gHacks technology news » firefox-add on

Firefox App Tabs Add-On

Martin — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:16:48 +0000

Remember Pin Tabs? The Firefox add-on that we reviewed recently was mysteriously deleted from the Firefox add-on repository over at the Mozilla Firefox website. No one knew why it was deleted and it was not clear at that point in time if the developer would make it available again. The wait is now over with the release of the App Tabs add-on. App Tabs is basically an advanced version of Pin Tabs. The name now reflects the feature of the same name that the Firefox developer plan to include into Firefox 4.

The basic idea of App Tabs is to offer Firefox users a way to pin selected web services and websites to the tabbar of the web browser making them available always in the same spot. The idea works perfectly for websites that do not require back and forward navigation like Gmail or Google Docs but also for any other website or service that the user accesses all the time.

App Tabs pins selected tabs to the left side of the tabbar in Firefox. The tabs are minimized so that only the favicon of the website or service is displayed. This saves space in the tabbar and is usually appreciated by most users.

The new version of the App Tabs add-on adds comes with the following features:

App tabs can be saved across sessions! (default)
App tabs can be merged when closing a window. (default)
App tabs can be protected from being closed individually.
If you have Tabberwocky installed, App Tabs will automatically also lock app tabs that you create. This feature can of course be disabled by going to about:config and setting extensions.apptabs.lock to false.

Tabs can be converted into app tabs by ctrl-clicking them in the Firefox tabbar. App Tabs is currently compatible with all versions of Firefox 3.5x to 3.7x. The download is available at the Firefox add-on’s website.

Tags: app tabs, firefox, firefox tabs, firefox-add on, pin tabs, tabbar

Firefox Batch Image Downloader

Martin — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:24:23 +0000

Downloading multiple images that are displayed on websites can be a tedious and boring process. The standard procedure without tools and add-ons would be to right-click and select the save image option from the context menu to save each image individually. Download managers, plugins and add-ons aid the user in the process by offering ways to batch download the images that are displayed on websites. One of the latest add-ons that utilizes this functionality is the Quick Image Downloader add-on for the Firefox web browser.

The experimental add-on is a bare-bone add-on that currently comes without any means to modify settings. It adds a new icon to the Firefox status bar after installation which, when clicked on, will ask the user to pick a directory where the images from the active website should be saved to.

It will then start to download all images that are displayed on the website. It will also process all images that are linked from the active website. This means that it can download images from pages where the images are displayed as thumbnails with the original sizes linked from those thumbnails. It fails however if the links are html pages that contain the original image (like Flickr handles it for example).

The add-on works extremely well if the original images are linked on the active page. It does fail on the other hand if that is not the case. It will for instance download only thumbnail images at Flickr but the original images at Google Images search. It will also always download all images which includes thumbnail images and other images used on the website.

The add-on needs settings where the user can change this behavior. It would for instance make sense to add a size and file type filter to the program so that small images and those of a certain type are not downloaded automatically. Firefox users who want to try out the batch image downloader can visit the add-on’s profile page at the Mozilla Firefox website to download and install it.

Tags: batch image downloader, firefox, firefox-add on, image downloader, quick image downloader

Pin Tabs In Firefox

Martin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 09:54:56 +0000

The Google Chrome browser provides access to a feature to pin tabs in the web browser by default. Pinned tabs will be moved to the left side of the tabbar where their tab will be changed to a smaller icon that is showing only the favicon of the website in question. The benefit of this approach is that the tabs take less space in the tabbar while they can still be accessed normally by clicking on them.

Pin Tab is a new experimental Firefox add-on that brings this feature to the Firefox web browser. Yes, there have been some tab managers in the past who also provided that option (like the Faviconize Tab extension), but none looked as promising as the Pin Tab extension.

Tabs can be pinned in Firefox by Ctrl-clicking them in the web browser. This will automatically shrink the tab to the size of the favicon and move it to the left side of the tabbar.

