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Firefox/Thunderbird Plugins: Is Less More?
comforteagle writes "I've published the first of a two part look at the new dynamic duo of Mozilla's Firefox and Thunderbird. While most folks thus far agree with the 'less is more' mantra when it comes to the base applications, the plugins seem to be a different story. Hey, there's little wiggle room to debate that the firefox base application (the subject of the first article) isn't the shizzle, but how about the add-ons and plugins? For that matter, do you agree that less is more. or is too little included?"
..but did you mean to use the word "shizzle"?
I'm shaking my head in utter disbelief.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
After that haven't added much to Firefox.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
i use both of these, however i chose to stay with Firebird (0.7) instead of going to Firefox, because firefox .8 had some bugs with the download manager that I didn't like.
A great plugin for Thunderbird, which allows you to use GPG to sign/encrypt your email messages. Very cool!
Investing forum
Having a program that is simple (and small!) is nice, especially when you can add on the features you want.
However, for it to be successful in the mainstream the customization has to be super easy and painless.
I have had difficulties in the past with customizing Mozilla/Netscape, particularly with trying to switch to small buttons/icons, and that's frustrating.
This plugizzle for firefoxizzle and thunderbirdizzle is the shiznit!
Yes! I listen to NYC Speedcore and do math at 3AM. I suggest you try it too.
If you can't design your webpage to be accessible without plug-ins, I don't need it. I don't need to see what I'm missing. Especially crappy ads.
Game: Player 'Donald J Trump' now has AI skill level 'experimental'.
I really like the idea of being able to customize my browser to work just the way I want it to. And being able to pick and choose my plugins with Firefox gives me exactly that. I don't want ALL that junk thrown in! Just a few things, like Adblock, Session Saver, TinyURL Creator, User Agent Switcher and Firesomething (for fun).
Posted from Mozilla Spacemonkey
How am I supposed to fit a pithy, relevant quote into 120 characters?
It's great to be able to pick and choose stuff, without everything under the sun installed and enabled. I hate mouse gestures, but can't live without click-to-view Flash and the User Agent Switcher.
...
By the time I download all the plug-ins and extensions I need for work; I've got something just north of Mozilla and just south of Netscape 7.x. Not needing Firefox or Thunderbird.
As in : "The database will be down temporarily while I shizzle the records.."?
Or "That kitty cat screensaver you installed shizzled your computer..."
I can see it now,
Windows Advanced Server 2008 : "Who do you want to Shizzle today?"
Service guarantees Citizenship! Questions Guarantee GITMO.... Amerika Uber Alles!
It all depends at the crowds you're trying to woo.
Myself I prefer absolutely nothing tacked on to my default installation other than the advertised purpose. If I want to add functionality, I'll go looking then.
If you're catering to the masses (ooh look shiny!) then you'll probably have to strike a balance and include the popular functions while leaving the cosmetic or trivial ones to be added in later.
There is no clear cut answer.
The browser setups I use at work and at home are vastly different. I like to keep the most efficient and streamlined tool set at work, and I'll load up all the toys at home. Thus the ability to add and remove the plugins appeals to me.
I am me...I think
What does the Google toolbar do that Firefox popup-blocking+integrated search can't? Pagerank? Who cares about that?
...
I know they want to avoid bloat, but programs like Opera prove that you can have tons of features without using tons of memory. I don't like having to fish around for dozens of plugins to get the base functionality of a competing application. Is there a branch, like Firefox, that specializes in including everything rather than trimming it down?
Is't that what plugin's are all about? extending the functionality of a basic application with the things you really need, leaving out all the crap you don't use anyway. Righto,it works for me....
- Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
I switched to Firefox about 2 months ago. I've been converting others along the way. Generally, I make sure that I install the java plugin for IE converts. I think the ability to configure and strip plugins out (or not install the features int he first place) is a big strength of the platform. I do wish it was easier to completely remove the plugins once installed, rather than just disabling them. I had one misbehave and had to go through some hoops to remove it. In short, I would rather have a barebones browser and add to it myself.
