The new Firefox rapid release cycle is in full swing. It has been controversially discussed in past months. The release cycle has raised new issues, like add-on compatibility issues or problematic enterprise support, or the fact that the two new stable releases Firefox 5 and Firefox 6, have not really added new features to the [...]

Google Music, which has been introduced earlier this year, is still in beta at the time of writing. Users who have created an account can upload their music collection to Google Music’s servers to access them from other devices. Device support currently includes computer systems running Windows, OS X or Linux, and smartphones based on [...]

When you open a new tab in the Firefox browser you end up with a blank page starring back at you. Other browsers like Opera or Google Chrome display popular sites or bookmarks on the new tab page to provide the user with quick access to often used web services and features. A recent Mozillawiki [...]

Firefox users are a dedicated bunch. They love their browser and most prefer it to stay the way it is, with the exception of improved performances, web standards support and security updates. I know several Firefox 3.6.x users who stay with that browser version exactly for that reason. Mozilla recently announced plans to remove the [...]

When I look at the feeds in my RSS feed reader I cannot help but notice that the Opera browser is not receiving the same attention that the Firefox and Google Chrome browsers receive. This puzzled me for some time now and I figured that it is either caused by Opera’s marketing of the browser, [...]

Firefox add-ons can add many different features to the web browser. Some add new menus to the browser, for instance to the context menu when clicking on elements in the browser or the menu toolbar. It may sometimes be a little bit inconvenient to access some of the new toolbar options added by add-ons, especially [...]

Can you run multiple versions of the Firefox web browser next to each other on a system? And if you can, how can you configure the different browser versions to either share a user profile, or use their own independent profiles? Maybe you have already installed multiple Firefox versions on your PC. If you did, [...]

Google some time ago retired the Google Dictionary web service. Well, that’s not entirely correct. What Google retired was the frontend of that service on the web. The definitions are still available, but can only be displayed in Google Search. Users need to use the advanced search parameter define followed by the phrase that they [...]

Sometimes when I search on Google, I would like to filter the results by date. This is often the case when I’m looking for a troubleshooting solution for Windows 7, and find only Windows XP solutions in the search results even after adding Windows 7 to the search phrase. Another example would be to find [...]

Just spotted a change to the new tab page in the Google Chrome browser. The change is life in the latest Google Chrome Dev build, and I’m not 100% sure when it was first introduced (meaning it could be older than today, but I failed to spot it). Previously when you’ve opened a new tab [...]

Mozilla has just officially released the first version of Firefox 8 Aurora. Firefox 8 will reach beta stage in about six weeks and a stable release in twelve weeks. We already mentioned earlier this month that Firefox 8 will ship with a new add-on compatibility assistant that is giving users more add-on control the first [...]

Have you ever asked yourself why the Firefox web browser is not scoring a perfect score in the Acid3 test? The test checks a web browser’s compliance with web standards. Developed in 2007 and first released in 2008, the Acid3 test has become a standard in testing new web browser versions. When you run the [...]

I just noticed that two Ghacks readers have problems with Firefox’s What’s New page after updating their browser to Firefox 3.6.20. The intention of the What’s New page is to provide Firefox users with information about new features and changes. The page will be displayed instead of the homepage currently configured by the user. The [...]

I find it rather difficulty to spend time on all social networking sites that I have an account for evenly. The three dominant social networking sites that I use currently are Facebook, Twitter and Google Plus. I never got the hang of LinkedIn and do not use localized social networking sites. If I would add [...]

Google Related is a brand new extension by Google for its Chrome web browser. The extension acts as a browsing assistant displaying related news and contents in a small bar at the bottom. This process itself is automatic. The related information that are displayed on the toolbar at the bottom of the browser screen are [...]

There are quite a few users out there who have installed the Babylon Toolbar after downloading software from Cnet’s Download.com portal. This is not the only way of installing that toolbar though, as it is available for direct download at the Babylon.com website as well, and via other programs and services that use it to [...]

Add-ons are still one of the things that set the Firefox web browser apart from other browsers. While there are comparable options for browsers such as Google Chrome and Opera, their implementation is not as wide reaching as that of the Firefox web browser. One of the things however that could be better is a [...]

