One important task of being a webmaster is optimizing the elements of a website to provide visitors with a fast loading page. Unoptimized images can increase the page loading time tremendously. It was not uncommon ten years ago to see site headers with 100 Kilobytes and more. This has thankfully changed and it is only occasionally that someone visits a website that makes use of big images like that.

Image Optimization has become a tad easier with Smush It. Smush It is a web service that can optimize all images on a specific website in one go. It comes as a Firefox extension that adds a button to the Firefox status bar. The other option is to enter an url directly or upload images from a local computer so that Smush It can optimize them.

The system works nicely for webmasters who want to optimize all images on their pages. All that needs to be done is to either click the Smush It button in Firefox or load the website directly on the Smush It page.

continue reading "Image Optimization With Smush It"

UrlbarExt is an experimental Firefox add-on that adds a few interesting functions to the Firefox location bar. Experimental meaning that users have to log into an account at the Mozilla website to download and install the add-on. It is usually not an indicator of a “not yet ready” add-on. Users who do not have an account but would like to install the add-on could use one of the available logins from Bugmenot instead.

Back to the Firefox extension. It adds six new icons to the right side of the Firefox location bar which look a lot like the icons that the Tagmarks extension is adding in that place. Users with the Tagmarks extension enabled might run into troubles. This has not been tested and is just an assumption.

The icons provide easy access to the following functions:

• Copy URL
• Create Tiny URL
• Search Site
• Up One Directory Level, Double-click for Root
• Tags
• Anonymous Surfing

continue reading "Firefox URLBar Extension"

Choosing secure passwords is important to protect the user accounts from being accessed by unauthorized users. The problem that arises for all users is that secure passwords are harder to remember. Writing them down is one solution to the problem. The other possibility that is more reasonable is using a password management software.

A good password management software should ensure data security, provide password generation and integration into common web browsers to make the life of the user as comfortable as possible.

The password management software Last Pass does all of that and much more. It currently supports Microsoft Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox on Windows, Linux and Macintosh. It provides the option to import the existing passwords from Internet Explorer, Firefox and multiple password management software applications like KeePass and RoboForm and makes them available on their secure website and in the browser of choice.

continue reading "One Password Management Software To Rule Them All"

This is a follow up of the article that explained how to edit the prefix and suffix auto-completion settings in Firefox. One related setting is the way the Firefox search bar behavior works. When a text is entered into the address bar and send to Firefox a Google Browse By Name search is conducted. This means that Google tries to associate a website with the name, entering CNN or NEWS would load the CNN website.

Some users would probably prefer a different search behavior. The default search behavior can be changed by editing the search engine in the Firefox options. It is for instance possible to change the search to a normal Google or Yahoo search which would have the effect that the search result list would always be displayed after sending text to the browser that is not in url form.

The search engine can be changed in the Firefox configuration which can be loaded by typing about:config in the address bar. Entering keyword.URL in the filter field will display the responsible parameter.

continue reading "Change Address Bar Search Behavior In Firefox"

Firefox analyzes the text that has been entered by the user in the Firefox address bar when the user sends it to the browser. Depending on the configuration of Firefox one out of two possible actions are performed. The default way of handling text that is not an url is to send it to Google’s Browse By Name service which will load the best direct match and show a search results page if no match is found.

The second action is the auto-complete feature that kicks in under certain circumstances only be default. Entering Mozilla will load the mozilla.com website automatically because that is the best match in the Google search engine for that name. A search for www.mozilla on the other hand will be auto-completed by Firefox. The browser will append the .com suffix to the query and load the same website.

Not everyone is living in the United States and some users might prefer a country domain extension instead of the default .com suffix. This option can be changed in the Firefox preferences. Entering about:config in the Firefox address bar will load the preferences.

continue reading "Custom Prefix and Suffix Auto-Complete In Firefox"