Making sure that you are connected via SSL is one of the most important things Internet users can do to improve their security online. This is especially true on public computer networks, like those on airports, Internet cafes or on campus. Why? Because it is otherwise dead easy to wiretap the traffic that you send [...]

When it comes to web development tools for the Firefox web browser, Firebug is usually named at the top of everyone’s list. The program integrates well into the Firefox browser, offering tools to edit, debug or monitor outputs for web pages on the Internet and local web pages that are still in development. Firebug 1.9 [...]

If I had to grade my English pronunciation skills I’d probably give me a below average rating. I mainly attribute this to the fact that I do not speak English regularly. While I have most words in mind I sometimes have troubles pronouncing them correctly. Every now and then I encounter words or phrases in [...]

We all knew that the day would come eventually when Mozilla would pull the plug on Firefox 3.6. According to new information posted on the Firefox Extended Support page, that day will be April 24, 2012. This is directly connected to the announcement that Firefox 10 will be the company’s first Extended Support Release (ESR). [...]

I had one of the strangest experiences ever in the past 24 hours. Yesterday evening I noticed that I was not getting any audio in Firefox. I first thought this was a hiccup and restarted the browser to see if this resolved the problem. It unfortunately did not. I then tried to play videos on [...]

Not everyone is seeing the new Google header bar yet that is being rolled out currently. The new header area moves the menu items that were previously linked directly on the top of the page to a new menu that is attached to the Google logo. When you load the Google homepage you will see [...]

If you need to look-up addresses quite often while your on the Internet, for instance if you are an estate agent, doing research or just planning your next holiday trip, then you have got multiple options at hand. You can for instance keep Bing Maps or Google Maps open in a new tab or browser [...]

The Firefox web browser displays a vertical or horizontal scrollbar at the right and lower edge of the browser whenever the page contents cannot be displayed all at once in the browser window. And while it is clearly visible on most web pages, users may encounter pages where the scrollbar is barely distinguishable from the [...]

Google Chrome currently does not offer options to password protect the browser, or at least user data, from local access. Someone with access to the PC can fire up the browser to access bookmarks, websites, the browsing history or cookies. It is all there in the open. Simple Startup Password attempts to change this by [...]

If you ever had to work on a PC in a foreign country that is not your own, you may have noticed that the keyboard layout is not identical to keyboards that you are used to working with. This can be resolved rather quickly if you have enough rights on the PC to change the [...]

It is fairly common to see photos, videos and other media posted on social network sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google Plus. With so much media being posted on a daily basis and by that many users, it is only natural that some would like to download photos, images or videos directly from the [...]

Now that we have covered the best Firefox add-ons of 2011, it is time to look at the best tips for the browser as well. A lot has changed development wise in 2011. Mozilla has switched to the rapid release process after the release of Firefox 4 which has increased the version of the browser [...]

We have almost hit the one post per day mark in 2011, with 352 posts published that covered the Firefox browser in one way or another. Not all of the posts were add-on reviews though as we have covered Firefox news, updates, and cross-browser related news as well here on Ghacks.net. What better way to [...]

The Firefox web browser saves session information automatically in intervals. The default interval is set to 15 seconds, with options to change it in the about:config configuration window (See: Change the Session Store Interval in Firefox). Firefox does however save only one session, and while that should not be a problem for most users of [...]

SOPA, the Stop Online Privacy Act, has been covered before here on Ghacks. The bill is a blatant attempt to give law enforcement agencies and copyright holders more abilities under U.S. law to fight counterfeit goods and copyright infringements. Many arguments have been brought forth against this, from threatening online freedom of speech and web-related [...]

Private Browsing, also know as the porn surfing mode, is a special mode of the Firefox web browser that prevents the recording of history while the mode is active. You sometimes may want to visit websites without leaving traces on the computer system. This can be useful on public computers, e.g. in an Internet Cafe, [...]

Firefox since yesterday was checking for add-on compatibility on every browser start. It displayed the window that you only see after upgrading to a newer or downgrading to an older version of the browser. I first though that this was caused by the excellent sandboxing software Sandboxie, but this turned out to be not the [...]

