Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

One of the major reasons Firefox is approaching 400 million downloads is because of how customizable the browser is thanks to extensions. In a way Firefox extensions are bittersweet, because they can provide some unique and useful features, but at the same time they can cause some unwanted problems.

It’s been well over a year since I last took a look at the issues some popular Firefox extensions caused. Most of the extensions listed there caused crashes, memory leaks, and excessive CPU usage. Since then, a Leak Monitor extension has been created to notify users when a certain type of memory leak occurs. This has successfully helped dozens of developers eliminate memory leaks in their extensions.

Unfortunately not all of the problems have not been solved when it comes to the extensions. Some can still cause Firefox to crash, leak memory, or make your CPU usage skyrocket. Today I thought that I would revisit the current status of extensions to see which ones are still causing the problems.

To find the extensions that have problems, I turned to the Mozilla Knowledgebase as well as their bug tracker. I was able to uncover more than a dozen extensions that have performance related issues, and I’m assuming you’re using the most recent versions of the extensions as well as the latest version of Firefox. You’re sure to have even more problems if you’re using older versions of Firefox or extensions that are outdated.

Below is the list that I came up with, and along with each extension I mention the issue along with any known fixes.

Note: You may or may not experience the problems mentioned. If you haven’t had a problem with an extension there is no sense in removing it.

• Adblock
  Issue: Has been known to crash Firefox when trying to use Gmail Chat.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed if you use Gmail Chat.
• All-in-One Gestures
  Issue: Can cause Firefox to crash, and conflicts with the inline spellchecker on Linux and OS X.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed if you’re using Linux or OS X.
• Fasterfox
  Issue: Can interfere with website access, and problems may continue even if Fasterfox is removed.
  Fix: Reset the defaults or start with a new profile in Firefox. Also make sure that you have prefetching disabled in the extension.
• Firebug
  Issue: Causes excessive CPU usage
  Fix: Disable Firebug when it’s not being used, or create a separate profile to use it in.
• ForecastFox
  Issue: Memory leaks due to satellite imagery.
  Fix: It’s recommended that the extension be removed, or you can install an older version without the satellite imagery.
• Google Browser Sync
  Issue: Causes excessive CPU usage with GIF animations.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• Google Web Accelerator
  Issue: Crashes Firefox when closing the browser.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• IE Tab
  Issue: Memory leaks
  Fix: It’s recommended that the extension be removed, or you can install IE View Lite as an alternative.
• Loki
  Issue: Memory leaks
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• Media Player Connectivity
  Issue: Causes Unresponsive Script Warnings
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• Mouseless Browsing
  Issue: Causes excessive CPU usage
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• SessionSaver
  Issue: Memory leaks
  Fix: Use Session Manager instead.
• Tabbrowser Extensions (TBE)
  Issue: Slows down Firefox, conflicts with other extensions, and can stop Firefox from working.
  Fix: It’s recommended that the extension be removed, or you can install Tab Mix Plus instead.

People running Firefox 3 right now should be careful if using the ForecastFox or FoxClocks extensions. Both of those are known to have memory leaks (ForecastFox report here and FoxClocks report here).

The extensions that I’ve listed above are all currently known to have some sort of problem. The bad news is that not all of the extensions have been as thoroughly tested as the ones mentioned here, and that’s because Mozilla relies on people like you to submit bug reports when you encounter an issue. If you frequently notice memory leaks, try a fresh Firefox profile, and then install the extensions one by one until you find the culprit. The odds are pretty good that the leak will be the result of one of your “more complex” extensions, and so you may want to start with those.

Additional resources from Mozilla include the Reducing Firefox Memory Usage page and the long list of Problematic Extensions.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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

I’ve had several people email me in the past week telling me what a great application Launchy is, and I realized that which is why I wrote about it back in September of 2006. At first I just thought that it was some new people stumbling upon the application, but then Radu pointed out that this is the final 1.0 release which just happened on January 23.

Launchy is a nifty little application that will let you launch applications simply by starting to type the name of the program in the window. With Launchy 1.0, however, you can do even more! 

So what’s new? I pulled up the forum and it looks like Launchy supports plug-ins to make your experience even better!