The Firefox rapid release cycle is up and in full swing. The very nature of it resulted in two Firefox versions with barely any new and exciting features. Both Firefox 5 and Firefox 6, which has been released recently, suffered from lack of time to implement features in the browser. This is now going to [...]

The photos that users upload to eBay are used to populate the search results and category listings. The eBay auction platform automatically displays thumbnail versions of the uploaded photos on search and category pages instead of the, often larger, versions of the photo uploaded by the eBay user. While that may not be a problem [...]

Samsung’s new Series 5 Chromebook is one of the very first devices to market running Google’s own Chrome OS, a Linux variant cloud-based operating system that is essentially just a web browser and nothing else.  I’ve been testing and living with the Chromebook for a few days now and have already written about my thoughts [...]

I have been watching an alarming trend in past years. Google, once the up and comer in the search engine market, with excellent results has turned into a behemoth whose primary objective is to keep search engine users on their properties. I’m not the only one who made that observation. In worst case currently, only [...]

One “by-product” of the rapid release cycle of the Firefox web browser is the version number increase that goes along with every new release of the web browser. Firefox this year jumped from Firefox 3 all the way to the latest version Firefox 8, and we are not even at the end of the year. [...]

Introduced in Firefox 6 is a new permissions manager that allows users of the web browser to define permissions on a per-site basis. Permissions? Currently restricted to the following settings: Store Passwords, Share Location, Set Cookies, Open Pop-up Windows and Maintain Offline Storage. You can open the new permissions manager in Firefox by loading about:permissions. [...]

If you have visited one of the add-on repositories on the Mozilla.org website lately you must have noticed that the design and layout has changed significantly. I thought for a moment on my first visit that I was in the Chrome web store, before I realized that this was the new layout of the add-on [...]

The official release date for the next stable version of the Firefox web browser is August 16. This is also the day when all other channels move a version up, so to speak. Beta users will move to version 7 of the browser, Aurora users to 8 and Nightly users likely to version 9. The [...]

Mozilla announced a new sign-in system technology back in July. With the help of this new technology, Mozilla promised to make log ins easier and more secure. Instead of having to remember and type in log ins for different web services and sites, users can utilize the Browser ID to sign in just with their [...]

Do you have to write the same text multiple times per day? For instance when replying to business emails, writing blog posts or commenting on them on the Internet. If that is the case you might have considered using tools that let you create text shortcuts that you can simply paste into your texts to [...]

Good news for Firefox users who think that the current add-on compatibility assistant during browser updates is not giving them enough control over their add-ons. Mozilla has uploaded a test nightly build to the official ftp server that demonstrates a new add-on compatibility check that gives users full process control. Firefox still runs a compatibility [...]

Most web browsers are using two toolbars for the address and tabs that are open in the browser. Most developers in their quest to minimize the browser interface have thought about merging the address bar and tab bar. Microsoft for instance has done that to Internet Explorer 9 with an option to revert that change [...]

If you are a heavy Google user you may like the Google bar that is displayed on top of all the Google properties. The bar links to several Google properties and displays notifications about new messages or posts on Google+. It furthermore contains a share link if Google Plus is used, and a link to [...]

I reviewed one of the first versions of HTTPS Everywhere for the Firefox web browser back in the middle of 2010. The Firefox extension, which forced https connections to a handful of supported web pages, has come a long way since then. The developers today have announced the release of HTTPS Everywhere 1.0 which includes [...]

I have to admit that I’m not a user who likes to change the default theme of a web browser. Not because there are no cool themes out there for my browsers, but mostly because I do not really care how my browser looks like design wise. But themes are very popular and I certainly [...]

Like all browsers, Firefox stores your browsing history, saved passwords, form data, and preference values. Where exactly does it store it? It certainly isn’t on that ordered list in the Browsing History. All of this information is specifically stored in the SQLite databases in the Firefox profile folder. By using an open-source program called SQLite [...]