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
From a usability standpoint less is definitely more when dealing with typical end users. Most of the people I have installed FireFox for on their Windows machines didn't care about anything but me setting it to block popups and that it automatically imported their IE bookmarks. Beyond that it just worked, they were happy.
When dealing with Slashdot style users plugins become huge, I like to customize my browser to fit my browsing style and want to see all the options, not what would be best for the typical end user.
Anyway, I personally would rather not have my browser and mail program in one binary. Often I want to kill my browser so it forgets about security permissions (or heck every now and then it blows up all by itself). Having to restart my mail program too is annoying. Now all I have to do is figure out how to make firefox speak Java....
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
site gone from the planet, article text:
There are two wildly successful open source projects right now that are sweeping across Windows, Mac & Linux desktops. Firefox and Thunderbird. Both applications have two distinct characteristics. They are stripped down versions of their predecessor - the Mozilla bundle, and both are based on a plugin structure allowing users to include only features they want or need permitting them to remain simple to use.
In this first of two installments we take a look at Mozilla's Firefox web browser.
Mozilla Firefox is the next generation open source Internet browser from the Mozilla Foundation, and is set to succeed Mozilla Navigator as the default browser for the Mozilla suite of applications at some point in the near future. Firefox and its sister project Mozilla Thunderbird (the new Mozilla mail and news client) are standalone projects which can be run in isolation from one another, making it possible to replace your tired standard browser with a fresh copy of Firefox without getting all the extra bloat you won't use. It's exactly this approach and thinking which lies at the heart of the project and is behind its phenomenal success. The Firefox project was started in 2003 with the aim of becoming the best browser for Microsoft Windows as a result of the disillusionment of a group of developers with the current Navigator program. The group wanted to create a browser to illustrate what a browser could be if it was based on the Gecko layout engine and XPFE with no commercial constraints and no feature creep. At the same time they aimed to strip down the user interface and redesign it until it achieved the goal of being an efficient easy to use way to access the web. Simplicity was and is the projects goal with the embracing of the "less is more" adage, something which I believe they have achieved.
".. if only all open source programs were like this."
At the time of writing Firefox is currently version 0.8 and fully workable as it approaches its milestone 1.0 release. Its release schedule is focused not on deadlines but rather when the browser is ready after the bugs have been squashed and the appropriate features have been implemented. The positive affect of this is that its not a project which is pressurised to fulfil commercial deadlines and therefore focuses more on the quality of the product. This approach can often be found to be lacking in open source programs as they increasing comply with commercial demands.
The method of installation of the program depends on what operating system you are using. If you're using Windows or Mac OS X then there's an easy to use installer which will quickly and without fuss install the program for you. Linux users on the other hand are slightly disadvantaged as there is no installer for the precompiled version although one is planned for 0.9 and above. And of course as with any other open source application the source code is also available for you to compile from scratch if you feel so inclined.
"Firefox really excels in its simplicity, which is a real credit to the developers. They've managed to keep a tight control on the features included in the browser by saying "no" to a lot of submissions. There is no clutter in the browser and the whole experience is one which is focused solely on how a normal user accesses the internet."
Once you've got Firefox installed and loaded you're instantly struck by the simplicity of the program and the feeling that it "just works", this is mainly a result of the less is more attitude which the developers have applied throughout. The user interface throughout the program is well thought out and intuitive, everything is exactly where you'd expect to find it so there's no hunting for this or that as with so many other programs out there. The simplicity of the user interface also has something to do with the fewer features which Firefox has, which makes it harder to clutter up the menus. Overall the menus and dialogues have been well thought ou
You mean this one?
I don't understand. One exists. Did you not know that, or not like the way it is implemented?
isn't the shizzle
You must be very, very new here.
SAILING MISHAP
Flash block is the other one I always get, with adblock.
