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Aug 06

gBrain Extension Shutdown by Google

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

This article was written on July 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

Back in 2005 Google launched a bookmark management service that was designed to privately store links to your favorite sites. A few months after the launch a Firefox extension called gBrain popped up that used Google Bookmarks in a rather unique way. Once installed it would basically bookmark each and every site that you visited creating a searchable history. You could, of course, exclude certain sites from appearing, but generally speaking every site earned a place in your Google Bookmarks.

The extension has been available for about two years now, and as of a few weeks ago it got retired. The developer of the extension decided to pull it down after Google kindly asked if he’d remove it. Why was it a problem for Google? Here’s what the developer had to say:

The problem with my extension was something I hadn’t imagined: a scaling problem. Hehe, Google had scaling problems .
The gBrain extension creates a lot of bookmarks. Several thousands a month. And the Google bookmarks system was never made with this amount in mind. What made things worse (and I didn’t knew that), the bookmarks are connected to the normal web search. Whenever you use the web search, it checks it against your Google bookmarks. You can easily imagine what problems can come up when you have a several 10 or even 100 thousands of bookmarks…

That’s understandable, and very interesting that Google had a scalability problem. I guess Google doesn’t have a lot of resources dedicated to their bookmarking system.

The developer of the extension didn’t mind taking down the extension because Google was nice about the whole thing. He even got to talk to an engineer who explained what the problem was. Plus he got a free shirt and memory card reader unexpectedly shipped to him.

The extension is still available from various sites including the Mozilla FTP, but this probably isn’t something a lot of people would use.

[Image Source]

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Aug 02

CyberSearch Supports Firefox 3.1 Beta

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

This article was written on October 16, 2008 by CyberNet.

Mozilla released Firefox 3.1 Beta 1 the other day, and users playing with version 3.1 for the first time will be able to enjoy some of the enhancements it brings to the table. Things like advanced address bar filtering, better tab switching, and drastically improved JavaScript performance are the main highlights for this release.

We want to do our part to try and support the testers, and that’s why we’ve been trying to keep the CyberSearch Firefox extension up-to-date with the latest changes in the browser. Our latest release, version 1.0.5, has full support for both Firefox 3.0 and pre-release versions of Firefox 3.1. We’ve had a few different things break in the nightly builds of Firefox 3.1, and our users have been good about notifying us when any problems occur. We then do our best to fix them as fast as possible.

In order to get CyberSearch updates out to you as quickly as possible we’ve posted a direct installation link to the newest release on the CyberSearch homepage. We’re doing this because it will probably take Mozilla awhile to get around to approving our new version, but we want this in the hands of Firefox 3.1 testers as soon as possible.

So now you can test out the new Firefox 3.1 Beta, and tinker around with our extension at the same time. I do have to say that the JavaScript speed improvements can be pretty noticeable in Firefox 3.1, and I can’t wait to see what the final release is like.

CyberSearch Tops 25,000 Downloads

Firefox 4 Beta 2 Will Break Many Extensions

CyberSearch Passes 50,000 Downloads

CyberSearch 2.0.2 Released

Jul 24

WrapUp: Android 2.1 Hacked onto Droid, Log into Multiple Online Accounts in Firefox, and More

Posted in: Firefox Extensions, Tips and Tricks, Today's Chili, ubuntu, WrapUp

This article was written on December 21, 2009 by CyberNet.

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

–News–

Predator Drones Use Less Encryption Than Your TV
The military in Iraq and Afghanistan have been intercepting U.S. Predator drone communications because, well, the transmissions between the unit and ground control weren’t encrypted. They were able to grab transmissions using some laptops and a $30 Russian application.

Shuttleworth Steps Down as Ubuntu CEO
By March 1st, 2010 Mark Shuttleworth will have completely transitioned out of the CEO position of Canonical, the company behind the Ubuntu Linux operating system. His replacement is Jane Silber, who has been the COO of Canonical since 2004. Shuttleworth says that he isn’t leaving the company, and that the move will let him work closer on the design process.

New in Gmail Labs: Mark as Unread from Here
Google continues to amaze me as they roll out more and more Gmail labs features that greatly enhance the web email experience. The newest is a “mark unread from here” option that will let you flag parts of an email conversation as unread so that later on you can pick up where you left off. Individually these Gmail Labs aren’t earth-shattering features, but together they make web-based email more appealing to those who tend to lean towards desktop applications.

