Slashdot Mirror
Building a Better Mozilla With Plugins
Ant writes "Wired has a story on how to improve Mozilla and Firefox web browsers with various plugins/extensions (XPI installations). It lists some of the extensions that have been rated highly by Mozilla users like BugMeNot. One of them not listed and my favorite is PrefBar."
We're back on track with a good Mozilla article. Now I can get some decent Slashdotting done. Well, that and switching my PC over to Gentoo.
I mean, all these articles about TV and movies this morning? Bring on the Mozilla, Linux, and Mac articles. Let's get some good Microsoft bashing going! Daddy needs his fix!
It may be slightly inconvenient, but at least the Mozilla extension system isn't a blank check to hackers like IE's ActiveX system.
From the prefbar web site:
It does not work with Mozilla Firefox
Hasn't IE taught us that a browser should just be a browser?
my favorite extension is RadialContext, basically gives you mouse gestures for Mozilla and Firefox.
MORTAR COMBAT!
I think all this add-ins are fine and dandy for the typical home user, but where are the plug-ins that will improve productivity for the Corporate user?
IE blends easily with M$'s large arsenal of server-side applications, which the execs just to love to see. Easy integration.
What can Mozilla offer that will aid its cause in the enterprise environment. They added Integrated Authentication in v1.6 which was brilliant, but what else?
How about some add-in for policies?
The Wired article calls Mozilla stripped dows and lacking features, but isn't that the point of Mozilla, to be faster by getting rid of the bells and whistles?
I for one cannot live without the tabextension plugin. It really enhances the Firefox interface.
Mainly because I don't like to have lots of new windows popping up all the time filling up my desktops.
Especially as I can now do it one-handed.
I can't believe Adblock isn't listed. It even works with Firefox 0.9, despite rumblings I've heard to the contrary.
any article about firefox that doesn't mention adblock and the best filters to use is seriously lacking.
By far, I find the mouse gestures extension to be the greatest addition to Mozilla. This borrowed feature of Opera will certainly and permanently change the way you browse websites.
Rule #1 -- Politics always trumps technology.
...is Enigmail. A GPG/PGP plug-in for Mozilla. It integrates GnuPG commandline tools seamlessly into the browser. It's easiest to use encryption/signing tool I've seen so far.
I loves me some All-in-One Gestures. There's a big list of configurable actions you can take with gestures, not the least of which is "Open selection in new window" for when people don't link URLs in web forums.
"My God...It's full of ads!" -Fry, about the Internet, Futurama
... is in my opinion Adblock. I really like the full regular expression support!
:-)
But of course she didn't mention that one, since it would be too efficient against Wired News' own ads.
Disabling my Adblock showed ads on their page at least.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Slow news day, eh? The Article is low on substance. This page has much more details. Looks like the wired article has copy-pasted and not done any real work. The actual article should have had listed quirks, what do the extentions actually do, rather than pasting text from mozilla extention page.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
Works with 0.9, blocks anything (hate to admit it, but I've used it on OSDN for Doubleclick crap), and allows for selectivity in blocking.
http://adblock.mozdev.org
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
My fav extension at the moment is GmailCompose, combined with Gmail's great interface, it feels like a real email app, and not just web mail.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Is something like Safari's or Google's AutoFill form feature. Yes, there are some plug-ins (WebDeveloper has an Enable Auto-Completion, but I can't get it to work) that do this, but not as suavely as the aforementioned products. Something that caches form field names and commonly used values and at a push of a button or keystroke, it fills out all of the form based on what the most popular values that are cached for the field names.
I'm not sure what the secret to success is, but the secret to failure lies in trying to please everyone -Bill Cosby
If you hadn't spent so much time spell-checking your post, you might have gotten it.
My browsing habits are probably very different than most peoples, and that's why I like FIrefox. It kinda avoids the one-size fits all and can provide you with a more "tailored" application. I can also envision download "packs" specialized for individual companies that have a particular need for certain features. I've been showing people this stuff, who've never seen Mo?Fire before, and they're like "Wow!" Of course it's still a pain in the neck when I have to use Active X sites, and can't, but I think people are realising slowly that, this should be looked at (and avoided).
..........FULL STOP.
My favortie Mozilla plug-in is Flash Click to view. It blocks all those annoying flash ads and puts an icon in its place. If you want to view the Flash ad/game/movie whatever, you just click the icon and it loads. It makes browsing the web just a little more bearable.
You know.. its easy really
Go to
Edit - Preferences - Navigator - Downloads.
Select the option to open a progress dialog.
Then works just about like IE.
Launchy enables you to open links and mailto's with external applications like IE, Opera, Outlook, GetRight.
Works in: Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird Launchy Homepage
Henrik Gemal
gemal.dk
I want to be able to see each window for a download so I know exactly when each finishes.
Perhaps you'd like this then?