I might be able to handle the "less is more" philosophy, as long as in the end all the old functionality is available.
But where's the composer? The WYSIWYG HTML editor that's a part of Mozilla? It's really not bad. I'd hate for it to disappear.
"Modularity! Modularity!"
KFG
You know you can change this to be whatever search engine you want right?
I use it myself, and the Enigmail plugin works great once its configured. Unfortunately, making the Win32 port of GPG work with your keys is a bit of an ordeal, but it's mostly just the learning curve of GPG itself.
link for the lazy (and slashdotting).
I love the RSS Reader Panel plugin for Firefox. Simple, powerful, and only one keystroke away...
Modular design just makes much more sense. This goes for firefox's plugins as well. Why would I use the Mozilla suite if I only need the browser? This way, I can use firefox for browsing, evolution for mail, bluefish for html, and x-chat for IRC. If there is one thing that a suite provides it is integration. Because all those programs are internal, they can more easily communicate. This is a bit more difficult with the modular approach. For example, 2 firefox plugins could conflict with eachother, or drag and drop could not work in some instances. This is where standards come in. Modular design that complies with standards is by far the best approach. This way, you only install what you need, and you can add and remove modules as you please. If standards are followed by these programs, then intra-program communication should work. A good example of this is the ROX filer and XMMS. If I drag a music file onto the XMMS playlist, it will add it. If I double click on a music file, it will play the file.
I use Firefox exclusively (except when Outlook occasionally insists on openeing IE). It is so good I want to install it on every friends PC I have to rid of spyware and viruses, but then think of having to support them when they visit a Flash (or whatever) site. If it wasn't for this I doubt most of them would even notice the difference, but still reap the benefits. I think the common plugins should be included with the installation, with a custom installation mode for those who know what they are doing.
While I agree that plugins are all very well and good, and that less may indeed be more, it would, IMHO, be far more useful if some of them were included with the original download.
I'm currently using mozilla and while I understand there may be legal issues stopping them, I would have preferred them to include flash/java/shockwave/etc with the package as standard.
sig not found. please replace sig.
The obvious advantage is eliminating "features" one doesn't need / want. I suggested Firefox to my wife and she loves it. But the extensions I use are not the same that she uses for her install. To each their own.
When she suggested it to her friend, we ended up with a small laundry list of extensions we like and would suggest. And then I realized - the Firefox that I've come to like is not the Firefox everyone else likes.
Just like any desktop environment I've ever used. If I spend a reasonable amount of time on any system, there are key applications that I must have. Applications that not everyone wants / needs. My desktop environment always looks and behaves very differently than others (how do people work with default environments anyway?).
Maybe this is a reflection of the whole "XUL is a platform" thing. In any case, it is boon and bane. It shows versitility. But it can be a bit daunting to the hapless friend who gets "try Firefox! Oh... and the Widget extension! Oh. And you've got to load up the FooBar too!..."
While the Google Toolbar is what makes IE useable, I don't think its better than having a builtin search bar like in Firefox. IE has a terribly inefficient interface, wasting entire vertical sections for a few buttons and for the address bar. Most people leave the Google bar below it all and make it even worse, so the interface is even more cluttered. While its neat to check out the pagerank of certain pages, its not something I want to do for every page I'm on. Also, I don't think Google Toolbar can make up for not having tabbed browsing, that is a major setback to me using IE.
While I have no issues w/ Firefox, I find thunderbird lacking in a core functionality I enjoy (the ability to sort email - which is not filter incoming email but sort already read email. I don't get enough email for it to be worth it to sort email out of my inbox before it's read but I like having my old email sorted so it's easy to find stuff. I cannot find anyway to do this w/ thunderbird - any help would be appreciated).