The picture above shows a tabbar with two pinned tabs on the left. A left-click on a pinned tab will open the website as usual. It is possible to change the default hotkey to pin tabs or use the right-click context menu option to do so. It is furthermore possible to pin tabs by dragging unpinned tabs to the pinned tab area with the reverse option possible as well.

The main benefit of pinning tabs up to this point should be obvious: Space. It is possible to place roughly 5-7 pinned tabs in the place of one open tab. Unlike the pinned tab option in Google Chrome the Firefox add-on comes with additional features. The pinned tabs will for instance remain pinned over browsing sessions if Firefox is configured to remember browsing sessions.

Pin Tab is an interesting add-on for the Firefox web browser. It can be useful for Firefox users who regularly work with a set of tabs that they usually have open in Firefox all the time. The Firefox add-on can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: firefox, firefox tabs, firefox-add on, pin tabs

Google Sidewiki Firefox Add-on

Martin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:31:11 +0000

Google introduced a new service called Google Sidewiki some time ago which basically gives Google account owners the opportunity to share their views and opinions about a website, service or page with the rest of the world. Google Sidewiki was integrated into the Google Toolbar. An unofficial bookmarklet appeared on the web soon thereafter allowing users without the Google Toolbar to view the comments left by other users. Still, only Google Toolbar users were allowed to leave comments about a website.

The Firefox add-on Google Sidewiki Client adds the full Google Sidewiki functionality to the Firefox web browser. Google Sidewiki information are added to a new sidebar which can be displayed by pressing the Sidewiki button in the status bar.

Users of the add-on can read the reviews and notes that have been posted by Google users about the website they are on. A little bit unfortunate is that the information are not automatically refreshing. The information are only refreshed if the button in the status bar is pressed again. This needs to be done for example when switching tabs or loading new links in the active tab that lead to other pages or websites.

Users who are logged into their Google account can submit their own reviews of the website, express their opinion about other reviews by voting for or against them, share reviews or report abusive reviews. It is basically the complete Google Sidewiki client in the Firefox sidebar.

The add-on is in an early stage which becomes apparent in two key areas. The first is the already mentioned auto-refresh that is missing. This makes the add-on cumbersome to use. The second are the missing controls in the sidebar. It is not possible to go back or forth and the login screen breaks the layout of the sidebar.

Interested users can download the Firefox add-on from the Mozilla website where it is available for all Firefox 3.x versions.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, Google, google sidewiki, sidewiki

Cybersearch 2 For Firefox Released

Martin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 06:58:42 +0000

Ryan over at Cybernetnews has released version 2 of his Firefox add-on Cybersearch. Cybersearch expands the capabilities of the Firefox address bar (or awesome bar as the devs like to call it). The add-on adds the functionality to perform searches in various search engines right from the Firefox address bar with the results being displayed next to results from the user’s history and bookmarks. These results are distinguished by icons so that they can be distinguished easily.

A new feature are link previews in the selection process. The description of the link along with other information (if available) are displayed in the web browser. Take a look at the picture to see how this is done:

That’s a big change to the previous version of Cybersearch where you did not get these previews. Another new addition in Cybersearch 2 is support for the Bing search engine which can now be used alongside Google Search. The default search engine can either be Bing or Google with the other search engine available through keyword commands in front of the search term. A set of predefined keywords are already available. It is for example possible to search IMDB (with imdb in front of the search term), Wikipedia (with wiki in front) or Google Video (gvid) with the option to add new keyword searches easily.

The latest version of Cybersearch can be downloaded from the developer’s website. It is only compatible with Firefox 3.x.

Tags: cybersearch, firefox, firefox-add on, search

Verify Firefox Bookmarks With Check Places

Martin — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 15:05:49 +0000

The amount of bookmarks increases with time. Most users add bookmarks regularly from time to time but do not delete them if they are not needed anymore or if the websites ceased to exist. One of the main reasons for this is that most web browsers do not provide the tools to check bookmarks effectively. It feels strange that no web browser offers a tool to verify that the bookmarks are still pointing to a valid website and not a 404 error page.

