Found this useful tip on how to add a ping shortcut to your Firefox address bar over at Lifehacker. I love its simplicity. Pinging servers is a great way of finding out if they are currently up and running. The time it takes to receive a response is measured in milliseconds and a timeout is returned if it takes to long.
Opera Web Browser
Opera History Search
The Opera team is constantly adding exciting new features to the beta version of the upcoming version of Opera that is competing against Firefox 3 and Internet Explorer 8. One of this new features is the Opera History Search which is a full text search over all of the items stored in your history. The [...]
Speed Test: Firefox 3 vs. IE 8 vs Opera 9.5
I have not done any tests lately that would reveal the speed of each of the new upcoming browsers. The latest official builds have been tested, they are at the time of the test: Opera 9.5 build 9815/1834, Firefox 3 Gran Paradiso beta 4 and Internet Explorer 8 beta 1. I have been using the Webwait application for this test which monitors page loading times of pages that you select.
Opera 9.26 out
A new version of Opera has been released just a few hours ago. This release fixes several security and stability issues and it is a recommended upgrade for all users. Please note that opera 9.26 is the latest final build of Opera since Opera 9.5 is still a beta. Do not download this version if you are already using Opera 9.5.
Browser Security Test
Is my browser secure ? That’s a question that I hear and read day in day out from users throughout the country. It seems that new security vulnerabilities are discovered each day which adds to this uncertainty. They could be vulnerable even if they use the latest version of Opera, Firefox, Internet Explorer or Safari because those browsers tend to get updated less often than vulnerabilities are discovered.
Bookmarklet to search Free File Hosts
Bookmarklets are tiny Javascript codes that can be added to the Bookmarks and are then executed when the Bookmark is clicked. I found a nice bookmarklet that lets you search lots of free file hosters at once. All you need to do is to create a new bookmark and add the bookmarklet code as the location in Firefox | address in Opera.
Opera’s progress bar in detail
After installation Opera’s default settings show the progress bar which displays information about how the current page is loading in its simplest form – as a small rectangular bar that only appears when a loading process is active. This bar however is not revealing enough information for advanced users who are interested in what exactly is going on when a website refuses to load.
Change the Source Viewer in IE, Firefox and Opera
The default source viewer for all browsers mentioned in the title is not optimal and sometimes posing more problems than solving them. Mozilla Firefox is displaying the source in a new stripped down Firefox window, the Internet Explorer is using Notepad and Opera is displaying it in a new Opera tab.
Make use of Opera’s chameleonic features
As a proud Opera user, you probably let your browser identify itself as Opera browser by default. Although most websites do work and display more or less properly in Opera, there are still many of them which don’t comply with the standards and contain many non-standardized code segments (usually working in IE only) thus confusing the standards-based browsers which leads to improper appearance of the site in the end.
Automatically download files with Opera
If you do use Opera you might have noticed that Opera seems to always bring up the save to dialog and you have to browse to the download location even if you downloaded a file of the same type just a minute ago. The line “Remember choice and do not show dialog again” is grayed out and can’t be checked as well.
Opera 9.5 beta is out
Opera fans rejoice. The very first beta of Opera 9.5 codename Kestrel has been released to the public. The biggest change is a new feature called Opera Link which offers a way to access all of your bookmarks and Speed Dial picks from one place. It does not matter if you access the Internet with Opera 9.5, with Opera mini or another browser, the bookmarks are always available.
Remove notifications for blocked popups in Opera
The build in Opera popup blocker notifies the user every time that it blocked a popup successfully resulting in a small notification overlay in the top right corner of the screen. While this might be useful under certain circumstances it becomes quickly annoying especially for web savvy users who know their way around the web.
How to avoid saving spaceball.gif at Flickr
Some images at Flickr are weakly protected with an image overlay called spaceball.gif. Whenever you right-click the image to save it you do save spaceball.gif instead which is a 1×1 pixel image showing nothing at all. The same happens if you try to drag the image to your desktop or hard drive.
Firefox vs. Opera vs. Internet Explorer
I saw the funny picture series over at Operawatch and thought that you would like to join the laughter. It is a rather visual comparison of how Firefox, Opera and Internet Explorer would look like if they would be transportation vessels.
Opera 9.5 Alpha released
The Opera team released version 9.5 alpha of their acclaimed Internet browser today after working for more than one year on it. The changelog lists hundreds of changes, fixes and improvements, some of the most notable ones are: Performance improvements, site compatibility, new mail and news storage and indexing formats.
Opera 9.22 available on ftp
Today seems to be browser day on the Internet. After the Firefox update this morning a new version of Opera was uploaded on the Opera ftp site. It usually takes a few days before the official announcement will be made available on the Opera homepage. If you are an early adopter and can’t wait to test the new version I suggest you head out to the Opera ftp site and download the version that you want to use.
Firefox still on the rise in Europe
Firefox is still on the rise in Europe where it reached an impressive overall 27.8% market share in June 2007. Finland, Slovakia and Slovenia lead the pack with 45.4%, 40.4% and 47.9% market share while Great Britain, Spain and Italy still linger at the bottom with a market share below 20%.
Speed up surfing by using Nicknames in Opera
A great feature called SpeedDial has been recently added to Opera. It’s a solution providing quick access to your “Top 9″ websites and it’s faster than using Bookmarks. However the limited number of sites that you can add does not make it a universal feature to speed up surfing in general.
Opera 9.21 out
What a pleasant surprise. The Opera development team has published a new version of Opera raising the version from 9.20 to 9.21. The new release fixed a number of crashes and memory leaks making Opera even more resource friendly. Downloads are available as usual for Windows, Macintosh and Unix.
Opera, Tor and Privoxy combined
OperaTor is a combination of Opera, the anonymization service Tor and Privoxy similar to Foxtor which offers the same functionality for Firefox. I don’t want to bore you with a lengthy technical description of how Tor is providing anonymity, just that much: Tor uses a layered approach sending your request through a series of servers that only know the server before and after them. This means that the destination server does not know that you requested the package, it only knows the IP of the server before that made the request.