What I'd like to see is more plugins from the Mozilla developers, it's my understanding that most plugins are not officially supported and are run-at-your-own-risk. Would be nice to have a base browser and some simple plugins that are officially supported and bug tested by mozilla. I for one, cannot live w/out the tabbrowser extensions which just add more functionality to how tabs are used (including the ability to unclose a window which is a memory hog but wonderful when i accidently hit x)
That's the only bit I would like to see go back into the firefox core, as the control you have over the tabs is just not good enough (for example, I absolutely have to have close boxes in all tabs). Apart from that, I use a number of plugins, of which radial context menus is the most important one. It's da shiznit, dawg. And firesomething always makes me smile...
Then there's Adblock, Zoom Image for those who need it (wink wink), but seriously, this is very helpful for working on a 1920x1200 screen.
I am recommending firefox to everybody I know and have so far successfully converted my whole family and at least two thirds of my colleagues.
I asked for a refund - and got my monkey back.
I run gentoo. I once removed mozilla [1.6] and replaced it with the latest and greatest of Firefox and Thunderbird. To my horror both are basically full copies of Mozilla with minor changes [one has the web client disabled the other the mail client]. Essentially both are 30MB tar.bz2's that waste a huge amount of ram when they are both loaded.
Really for the average user who might use both clients it's just better to run mozilla instead.
As for "how many features to include" honestly I think firefox is too big as it is. If it's *just* a web browser it ought to be smaller and take less ram. But it doesn't.
Though I think people miss the point of firefox. It's not meant to be smaller. It's meant to show off the leading edge. Though honestly most new features aren't that keen to be worth it.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Ok, so how about this for a ludicrously mad idea. When (if?) the installer comes into play, there could be two versions. "Minimal" and another version with a couple of useful plugins etc.
Alternatively, as long as the plugin mechanism is relatively simply (which it is), and as seemless as possible (getting close), then i dont think there should be a problem for most users to upgrade.
Compare with Internet Explorer, which comes with no plugins, Firefox users are no worse off. Granted, in comparison to maybe Opera, we dont get mouse gestures and other funky things as default.
I guess its a hard thing to decide simplicity/speed vs user base/catchment area. Thus why the minimal/standard installations could be a good idea.
I care about being able to see Pagerank, but not enough to use Internet Explorer as my primary browser.
The shareholder is always right.
I think there's at least three good things about them:
1. They leave out reasons for bugs and security holes from the main application since it becomes less complex. Core application developers can focus on just that -- developing the core application.
2. They let users get exactly what features they want so they can customize the application better for their needs. It will become easier to use for this reason (no need to navigate through big menu hierarchies and can spend less time learning how to use the applcation, etc).
3. The plugins, on the other hand, will be developed by highly motivated individuals or groups, which often results in a work of higher quality and better specialized for the job than if it would've been part of the main application and given only the necessary time so the main developers wouldn't delay main application releases. Take the adblock plugin for Mozilla as an example with advanced pattern matching and Flash blocking with content being intercepted before it's downloaded (as opposed to with adblocking proxies that analyze and filters already downloaded data). Or the SmoothWheel plugin that contains a dozen settings to let the user control exactly how the smooth algorithm should work (who can of course stick with defaults and never give it more thought too).
The major downsides are probably:
1. Users need to spend time downloading and finding out if plugins exist for their needs.
2. Users need to keep up to date with more than the main application if the plugins contain bugs he/she wish to see fixed.
3. Inexperienced users who aren't used to plugins, users with a lack of patience, or users who don't want to spend time to tinker with their application to get the features they need might be put off by the lack of features in the main application and switch to another one that's advertised having a larger feature set.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
For example, in Thunderbird there still is no way to just receive plain text email without markup of some sort. (Unless you like clicking on View->Message Source for every message.) *text* renders as *text*, text it detects as sigs is grayed out (even in multiple part digest form messages, rendering half a message as gray!, the > quotation is replaced by a graphical |... and there are probably other changes I have forgotten. Even altering my user.js conf file hasn't completely rid me of the above markup.
It's a good mail application, but any mail program's first priority should be display the email as received. After that, start adding markup.