After installation, BugMeNot supplies an appropriate name and password from a database that seems to include registration info for the vast majority of websites that request registration. The BugMeNot developers note that most people enter false information on registration forms to protect their privacy, so BugMeNot actually cuts down on database pollution. The only problem is that The New York Times may wonder what happened to all those 86-year-old Albanian grandmothers who head up huge technology firms that used to sign up to read the NYT website.
... well, the other problem is: Now that the slashdot crowd has become aware of BugMeNot, NYT will need to prepare for Attack of the Clones: Geek Edition! :P
I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
The ieview extension could be used for getting your web developer friends to code the web-pages for mozilla first and then check if it works ok with IE. (You just right-click the URL and choose "Open link target in IE".)
The web developers I know sadly just use IE and then ignores the other browsers.
noone has mentioned Aaron Spuler's Single window which puts all those annoying pages that spawn a new window into a tab instead... just a wonderful plug-in
Thanks.... now I feel like a moron.. I guess that "you learn something new everyday" is done for me! Now I can rest assured that if I sleep the rest of the day, I've still learned something.... I guess
-SaNo
I've just started using Firefox, and the best plugin I know of for it is Super DragAndGo. If you drag a link to empty space on the webpage, that link is opened in a new tab. It's so simple, but it's the best new web browsing feature I've seen in a long time.
BTW, Camino does not install this automatically, but is relatively simple to go into your chrome folder and hack it yourself.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
My beef with the download manager is it puts everythign in the same spot. I'd like to filter by extension, mime type, etc.. Put all the .zips and .exes here, all the .jpgs there, all the .avis hither and yonder.
I hate sorting through a pile of crap to find the pdf howto I downloaded a month ago. And I hate software that makes me act like it's filing clerk.
It's a simple modification, mozilla boys.. Hop to it!
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I use them for moving between pages of on-line cartoons... erm... as well as...you know...
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
Naturally, the more extensions you loaded, the more time it took your computer to boot and the more system crashes and incompatibilities occurred. It got to the point that I spent significant time enabling and disabling extensions to try to identify incompatibilities and the sources of my computer crashes. I don't know anything about Mozilla architecture, but might an extension-based Firefox be edging us down that same path?
I know I'd personally prefer it if the Firefox team evaluated the best extensions, and incorporated them into the main code for optimum compatibility.
So here's my question to people familiar with the Mozilla codebase: is my comparison between Pre-OSX Macs and Firefox valid?
I'm generally "Interesting," "Insightful," and even "Funny" here. What the hell happens to me at parties?
Bookmarklets are an underrated way to extend the usability of Mozilla, Firefox and even IE.
http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html
I have 'zap plugins' and 'zap images' in my personal toolbar to stop strobing ads and flash on a page-by-page basis. Works great!
FlashBlock! That is the BEST plugin EVER created! Everybody who has Firefox installed should also have this plugin installed.
Bryan
I have been using opera for a long time and trying to get FF to the same functionality is a pain.
With firefox you will still get situations where it pops up new browsers. Go to your tools, extensions "get new extensions" Chances are you now have two browsers... Why?
The best choice right now is TBE single window mode. Even with this I still get an occaisional extra browser opening on me.
I don't understand the difficulty of adding "force single window mode"...
Not quite. It has "tab browsing" out of the box, but not the "Tabbrowser Extensions" plugin. Tabbrowser Extensions is MUCH more powerful and feature-rich.. something like 40 different options to set rather than the 3 found in 0.9.
I was disappointed enough that I reverted back to 0.8 so I could have my tabs the way I like them.
Firefox for linux (with gtk+ and xft) comes with an installer. Just extract the tarball and run firefox-installer in the extracted directory and it will behave essentially the same as any winbloze installer. If you want an rpm, I'm sure google will find one if you're that desperate.
Already done.
Isn't that what the article is about?
It's never too late to have a happy childhood.
The default install is a self contained binary. All you have to do is untar/gzip and run firefox from the new firefox directory.
/opt/firefox and create a link in my window manager. When I want to upgrade or try a different version, wipe out the directory and untar a new one.
Personally I just untar into
Also the reason Mozilla does it this way, is it makes it super easy for any of the distro's to create an install package for it. They dont even have to compile the app if they dont want. So if your really missing that rpm to install, complain to your distro for not releasing one yet.
This extenstion should do what you are looking for.
If you don't know where you are going, you will wind up somewhere else.
Download Sort is what you're looking for.
Hope that helps.