–News in Brief–

Google Confirms: 1 is Indeed the Loneliest Number
Not really news… more like a little bit of fun to start your holiday week!

Android 2.1 Hacked onto Droid
The iPhone isn’t the only one with a community to hacking the mobile OS every waking moment!

Dell Gets Pranked After Announcing Layoffs
Dell laid off 16% of its Malaysian workforce (about 700 people), and shortly thereafter some “price adjustments” were made to their site: a $4000 laser mouse and an $11 computer.

Microsoft’s Free Tinker Game
Tinker used to be a Windows Vista Ultimate Extra game, and now they’ve released it to all XP, Vista, and Windows 7 users.

Bing App Debuts on iPhone
Last week Microsoft released a Bing search app for the iPhone with a dazzling interface.

Reddit Users Band Together for Largest Secret Santa Ever
This year over 5,000 gifts were shipped for a Secret Santa program between Reddit users. In all over $160,000 in presents were exchanged.

Merge Duplicate Gmail Contacts
If you have a lot of clutter in your contacts you may want to try Google’s new contact merging tool that tries to combine records together for (what it believes) are the same contact.

McDonalds Offering Free WiFi Starting in mid-January
Now you’ll be able to surf the web and devour a Big Mac at the same time… without having to bring the food back home first!

–Tips, Tutorials, and Reviews–

Add a Little 3D to Your Desktop
This Windows app will let you view open programs in a 3D view that lets you flip windows, zoom, move, and much more. What’s nice is that on Windows 7 it works with features like Aero Peek to give you a more streamlined experience. I’m not too confident that I’ll use this all that often (I’m an Alt-Tab kind of guy), but it can be pretty cool to show off to people.

Mutlifox: Log into Multiple Online Accounts in Firefox
This is something that should absolutely be built-into all browsers. Mutlifox is a Firefox extension that will let you open a new tab with a clean set of cookies, and you can therefore log into multiple accounts for the same service (eg. Gmail). I mean really, how many people actually have just one Gmail account these days? I think I have like six… I just can’t remember what they all are.

Packagetrackr Aggregates Package Delivery Information
Got a lot of last-minute holiday packages being delivered this week? If so this will be the perfect time to start using this service. Once you enter in all your tracking numbers you can follow the status of your deliveries from your web browser, or through your mobile device (with the mobile-optimized version of the site). Windows 7/Vista users can also grab the gadget for some package tracking “fun” on your desktop. After all, it’s pretty hard to wait for those nifty little gadgets to arrive at your doorstep.

–Tips in Brief–

Desktop Blog Editors for Ubuntu
While these blog editors may not be as powerful as Windows Live Writer they do certainly offer the basics from the comfort of your open source operating system.

Visually Organize Your Tasks
Get a virtual corkboard to post up all of your tasks, movies you want to watch, and more. (Note: Spaaze says it’s free while in Beta… which means they may charge for it later on down the road).

Quickly Remove Backgrounds from Images
This tool doesn’t do the best job removing backgrounds, but it is possible to get decent results depending on how clear the separation is between you and the background.

Osmo: A Simple Personal Organizer
A calendar, task, contacts, and notes manager doesn’t get much cleaner than this.

Session Manager for Google Chrome
Save your tab sessions in Google Chrome with this add-on.

–Downloads–

Avant Browser 11.7.43 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Dropbox 0.7.79 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Evernote 3.5.0.862 ^Beta [Homepage] [Mirror]
Firefox 3.0.16 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Firefox 3.6 ^{Beta 5} [Homepage] [Mirror]
Flash Player 10.1.51.66 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
Foobar2000 1.0 ^{Beta 5} [Homepage] [Mirror]
Google Desktop 5.9.911.3589 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Miranda 0.8.11 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Notepad++ 5.6.3 [Homepage] [Mirror]
OpenOffice.org 3.2.0 ^RC1 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Picasa 3.6.95.25 [Homepage] [Mirror]
SeaMonkey 2.0.1 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Songbird 1.4.1.1419 ^{Beta 2} [Homepage] [Mirror]
VirtualBox 3.1.2.56127 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Winamp 5.57 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Wireshark 1.2.5 [Homepage] [Mirror]
Xbox Media Center 9.11 ^RC1 [Homepage] [Mirror]