I love Firefox's plugins, and all the great features it has even without plugins. But it's getting pretty annoying to have to nuke my profile and reinstall all my themes/plugins of choice every time I install a new release or nightly build of FF... yeah, sometimes it doesn't break anything, but usually even 1 day's difference manages to break an extension or two, or completely mangle my profile.
6 2) that I'm able to reproduce on every machine I use Firefox on - and it's a serious pain. However, the first nightly that fixes that bug introduces two severe rendering bugs (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24285 6, http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=242691 ), plus a bug that breaks forms on sites like PayPal (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24270 9).
I guess I shouldn't be complaining, since Firefox is still beta software, but it would be nice if they could at least make old extensions and themes not completely crash/freeze the browser. On my system, having an old theme or extension installed is usually good enough to make Firefox crash or freeze at startup.
If the milestone releases were stable enough for everyday use, that'd probably make it easier. But every firefox/firebird/etc milestone I've used has had showstopper bugs that drove me to the nightly builds. 0.8 for example has a cache corruption bug (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1236
I think it would be really good if the Firefox devs could backport bug fixes to the milestone releases, so that it would be possible to get a very stable version of Firefox, even if it's missing some of the shiny new features. Right now I'm stuck using a nightly that doesn't support almost any of the extensions I use, and still has a bunch of bugs that weren't in 0.8, just so I can browse the web without feeling like I'm using a crippled version of IE.
Another solution would be to just settle on a standardized plugin API and stick with it, so that extensions and plugins don't break in bizarre ways every time a new nightly comes out. I'm not sure how realistic that idea is, though, based on how complex the Mozilla/Gecko/XPCOM framework is.
Basically, I love Firefox, and I loved plain Mozilla before Firefox came out, but they're both way too unpredictable. It would be nice if something could be done to 'settle them down' a little bit. Even now Firefox randomly crashes while I'm loading various pages, and exhibits lots of funky little behaviors I'm just getting used to, and I can reproduce all this on other machines. Nuking my profile and installing the latest Firefox nightly is becoming a daily affair for me. All this maintenance is nearly enough to send me back to IE.
using namespace slashdot;
troll::post();
Ust-jay ick-stay ith-way de ig-Latin-tay.
O-Tay?
(for all you SNL fans)
Wow, stupidity huh. That's why I work as a successful consultant solving customer problems every day. Not to mention the fact that I'm pulling a 4.0 part way through my second bachelors. Btw CAT and PET scans clearly show a different physical and electrical structure to the brains of people with ADD. Go away little troll.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Everyone, the Google Bar for Mozilla is NOT the same as the Google Bar for IE. The Google Bar for IE is FROM Google. IE agrees to give Google browsing habits from those IE users in exchange for Page Rank. Now, before the Google Bar for Mozilla, Google had a javascript popup you could drag into your boorkmark toolbar. You click it, get a popup, enter a search term and get a Google page. Now we have the Google Toolbar which has everything EXCEPT Page Rank and YES, It's important. Extremely important for E-commerce. Well now someone has done the same for page rank. Drag this javascript to your bookmark toolbar, click it and a popup gives you page rank. (takes a bit though) Get it from http://seo(dot)nickstallman(dot)net/
if you steal from one source, that is plagiarism, if you steal from many, well, that's just research.
Does anyone else get annoyed that the little popup shows up after a download saying it's completed but you can't click on it to bring the file up? heh.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
Firefox does have a google tool bar
It can be loaded standalone as an application or it can be a mozilla/firefox plugin.
Sunbird
It's almost usable. I wish it was geared a bit towards multi-user being an outlook replacement. I have it setup right now for two users to get in and make changes, but there's no way to tell which user made the changes, etc. I'm sure it will improve over time.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I use both in conjunction. Adblock blocks nominated Flash entirely (which is good for ads), whereas Flashblock makes a space in the page for Flash content, but prevents it from playing until you click on it. Sometimes (almost never, but sometimes) Flash is worth seeing.