• Launchy now supports plugins! Check out the “Plugins” folder inside your Launchy directory, you can add and remove plugins from there when Launchy is not running. Following are the plugins that come with Launchy by default, I expect many others to be developed by myself and the community.
  • Weby Plugin
    

    Perform Web Searches: Launchy now supports the following search keywords: google, msn, yahoo, live, weather, amazon, wikipedia, dictionary, thesaurus, imdb, netflix, and msdn websearch. Type in any of these keywords, hit tab, type in your search query, and hit enter!

    Add custom web searches: Please see Quicksearches in the Foxy plugin

    Launch Webpages: Type in the url such as ‘www.launchy.net’ or ‘http://www.launchy.net’ and hit enter

  • Foxy Plugin
    

    Bookmarks: The Foxy plugin will automatically load your FireFox bookmarks into the database. Just search for them as you would applications.

    Quick searches: Launchy loads Firefox quick searches and will index the keyword into the database. Use it like you would a web search.

  • Explory Plugin
    

    Browse: Type in c: and then hit tab, now type in a couple letters of the next directory, and hit tab. You can press enter at anytime to launch the currently selected file or folder. Notice, you must tab after each file/folder.

    Browse from shortcut: If you type in “my docu”, hit tab, and then type in “my musi” and hit tab, Launchy will switch into browsing mode. Any directory or shortcut to a directory can convert into browsing mode.

  • Calcy Plugin
    

    Calculate: Type in some math.. Launchy will figure out what you want to do. Warning: This calculator is limited to +,/,-,* and parenthesis.

• Now Ctrl+Backspace deletes a word at a time and Alt+Backspace clears the text 
• Too many bug fixes to count or remember!

As this program keeps getting new features it continues to become more and more useful. It is skinnable so you can make it look however you like, and I have to admit that it has a lot of eye appeal to it.

Now that Vista has both indexed searching and a sidebar with gadgets built-in I think some of these other companies, like Google, will be looking to extend their applications feature set to help increase its appeal. If they start adding features similar to what Launchy offers then I think more people will consider downloading their desktop search application. I really don’t know what else these search application can add because they definitely won’t be able to compete with Vista’s integrated search feature!

Download Launchy

 Thanks to everyone who sent in this tip!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on July 03, 2009 by CyberNet.

Windows only
I’m always looking for awesome backup solutions that you won’t have to pull your wallet out for, and there’s no arguing that there are plenty of free apps out there. One that really caught my attention recently was PureSync. it does all of the common things you’d expect from a backup program such as two-way syncing or a one-way backup. The interface is extremely simple, which is something I did find refreshing… often times these programs get cluttered because of all the features they try to include. This has a good balance.

The real power of the program I would have to say lies in options it offers for automatic synchronization:

• When folders are found – this is what really made me take a serious look at this program. I can have PureSync look for a specific folder/drive, and when it gets connected a backup will automatically be kicked off. You know how valuable this can be if you’ve ever had a USB drive die on you, or maybe you’ve lost a memory card. Heck, maybe you just want the same files on your computer and portable drive so that changes you make in one location will automatically get carried over once the device is plugged in.
• When a file has been modified – When you’re working on a really important project there is always that fear in the back of your mind that something unexpected might happen to your machine. Maybe your computer is going to explode right before you hit the print button? With this option you can have it make a copy of a file as changes are made to it, and move it over to another location… hopefully to an external drive a few feet away from your computer, and sitting next to a fire extinguisher.
• On a schedule – this is obviously a no-brainer, and any usable backup program will have this option.

If it weren’t for those options I’m not sure if this app would have struck me as being something special. Overall I’d say it’s pretty good, but then again I haven’t put it through any huge file transfers.

PureSync Homepage (Windows only; free)
[via MakeUseOf]

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on December 09, 2006 by CyberNet.

Firefox is becoming even more standards compliant with its latest nightly of the trunk since it passes the Acid 2 Web Standards Test. It isn’t the first browser to do so but it joins some of the best such as Konqueror, Opera, Safari, iCab, OmniWeb, Shiira, and Prince. Some of those you may not have heard of, because I didn’t either, but they are pretty interesting. I retrieved the list of Acid 2 compliant browsers from Wikipedia.