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CyberWare: Firefox Extension To Manage Multiple GMail Accounts

Best Greasemonkey Scripts: Gmail Account Switcher

Microsoft France Gets Hacked

Jul 19

Meebo Brings IM to Firefox Web Browser

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

This article was written on October 18, 2007 by CyberNet.

meebo messages Meebo has just launched a new Firefox extension so that you can instant message right from the sidebar of your browser. While this makes it convenient to have access to your favorite IM clients like AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Google Talk, ICQ, and Jabber, there are a few things that could be improved to make this extension even better. Seeing as this is their first extension though, I think you’ll be impressed with what it offers.

Once you install the extension (download here), you’ll be able to select which chat client you’d like to sign into. Once you sign-in, a new Meebo tab will automatically open in your browser. This is where all of your chat windows will be. When I mentioned that Meebo could certainly improve on a few things, this is one of them. It would be nice if you could keep the chat window open in the sidebar, or maybe even have your conversations tabbed right along with your other opened tabs in the browser instead of having all your conversations opened in the one Meebo tab. The current setup is almost like just going to their site to chat, but you have the convenience of being able to view all of your contacts in the sidebar which is always open.

While there are some improvements that need to be made, it does have some great features, so lets take a look. Using the Meebo extension, you can chat with a group of people, send a file, view chat logs, and view a user’s profile. There’s also an automatic sign-on feature that will sign you in when you open the browser. Meebo alerts will let you know when you have a new message if you’re viewing another tab. If you’re on a different tab and you receive a message, the tab will flash, but you’ll also see a red bubble next to the persons name in the sidebar displaying how many new messages you have from them.

Overall it’s a really great extension, and a nice addition from Meebo to make chatting easy no matter where you are.

Thanks for the tip Radu!

Related Posts:

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Jul 09

Extension to Auto-hide the Firefox Tab Bar

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

This article was written on March 16, 2007 by CyberNet.

I just tried out a new extension and the purpose of it is to auto-hide my Firefox Tab Bar. After all, an entire toolbar takes up a good chunk of space and every little bit of room matters to a power user.

I read about this extension over at Mozilla Links who installed what looks like the latest stable version available on the Mozilla extensions site. However, I read through the description a little bit and saw a thing saying “Version 1.0 is coming soon” and then they said that testers are welcomed for pre-release versions. Seeing that I’m a big fan of unstable software (almost to the point that it is an addiction) I jumped over to the forum where the latest unstable version was posted.

Judging from the screenshot that Mozilla Links posted and the one I’ve posted below, I would say the latest pre-release version has a lot of great new features:

The “Show pin button” option is actually quite nifty. It will add a little button at the end of the Tab Bar so that you can “pin” the Tab Bar to keep it open. A screenshot of the pin button can be seen to the right, but yours will look a little different since I’m not using the default Firefox theme. You can also use Ctrl+F11 to toggle the Tab Bar on or off.

At first I thought that I would want the Tab Bar to popup real quick when a new tab opens up (which is an optional setting), but it is quite nice having it nicely tucked away. There are several settings like this that you’ll just have to play with until you get everything how you want it.

I haven’t been using the extension for too long today, but I have the pre-release version installed on Firefox 3 nightlies. It seems to do pretty well, but every now and then it will look like it closes a tab even though it still shows up in the drop-down menu next to the pin button. I’m hoping this is only related to Firefox 3 and later on I hope to try it out on Firefox 2 to see if there are any issues.

Hide Tab Bar Homepage
Latest Pre-Release of Hide Tab Bar

Related Posts:

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Jul 07

WOT Keeps You Safe On the Internet, Tops Bloated SiteAdvisor

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

This article was written on September 25, 2009 by CyberNet.

wot google.png

SiteAdvisor started out as a really good idea. Whenever you went to a site, the SiteAdvisor label would turn green (safe), yellow (shady) or red (dangerous) to indicate the safety of that site. But then McAfee got involved and bundled SiteAdvisor with a search bar, a resident Windows service and other common signs of bloatware. Fortunately, the Web of Trust (WOT) extension stepped up to fill the gap that SiteAdvisor left.