Vino, gyno, and techno -Bruce Sterling
Well, everyone who uses Firefox knows that you can simply start typing letters to find links with those words in them, them F3 to find the next link. Also, if you type / and then the words you're looking for, it automatically finds them in the plaintext. That, to me, is much handier than any in-page search toolbar.
...
Trivial is the firefox plugin that I install most often. It allows me to increase and decrease the font size with just a click (like konqueror, but better)
Autoscroll, is now included by default, but This was one that i installed on every firefox machine I found. It is so essential for people moving from a windows world without carpel tunnel syndrom, to the linux world.. who would like to keep their wrist tendons intact.
Radial Context buttons, are super neat, they are pretty non standard... but they are better than mouse gestures... which are also available as a plugin
menu compactor (I forget the name of this) I just plain don't use the bookmarks toolbar entry, the Tools, the Help, the Edit... occasionally.. and very rarely the file menu..
So I get back some screen space by compacting it into a single entry!
SVG... this feels like the future... flash without flash..
----
now for the browser plugins for which so many peopel were confused about...
mplayerplug-in isn't working with the nightly builds of firefox right now, but it is so sweet, i can't wait for the next version.
flash -- gotta have it
java -- gotta have it too
for the plugins, I symlink... er copy recently, the systems plugin foulders to
then expand the nighly tarball
tar -xvvzf firefox-
I'm using it with GTK2 and xft. (anti aliased fonts baby!) They do provide a nighly build for this!!
at the time of this posting:
Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.8a) Gecko/20040513 Firefox/0.8.0+
is the last semi-stable firefox for linux. (it crashes occasionally, but it's a nightly build!)
Oh, the Firefox 0.9 will have BEAutifull new icons. They are crisper than 0.8's
If You're not using firefox.. I'll look at you funny
Please use [ informative / summarizing ] SUBJECT LINES
Flame me here
qed
I'm all for shipping lean applications--not so much because of storage--plugins are usually small--but because it confuses new users less.
The problem I have is that installing plugins over the web for Firefox or Thunderbird is non-trivial, at least on Linux. I haven't been able to get Java to work at all on recent versions. And in order to get any of the "automatic installs" to work, I have to run the browser as root; installing stuff in the user's home directory doesn't work. I haven't figured out at all how to get Thunderbird plugins to work.
Part of the problem seems to be related to the browsers themselves, part of the problem seems to be with the plugins and extensions themselves.
One extension also wiped out my complete bookmark file, even though it wasn't even bookmark related.
Downloading extensions over the web also raises lots of security issues and versioning problems.
If these browsers are going to ship lean-and-mean, then their web-based install features must work correctly, for regular users, on all platforms, and securely.
Since Firefox and Thunderbird still seem to be far from that state, it would probably be better to include most reasonably stable and moderately sized plug-ins with each release for now, but to disable them. That way, novice users don't get confused, but experienced users don't have the hassles and worries of web-based installs.
1. Users need to spend time downloading and finding out if plugins exist for their needs. ...users suckered to download plug-ins they believe they need. Instead of Ad-Block, welcome to Ad-Thief, your friendly plug-in that'll rewrite all banners to come from a different server.
Or flash-click, that'll not only play the one you clicked on, but insert a little ad before and after. And so on. ActiveX = plug-ins is the single biggest source of problems on IE. And most of the time, because the users are "willingly" installing it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I'd love to know how I got redundant since this is the second post.
Slashdot is proof that Sturgeon's Law applies to mankind.
I like how you can click on any of the search terms on the right and it will automatically advance you to the next instance of that word on the page. It's really usful for long pages where only a small part may be relevant to you. You can also have each search term highlighted a different color making it easy to pick them out on a page.
Is Less More? No. Needless to say, less is a program similar to more, but which allows backward movement in the file as well as forward movement and much more. So less is actually more than more, more or less. Unless you prefer more rather than less. See: more(1) and less(1).