Flashblock: Absolute must have stops the all singing dancing net, but lets you use it if you must.
t ensions .html.en
l la/
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
Preferential: Lets you change every option, not just the subset that they think you need. Lets me kill gif anims for one thing.
http://preferential.mozdev.org/
Tab Browser extentsion: The only current way to get true single window mode.
http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/_tabex
Adblock: Block annoying adds that get by above measures. I leave them alone if the don't blink/anim and flow in my text. One of those and they are gone. For some reason newegg flash adds were escaping flashblock so, I adblocked *newegg*.
http://adblock.mozdev.org/
Nuke anything: Sometimes a site will serve ads from the same place as usefull image so I don't want to filter. This lets me knock out anything from the page temporarily.
http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/mozi
I don't know of anyone who's disappointed that Firefox is "pretty bare" the first time they use it. What they notice is that it can do everything IE does, but with tabbed browsing and without the pop-ups or security holes.
Er.... You mean this Adblock? The one that's currently the second highest rated extension for Firefox on Mozilla Update?
You won't need that pref bar extension once you've installed the Web Developer extension. It lets you turn off cookies, javascript, check cookie info, validate CSS/HTML, resize to various window sizes, turn off images, outline block elements, show image paths/sizes, etc.
It makes my life easier.
OddManIn: A Game of guns and game theory.
1) You can rearrange tabs by just drag and drop.
2) If you ctrl-click a link, it can open as new tab next to the tab of the page your looking at.
3) Tabs can be in different colors, and tabs opened with e.g ctrl-click inherit the color from the tab of the page the link is on. I.e. you can group tabs by color
3) If you get too many tabs in a window, it can make a new row of tabs, or open a new browser window and continue making tabs there.
4) You can undo close tab. In multiple steps.
Well, I know this article is about Mozilla, and how Mozilla around here is everyone's favorite pet... but.. every single feature that I've ever seen implemented by and/or for Mozilla that was even remotely useful to anyone besides the author of that feature.. was already implemented in Opera first.
Ya'all really should check it out. Quicker, faster, works a lot better. No, it's not open source. But, it is possible that there can be software that's good that's not open source.
(now i'm going to get modded -255; Blasphemer!)
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
The one thing that bugs me about Firefox is that our entire intranet at work requires a login. there are lots of sites, and each one uses NT authentication (username/domain/password). IE automatically goes to these pages using whatever I logged into the system with (no password popup). Firefox requires my password each time I go to a different intranet site. While it can remember my passwords, it stil always pops up the password box. The best solution is if it could know to just use my windows login, but alternatively, having the option to auto-login using the password I already saved would be great. Anyone know of a way to do this?
When I do spoof, I find that I can usually chide the offending website in the agent string itself. The web servers don't seem to be looking for particular strings. They just want to see those magic words "IE" and "Windows". I'll have those in the correct places as well as something like www.w3c.org - hint hint. I figure it gets into some their logs at least. I don't blanket spoof. I only do it for retarded sites that won't otherwise let me in.
Now if we could just do something about javascript based browser checks.
Extensions in the classic MacOS sense are like kernel modules or plugins. Extension in the Mozilla/Firefox sense are augmentations of the application (usually demand loaded) so they don't significantly impact stability or load time, as far as I can tell. An extension could be implemented in a lot of ways, whether simple or complex. Generally they can't overwrite anything, so they hook into the existing API, and Mozilla provides a pretty vast one.
Mozilla/Firefox don't come with any extensions at all. They are perfectly useful without them. Moz/Firefox may directly incorporate features of popular extensions in later versions, but they cease to be extensions at the point, and are considered part of the application proper.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Yes, this is part of Firefox now. If you try to close a window with multiple tabs open it will prompt you to confirm or cancel, with the option to prevent it displaying the same message again.
Why is anything anything?
The biggest problem is that for many Windows users, there seems to be a serious bug that prevents them from installing extensions at all- it may be related to the uninstallation between .9 and .9.1. The relevant MozillaZine page is here
All these other plugins are just fluff if adoption is severely hampered by the lack of a fully functional calendar.
Build the calendar, and they will come.. come away from Outlook.
It *can* happen.
Calendar should be #1 priority right now.. mail & news is great, the browser is great.. but the lack of a calendar *really is stopping people* from switching. At least with the dozens of small businesses that I do consulting for, it is.
I cannot emphasize this enough - a lot of small businesses (without exchange) stick to Outlook because of the pretty pointy clicky calendar.
"sunbird" isn't even close. The Mozilla Calendar is waay far off.
Come on, guys... let's dooooo it!
Mouse Guestures take a while to get used too, but I even use them on a touch pad because they are so cool. And it really funny watching someone demo on that pad who is getting nervous because they just opened some windows for no reason, then their hand starts to shake :)
--
Zot O'Connor
It would have been better in my opinion to make switching browsers also entail switching OS, in the sense of "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right".
I find "get them to switch operating systems NOW" a bad policy. Many households and organizations have sunk significant amounts of money into hardware for which no Free device driver or ported proprietary device driver exists. I will consider your opinion on the matter the moment you point to a working Linux driver for (say) the Microtek Scanmaker 4850 scanner, which the SANE web site lists as unsupported.