Setup

When installing Web of Trust for the first time, the extension asks you how it should behave. Depending on your needs, you can go with the full package (Basic), a less intrusive version (Light) or a child-safe version. The latter will first check whether or not the site your kid wants to navigate to is safe. If no ratings are available, the site will be blocked. Interestingly, an accessibility setting for color blind people is also available. After choosing which version you want to go with, WOT will prompt you to create an account with them to unlock the full potential of the extension.

How it works

After installing WOT, a color indicator will be placed in the navigation toolbar. Much like SiteAdvisor, a quick glance at this icon lets you know whether you’re safe or not. Additionally, you can click the indicator to reveal more information about the site. WOT keeps track of trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety. It is also possible to read user reviews by clicking ‘View scorecard for rating details’.

WOT also protects you when you’re searching with Google, Yahoo and Bing. Depending on your settings, you can choose to have WOT always display a rating next to every search result, only display the rating if it’s not green or not display ratings at all. Similarly, if you’re a Hotmail, Gmail or Yahoo Mail user, WOT will display these icons in your incoming e-mails too.

Blocking features

Depending on how cautious you are, you might want to set up WOT like a passive advisor or rather like a mom who is always on your side to keep you out of bad neighborhoods. Either way, you can pull up the settings panel and configure the lowest permissible safety level for each category. Depending on your choice, WOT will either alert you or block you from visiting sites that do not meet your customized safety criteria.

WOT Homepage

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How the Internet All Began…

Jul 05

Instant Google Results in the Firefox 3 Location Bar

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

This article was written on June 04, 2008 by CyberNet.

firefox awesomesearch.png

One of the my favorite things in Firefox and Opera is having the ability to perform searches right from the location bar using keywords. In fact I’ve always removed the search box from the browser simply because I never use it. But when I found out about the Peers extension I thought it was going to be the extension that would actually get me to use the search box once and for all. I was wrong.

Ghacks uncovered an incredible extension that could very well be the best one ever created. I know, a lot of extensions have passed through the golden gates of the add-ons site, but I don’t think any of them will save me as much time as this one does.

The extension is called AwesomeSearch, which is named after the new Firefox 3 location bar (pictured above) that’s dubbed the “Awesome Bar.” With it you’ll get Google and Amazon search results intermingled with the items from your browser’s history. Here’s a video demonstration put together by the author to show you how it works.

As you can see in my screenshot the search results that are pulled in are highlighted with a blue background, and that makes it easier to differentiate what’s a search result and what’s a site you’ve previously visited. The true power of the extension, however, will only be revealed if you’re familiar with some of Google’s advanced search operators. A good example of this is what I have typed into the location bar in my screenshot, where the “site:cybernetnews.com” is the advanced search operator. By including that as part of the query it only returns results from our site. This basically gives you a nearly instantaneous way to search specific sites. Another example would be using “site:en.wikipedia.org” to only show results from the English Wikipedia site. Now do you see why this is so cool?

I sent an email to the developer with some recommendations that would make the extension even better. One of the things that came to my mind was having the ability to create keyword searches so that you can force it to only show Google results, and not anything from your browser’s history. That can be taken even further by being able to automatically append text onto the query based upon which keyword you use. For example, typing “wiki [search text]” into the location bar would actually be like performing a Google search formatted like “[search text] site:en.wikipedia.org“. That’s just an idea, but it would give people the chance to add site-specific search capabilities without the developer working overtime trying to make it compatible with dozens of different services.

The extension is currently in the experimental stage, and you’ll have to login with your Mozilla account to install it. It’s also not officially compatible with the latest Firefox 3 release, which means you’ll also need to ignore extension compatibility checking before trying to grab it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve gotten this excited about a Firefox extension! One thing that I do want to point out is that this does also search Amazon, and it uses affiliate links for the results it retrieves. It’s just an easy way to support the developer though.

Get the AwesomeSearch Extension for Firefox 3

CyberSearch Firefox Extension Pre-Launch

Safari’s Inquisitor Comes to Firefox

MySpace Has An Instant Messenger, Too!

Keyboardr: Real-time Google & Wikipedia Search Results

Jul 04