the closest thing I’ve seen to Opera’s Speed Dial, and it even has some aspects that I like better. From now on I don’t think I’ll be using Firefox without this extension.
This article was written on October 04, 2007 by CyberNet.
Almost all of our MyFive articles up until now have been about things that we like, but we also want to use this as a way to discuss improvements to applications, websites, and more. It will kind of be like our Opera article where I wrote about things I would like to see in the browser.
Like many of you I’m a huge fan of the open source Firefox web browser, but there are still some things that I think it can improve on. So today I’m putting Firefox under the microscope!
In my list that I came up with I tried to avoid the more obvious things that can be done by extensions, such as advanced tab management. I also strayed away from mentioning anything that I know will be implemented in Firefox 3. Shall we got on with it?
Bookmark Sorting One thing that always irks me with Firefox is its inability to automatically sort my bookmarks. You can always manually sort the bookmarks, but even that can be quite a pain. When sorting by name it doesn’t treat sub-folders any differently than individual bookmarks, that means the folders become intermingled with the other bookmarks instead of being listed before them. I would expect this to work in the same way as a file explorer in an operating system, but it doesn’t.
Toolbar Management I would like to have more control over the toolbars without needing to install an extension. I should be able to quickly place the Tab Bar, for example, on the side or along the bottom.
Theme Right now there aren’t many browsers that have much visual appeal, and I would say that the two best looking ones are Flock and Internet Explorer. I especially love IE’s transparent effects on Vista, and something like that would be awesome in Firefox. What can I say, I’m a sucker for good eye candy. I also think that Mozilla should include the classic Firefox theme as an option for the same reason that all versions of Windows still contain the classic skin…some people just like things kept simple.
One-Click Private Browsing Firefox is making its way onto more and more public computers, and I would like to see a one-click option to get complete privacy. Sure it’s possible to wipe the history clean after you’re done, but maybe I don’t want to lose all of my history and cookies. If I’m paying bills or something it would be nice to disable all of the cookies and caching mechanisms.
No Restarts After Extension/Theme Installation Installing extensions and themes in Firefox is a regular occurrence for me, and sometimes it can become a pain having to restart the browser. I’m grateful that with Firefox 2 my tabs will be restored, but when I have dozens of tabs open it can take a minute or so for the browser to become usable after it restarts.
I did leave performance off of the list for a good reason, it’s because I’ve seen massive improvements in Firefox 3. That’s a story worthy of its own article though, and you’ll probably be seeing a write-up about Firefox 3 performance improvements in the next week or two.
So now it’s your turn! Hit us up in the comments with what you would like to see in future versions of Firefox.
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
As many of you know by now I use Google Bookmarks to manage all of my favorite sites. I used to use the Firefox extension called 
Mozilla has announced the 
This year’s 
You can speed up Firefox by 
“I’m having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!” That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the 
Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren’t in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. 
This neat little extension, 
A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox’s 
(Windows only): Firefox is 
It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, 