Remember Evernote Clearly, the Google Chrome extension that removed elements from web pages to improve the content readability? The developers have now released a Firefox port of the extension that is available at the official Firefox add-on repository over at the Mozilla website. The Firefox version has the same functionality that the Chrome extension offers. [...]

It happens often that I stumble upon an extension, tweak or tip for the Firefox browser that I’d like to try out. I could obviously try it out on the version of the browser that I use on a day to day basis, but possibility is there that it could lead to unforeseen issues. Issues [...]

You don’t always have the time to sit in front of your laptop or desktop computer and read lengthy material. Google Chrome, which is a fantastic browser in so many ways, brings yet another extension to the Google Chrome features. This extension is called dotEPUB and it enables you to take the text from a [...]

Google, through its web properties and services, can track a large number of Internet users. This happens on Google websites such as Google Search, Google Plus or Maps, but also on third party websites that embed Google Adsense, Analytics or other widgets and scripts that the company offers. Internet users who feel that the tracking [...]

Amazon has opened their marketplace for third party manufacturers who can sell their goods on the popular online shopping site. Shipping and handling fees are usually added to third party items sold on Amazon, which can increase the price of the item significantly. Most items sold by Amazon directly qualify for free shipping, either directly, [...]

Mozilla has released new Firefox versions for all channels in the past days. We have seen the release of Firefox 9 stable, shortly followed by the 9.0.1 release fix, Firefox 10 Beta, Firefox 11 Aurora and Firefox 12 Nightly. Firefox 11 Stable will be released in 3 months. Users running the version of the browser [...]

You may sometimes encounter pages, websites or services on the Internet that you’d like to share with friends, colleagues or family. Many websites offer sharing buttons to share the link on social networking sites like Facebook, Google+ or Twitter. Only a few offer options to mail the page to one or multiple recipients. You can [...]

The Firefox NoScript add-on is one of the best, if not the best, web browser security extensions. NoScript’s core functionality, the blocking of all scripts on all websites, protects the user from script based web attacks. Additional functionality has been integrated into the add-on over years, including anti-XSS protection, Application Boundaries Enforcer or the inclusion [...]

The latest stable version of the Firefox browser has been released yesterday by Mozilla. We have reviewed Firefox 9 a day before the official release to inform users about the changes, and to provide everyone with links to download the version a day early. A new version of Firefox appeared on the official Mozilla ftp [...]

All you see are asterisks whenever you enter passwords on the Internet. This makes it near impossible to make sure the correct password has been entered. The only indicator is the length of the password, but that works best for short passwords and not so good for larger more secure ones as it takes time [...]

Firefox Sync is Firefox’s synchronization feature that allows you to synchronize data such as bookmarks, passwords, open tabs and the history between multiple computer systems running Firefox. Up until now it has not been possible to synchronize add-ons using Firefox Sync. Users who wanted to use add-ons, and even more so their configuration, on multiple [...]

December 20th is the official Firefox 9 final release date. The browser has been uploaded to Mozilla’s ftp server prior to release. It is currently distributed to Mozilla’s first and third party distribution network to ensure a fast and uninterrupted distribution to Firefox 8 users. I have covered all Firefox 9 changes back when the [...]

If you are working in a multi-user office or in a room that people may enter unannounced, you’d probably like an option to hide what’s shown on the screen when that happens. Maybe you like buying gifts for someone online, like to surf on a site that you are not allowed to access, or do [...]

It sometimes happens that one of your favorite add-ons gets an update that you are not happy about. A new add-on version can for instance break functionality, introduce changes that you do not want or decrease the browser’s stability or security. If you do not want to uninstall the affected add-on, you could consider installing [...]

Mozilla currently has to release a new version of Firefox whenever the company is ready to ship an update. But that also means lots of testing before the update becomes finally available. That’s not ideal if hotfixes, time critical updates, need to be distributed to the Firefox user base. Update quality tests and the distribution [...]

While it is possible to configure the Firefox browser to download files automatically into one download folder on the system, it is not possible to customize this automated process further. Many users do not want all their downloads stored together in one folder, as they prefer different storage locations for downloads. This is for instance [...]