There are still some browsers, such as Internet Explorer 7, that do not pass the test but as you can see to the right it is pretty darn close. Okay, so maybe that is a little exaggeration but one day it might just pass the Acid 2 test…but by that time we’ll be onto the Acid 6 test.

So why is the Acid 2 test so important? A lot of people are always wondering that and the Acid 2 Guide explains the significance:

It has been written to help browser vendors make sure their products correctly support features that web designers would like to use. These features are part of existing standards but haven’t been interoperably supported by major browsers. Acid2 tries to change this by challenging browsers to render Acid2 correctly before shipping.

Acid2 is a complex web page. It uses features that are not in common use yet, because of lack of support, and it crams many tests into one page. The aim has been to make it simple for developers and users to check if a browser passes the test. If it does, the smiley face on the left will appear. If something is wrong, the face will be distorted and/or shown partly in red.

In that guide it also walks you through all of the code that it uses for the individual parts that make up the smiley face once they are put together. It is definitely interesting to read.

If you want to test out the latest nightly version of Firefox 3 that passes the Acid 2 test you can download the portable version here. To use the portable version just extract the download and browse for the FirefoxPortable.exe file. Once you’re done testing it out you can just delete the folder.

Also, the recently released Firefox 3 Alpha 1 does not pass the test because the reflow build had not been merged with the trunk at that point. If you only like to play with the milestone releases you’ll have to wait until Alpha 2 in order to see an Acid 2 compliant Firefox build.

Thanks to natmaster for pointing this out in the comments last night!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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This article was written on February 14, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

One of the things that really seems to draw people to CyberNet is the posting of Firefox Portable builds for pre-release versions of Firefox. Right now Mozilla is testing out Firefox 3 Alpha builds, and the ability to play with it appeals to a lot of people. A while back I wrote a guide on setting up your own version of Firefox Portable, but that was still when the application was called Portable Firefox.

I receive requests all of the time for providing nightly builds of Firefox 3 in a portable fashion so that there is no fear of messing up your stable profile. Heck, I’ll even show you where to copy the contents of your existing profile to in the Firefox Portable so that it is really easy to see if your extensions will work. Let’s go ahead and get started…

–Setting Up Your Own Firefox Portable–

1. The first thing that you’ll need to do is download my “blank” Firefox Portable ZIP file. I say that it is blank because it doesn’t include the actual Firefox files that are needed to run the browser. You’ll be adding those in a few steps from now. Also, it is important to note that the installation I am providing to you is setup to not show a splash screen and to allow multiple instances of Firefox to be running side-by-side. That means you’ll be able to run your nightly build at the same time you’re running your stable build! See this article for an explanation on how I did that.
2. Extract the contents from the file you downloaded in Step 1 which should result in a folder called “FirefoxPortable“.
3. Download the latest nightly trunk to play with the bleeding edge version of Firefox. This is the most recent that you can get, and to find the file that you want to download look for the most recent date that has a “win32.zip” extension.
4. Extract the contents from the file you downloaded in Step 3 which should result in a folder called “firefox“.
5. Drag the firefox folder from Step 4 into the FirefoxPortable -> App folder from Step 2:
   
6. That’s all, now just go back to the FirefoxPortable directory and run the FirefoxPortable.exe file. This is what your directory structure should now look like:
    
7. Note: For future reference, you can update Firefox Portable the same way that you update regular Firefox by going to the Help Menu -> Check for Updates.

–Copying Your Current Profile To Firefox Portable–

When you’re testing out Firefox, it would be nice to just copy all of your settings, bookmarks, and extensions over to the portable version so that you can see what works and what doesn’t. No problem! It just takes a few steps to copy everything over:

1. Locate your existing profile:
   Windows 2000/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<Windows login/user name>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile name>\
   Windows Vista: C:\Users\<Windows login/user name>\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\<Profile name>\
   
2. Copy ALL of the files and folders of your existing profile into the FirefoxPortable -> Data -> profile folder (make sure to delete everything in that directory if it is not already empty):
   
3. That’s all, the next time you start Firefox Portable it should run your existing profile.

–Overview–

That is basically what I do each time that I test out Firefox builds. Similar things can be done using the portable versions of Thunderbird and many other applications. After you have done it once you’ll be able to do the whole process in a matter of seconds because it really is that easy. The thing that takes the longest to do is download the files. Enjoy!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

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