Sincerely,
Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
"Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
I've been completely dedicated to Firewhatever & Thunderbird since I first became aware of them; the first thing I do on a new machine is delete every little blue "e" shortcut I can find (or replace the standard mozilla in the case of linux). There are probably 3 reasons I use firewhatever, in order of importance:
1. Adblock & Flash "click-to-play" extensions (the only ones I use, actually) 2. Popup-blocking and a sensible refusal to remap keys to stupid things (e.g., I can still right click to view source or download images even if a web site designer has included an annoying-yet-useless bit of javascript) 3. Bookmark shortcuts in the location bar (e.g. "dict inane" or "google al qaeda training manual") 4. Tabbed browsing
The wonder of adblock and flash click to play has almost redefined the web from my vantage point; banners and annoying animations are virtually non-existant on sites I frequent.
Less is better.
- not a
My prefernce list is:
1. mouse gestures - rocker rocks!
2. flash click to view - stop annoyance
3. adblock - stop watchin me
4. compact menu - more space for content
5. toolbar enhancements - right click is natural
6. download statusbar - say no to default download mgr
7. cutemenus - they just so cute
8. user agent switcher - for scripts by stuppid webmonkeys
9. image zoomer - sometimes better to see
10. thing they left out - animate once
11. firebird grippies - grippable frames
12. smoothwheel - logitech wheels suck
13. firesomething - to poke fun at moz devs
14. bookmark links checker - if you got lotsa them
Thunderbird:
1. Quotecolors - just nicer
Code poet, espresso fiend, starter upper.
If the targeted user is a computer savy person, or at least someone who likes to tinker, then less is better. Someone like this can add what they want. Actually I think most people can add what they want for that matter, but will they?
If the targeted user is someone who does only a little tinkering then it is to little.
The real problem is, if you already have a browser on your computer ( windows / IE or mac safari ) are you going to download another browser? Some people ( like me ) will, but the majority will use what is installed already. So the first hurdle is getting people to download the browser. Then if you bundle to much that download becomes to big, and problematic. On the other hand if you bundle to little then why bother to download it in the first place?
I actually think it is really a catch 22.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Users don't want plugins! No, I don't want a video "right in my web page". Just launch the media player and let me resize it and interact with its full menu to set things like video options. Got a cool flash/Java app? Let me save an swf or jar and click on it whenever I feel like running your stuff. Why do you think I am connected to Internet all the time anyways? Want to sell me stuff? Not gonna work if I am pissed off at your ad format. Use text or in-page images with tasteful colors. Or better yet, give me an intelligent search engine to find stuff at best prices when I am actually looking for it.
I use Safari and Opera for 99.9% of pages and they are pretty good at blocking the worst offenders, by design and because they tend to write IE-specific Javascript anyway. Firefox sounds like the right thing to install on PCs of friends who don't want to buy Opera.
_The_ problem with firefox/thunderbird extensions is that they are a security and usability nightmare (and then I'm talking about the good ones, not the spyware .xpis). There is _no_ QA whatsoever, the code is often extremely bloated, different extensions conflict with each other, place access points to themselves in half a dozen different places, and the authors often don't keep up to date on changes in files related to their extensions.
Some well known extensions like "TBE" replicate every single tabbrowser related security hole which has been fixed in mozilla proper for the past year.
Added to this is that a lot of these extensions are basically javascript reimplementations of c++ functionality that was ripped out since the firefox developers thought useless. Adding more than a handful of extensions has a very noticable impact on the vaunted speed of these programs.
Well known mozilla developers refuse to use extensions unless they've personally reviewed its code (which naturally enough they don't have time for).
Me, I'm following their lead. I have a lot more trust in them than in some anonymous extension writers (if they were good, they'd be working on the main products rather than writing extensions).