It is likely that the majority of Firefox users are using only one profile in the browser. Profiles are basically separate identities with their own sets of bookmarks, settings and customizations. This makes them very interesting for users who use the browser for unrelated tasks, for instance for work and free time, or for SEO [...]

Good news for Firefox users who like me think that Mozilla needs to do something against third party add-on installations in the browser. Third party add-ons are browser extensions that are installed from third party programs on the system. It is for instance very common for security software to install toolbars and other add-ons in [...]

Live Sport for the Chrome browser is a sport fan’s dream come true. The Chrome extension lists direct links to sport broadcasts which can be viewed directly in the browser. That’s handy if your national TV is not broadcasting the match or event at all, if you are abroad and want to see your favorite [...]

Last week we reported, somewhat sceptically I’m happy to say, about a piece of research by a company called AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting, that said that people who used Internet Explorer had lower IQs than people who used other browsers. The research “measuring the effects of cognitive ability on the choice of web browser” was apparently [...]

Which web browser handles 150 open tabs better, Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome? That’s what Gregor Wagner wanted to find out in a scalability test. The test setup was the following: Open the 150 most popular web sites in both web browsers and see which performs better memory and performance wise. Gregor automated the process [...]

Maybe you can relate to the following experience. I was watching a video on my computer and heard background noise in the background. First I thought that the video had been recorded with those by accident, but they were still there after I paused the video. I checked the open browsers and their tabs, one [...]

It is sometimes the little things that can make a big difference. A friend of mine called me the other day about a problem she had with the Firefox web browser. Her problem was that she could not figure out how to go back multiple pages in Firefox. While she did know that it is [...]

Magic Actions for YouTube promises to be the most convenient way to watch YouTube videos in the Google Chrome browser. But can it live up to that promise? When you look at the feature set you will notice that it combines several unique options with features that are common in other YouTube extensions as well. [...]

How do you type in a new web address in the Firefox web browser? Do you click with your mouse in the urlbar and start typing? Do you use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl-L instead to activate the urlbar? Whatever you do, you first need to activate the urlbar before you can start typing in the [...]

The last major changes to the Firefox default theme data a while back to the Firefox 4 release. You may remember that Mozilla overhauled the browser interface, for instance by removing the status bar, replacing the menu bar with a single menu button or moving tabs by default on top of the url bar. Mockup [...]

Internet Explorer and Firefox users have criticized the font rendering under recent versions of Windows in the past. Some Firefox users for instance began to notice a difference after the Firefox 4 installation or upgrade. Internet Explorer users after the Internet Explorer 9 installation. Add-ons, extensions and tweaks were discovered that resolved the issues on [...]

I like to limit the open tabs in the Firefox browser, actually in every browser, to the visible space. While it is sometimes unavoidable to add more tabs to the browser than can be displayed without scrolling, it is an unpleasant experience that I try to avoid as best as I can. Why? First, it [...]

Yup, it’s the summer, that time traditionally called the “silly season” here in the UK so far as the news is concerned.  Now tech blogger Paul Thurrott has found a lovely little gem of a report from a company called AptiQuant Psychometric Consulting into the “Intelligence Quotient (IQ) and Browser Usage” of the public. The [...]

When you are spending time on Google Plus you will eventually come upon comments made by users which you would prefer not to see or read on the site. While it is easy to remove those users from your own stream, for instance by removing them from your circles, it is not possible to remove [...]

Mozilla is still trying to integrate the tab groups feature, formerly known as Panorama, more effectively into the web browser. You may remember that Mozilla originally planned to integrate Panorama into Firefox 4, but several issues prevented this from happening. Mozilla up until now has been working on fixes to resolve the existing Tab Groups [...]

Mozilla have announced that they’re the latest contender for the tablet operating system crown, and have begun work on their own operating system for mobile devices and tablets.  The OS will be based on Google’s Android operating system but will have much of the code freshly written. The project, which was announced on a Mozilla [...]

We have discussed Google’s decision to stop updating its Google Toolbar extension for the Firefox web browser. The most recent version of the Firefox web browser, Firefox 5, is not supported anymore. The same is true for future versions of the Internet browser. The last version officially supported is Firefox 4. What can Firefox users [...]