Opera Software, as a Christmas present to their user base, has released an experimental Opera Labs build of Opera for all supported operating systems that adds two significant features to the web browser. You have probably heard about out-of-process plugins before. Chrome and Firefox are using the technology to split the core browser process from [...]

One of the core issues that Microsoft is facing in the browser-war is that many users of the Internet Explorer browser are not updating the web browser. If you look at the browser’s market share, you will notice that users are still working with Internet Explorer 6, 7 or 8 and not the latest version [...]

How do you handle links that you encounter while reading a document in Firefox? I usually open the links in new tabs, and continue to read the article I’m currently reading. Sometimes though I avoid this, read the article to the end and look at links that are of interest afterwards. Both options have disadvantages. [...]

The majority of users visiting the Google homepage or another one of Google’s properties will have noticed that Google made another change to the header area. The company did away with the black bar and replaced it with a menu that is activated with a click on the Google logo. This new menu displays a [...]

It would appear that Firefox, that venerable browser that was the first one to give Microsoft a true kick in its complacency, is suffering from some middle-aged bloat.  In a report by H-Online it’s said that the open-source browser’s code is now so large and complex that it can no longer be properly compiled for [...]

Firefox users with lots of tab open in the browser often try to find ways to improve the browser’s tab management capabilities. The core issue that they face is that part of the open tabs are hidden from view, and that it may take lots of scrolling to get there. There are built-in options to [...]

High memory usage can slow down a program or the operating system. While I personally never experienced that in Firefox on my computer systems, I know of users who did and still do. Finding the cause for the high memory usage in Firefox would obviously be the best solution for the issue. Sometimes though that [...]

A recently conducted and published browser security comparison by Accuvant Labs comes to the conclusion that Google’s Chrome browser is more secure than Firefox and Internet Explorer. The researchers looked at specific browser security technologies and their implementation in web browsers. That’s an analytical what-if approach, and fundamentally different from analyzing a browser’s vulnerabilities in [...]

Web browsers can be configured to open website urls either in the current tab or in a new tab. The developers of Firefox have added options to Firefox that give the user a choice when opening links with mouse-clicks. A left-click opens the url in the same tab, a middle-click in a new tab. I [...]

It is sometimes the little things that can make a big difference in day to day activities on a computer. The open tabs count of Firefox has gone up significantly on my computer system in recent times as I’m currently going through all 20k tags here on Ghacks to consolidate them. Firefox by default only [...]

Comparing file hashes of files that you have downloaded to your computer with those provided by the provider of said downloads can be a great way of verifying that a file is genuine and that it has not been tampered with by third parties. Security only works if the sources you get the files and [...]

Opera Software has published a recommended upgrade for the stable channel of their browser. Opera 11.60 includes security and stability enhancements as well as new and improved features. This version is the intermediary version of Opera 11 which will be followed by Opera 12 (there may be small patches for Opera 11.60 though). The new [...]

Address bars ten years ago were used to enter website addresses, and that was it. Address bars today get fancy names like awesome bar, one bar or omnibox to highlight that they provide a lot more than just the ability to enter and load urls in the browser. For Firefox, the address bar is called [...]

Sometimes you may want a clean slate. Maybe you have realized that you are communicating only with a handful of friends on Facebook, and that you have added the majority only to feel good or to avoid hurting someone’s feelings. On Facebook it is only possible to remove one friend at a time. If you [...]

Sometimes it is little things that can make a big difference. When it comes to closing tabs in the Firefox web browser, users have options to close the tab with a click on the x icon that is either displayed on the right of the tab or at the end of the tabbar. They can [...]

Internet Explorer gives you options to select a default search engine, also called search provider, during the initial setup on first start. You find a list of search providers that are currently installed in the browser under Manage Add-ons. Please note that this guide uses Internet Explorer 9 to walk you through the steps of [...]

Most Facebook users probably have one or two page elements or features that annoy the hell out of them. This can be a small recent change like the top posts feature that promotes some posts and modifies the timeline by doing so, or something bigger like the new photo viewer interface or the highly annoying [...]