That support is already there. Since there is no "standard" app for telnet (or ssh), Mozilla doesn't have one preset, but you could set one yourself. It works on Windows because on Windows there is a standard API to ask the OS what app should handle a protocol. Linux has no such beastie, though on modern GNOME systems the gtk2 builds will pick up the gnome-vfs preferences for this (which of course sucks if you happen to be a KDE user; this is where an actual working OpenDesktop thing would be nice).
what the fuck does that mean in english? you should understand that having a day job precludes me from 'keeping it real' and as such, I lack a certain familiarity with the language of the 'streets' as it were.
(stolen from IRC)
Is this...
script language="JavaScript"
function foo(){
bar();
shizzle();
}
function bar(){
document.write("Bling\n");
}
function shizzle(){
document.write("Bling\n");
}
The function foo() will cause FireFox to only write "Bling" instead of "Bling Bling". The function also causes the page to 'hang'.
This script will work in IE. Let's not give people an excuse to stick with IE because websites X,Y and Z do not work with FireFox.
A clever person solves a problem. A wise person avoids it. -- Einstein
That window haunts my dreams. I keep clicking it though. I'm hoping that after perhaps a zillion clicks it'll open up an easter egg which fills my bookmarks with free pr0n.
-- I have fans? Wow.
...that followed the Firefox philosophy. :/
:) Not that I use MS Office anymore anyway, but OpenOffice could adopt a similar approach.
I've been ranting for years that what we need are applications that come with a base set of features that you can extend via plugin type dealies at will. It could even work in a non-opensource setting. Imagine Microsoft selling WordLite with just the features that the common man uses (about 1% of what's included now). If, at some point in the future you wished to add feature X, you pull up the Office web site, choose the feature, pay a nominal fee to download it and install it. Voila! You're able to pay for ONLY the features you want while people with different needs can pay for ONLY the features they need. And I don't get stuck installing half a gig worth of crap I'll never use.
Nice picks ya got there.
:)
Myself, I try to keep FF as simple as I can possibly stand it:
Flash Click to View (aka: Flashblock) - No more flash ads is wonderful. Sometimes this extension can be annoying (you have to re-click after every page load), but IMO people should just use less friggin Flash.
All-in-One Gestures - Best. Extension. Evar. I know some people don't like mouse gestures, but I am completely hooked on them. I can do anything, anywhere, faster. I'm even to the point where my navigation bar is hidden - I never have to use it!
Things They Left Out (TTLO) - Just adds some more handy options. Most of them I never use, but some are really nice to have (MIME types, for one).
Nuke Anything - Everyone should have this extension. EVERYONE. Mouse gestures are preference, but as far as i'm concerned, NukeAnything should just be built right into the core. Being able to remove almost ANY aspect of a page is invaluable. Don't like an image? Nuke it. Don't like a paragraph of text? Nuke it. Text entry box? You can nuke that too. Just click on anything, select "Remove this object", and poof - its gone! The only thing it doesn't work for is flash... which is why we have FlashBlock!
Popup Count - Pure curiosity. I like to know when a webpage tries to spam me with popups so I can make a mental note of never visiting there again.
Show Failed URL - Something that should be default behavior IMO
Tabbrowser Extensions (TBE) - Another extension I couldn't live without. All the excellent options and abilities this thing gives you is almost overwhelming. It can take a while to set up, but once you get your mix right, you'll love it.
Download Statusbar - Download boxes suck. This extension is ten times better than Firefoxes "feature".
IEView - For those oh so rare occasions when I need to view a website in IE. I can just pop into teh devil's tool for a second, do my business, and get the hell back out.
CuteMenus - Makes it easier to browse context menus at a glance. I just wish you could define custom icons for other extensions' additions.
Firesomething - Because "Mozilla UberBadger" is just funny.
But hey, thats just me. Everyone else can have whatever the heck they want - which is why extensions RULE!
(stolen from IRC)
bash.org #2635. Great site =)
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There's a thread on the MozillaZine forums that lists some smaller extensions you can use to get most of the TBE functionality without TBE (since some consider it bloated, and with bloat comes complexity, with complexity comes bugs).