Check Places for Firefox adds the option to verify all bookmarks in the Firefox web browser. It can be used to check all bookmarks (with the option to exclude folders) or only specific folders that the Firefox user selects.

A click on the check bookmarks button will start the verification. The time it takes to verify the bookmarks depends on the amount of bookmarks and the Internet connection.

It took about a minute to check 489 bookmarks on a fast Internet connection. The add-on will display statistics on the report page including the time it took to verify the bookmarks and the number of bookmarks that got verified.

Errors are divided into the three categories failed pages, duplicates and empty folders. Failed pages are those with dns, page or other errors. These pages can be temporarily or permanently unavailable.

Each bookmark is listed in its own row. Selecting a bookmark will display additional information about the bookmark with the options to open, delete or exclude the bookmark.

The whole process – even if the pages with errors are verified manually – takes less than five minutes to complete.

Check Places is an add-on for the Firefox 3 web browser. It can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: check bookmarks, check places, duplicate-bookmarks, firefox, firefox bookmarks, firefox-add on

Bypass Megaupload Captcha And Wait Time

Martin — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 07:28:17 +0000

It is a cat and mouse game between file hosting websites like Rapidshare or Megaupload and unofficial tools that make it more comfortable to work with those websites. The latest mouse to enter the play field is Muautolink, a Firefox add-on that offers a comfortable solution for users who are downloading files from Megaupload.

Megaupload has two “protections” in place before a normal user can download files. The first is a captcha while the second is a countdown timer. This means that users need to enter a captcha whenever they want to download a file from the file hosting website. Even worse, they also have to wait some time before the download becomes available.

Muautolink solves both problems at once. It will immediately display a file download window when the user opens a Megaupload download page in the Firefox web browser. It bypasses the Megaupload captcha and countdown completely.

Best of all: It even works if the Megaupload website is embedded in another website like several Megaupload search services have implemented it. Muautolink is an experimental Firefox add-on for all versions of the web browse (from 2.x to 3.7x). It can be downloaded from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: file host, file hosting, firefox, firefox-add on, megaupload

Yahoo Mail Notifier

Martin — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 06:55:30 +0000

Ghacks has been pretty Gmail centric in the last year. The main reason for that is probably because there is more to write about Gmail than about other email services like Yahoo Mail or Live Mail. Could also be that Google is doing a better job at communicating changes they make to their email service. We have published a post a few days ago about Yahoo Mail login problems that some users experienced on the Yahoo Mail website.

These users have two alternative options on how to connect with their Yahoo Mail account if they experience the problems. The first is by using a desktop email client like Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird, the second a notifier like Yahoo Mail Notifier for Firefox.

Both solutions obviously only work if the username and password of the Yahoo Mail account are at hand and still working. They can however cope with display or loading problems of the Yahoo Mail website. Yahoo Mail Notifier is a simple Firefox add-on that will display the unread mail count of a Yahoo Mail account in the Firefox statusbar. The add-on supports multiple Yahoo accounts which can be switched easily from the statusbar.

The preferences contain options to change the frequency new email checks, clicking preferences to open Yahoo Mail and notifications if new emails have been received.

Yahoo Mail Notifier is a simple Firefox add-on that can be helpful for users who do not want to check the Yahoo Mail page all the time to see if new emails have been received. It is available at the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, yahoo mail, yahoo mail login, yahoo mail notifier

Google Wave Add-On For Firefox

Martin — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:56:19 +0000

Google Wave is a new service by Google that is currently tested in a limited preview. Google Wave invites are in high demand as everyone and their mum are trying to get into the service that is said to “change the way we communicate”. Google Wave is basically a realtime communication platform, a mashup of email, instant messaging, chat rooms with project management features thrown into the mix. If you are already in you might find the following add-on for the Firefox web browser quite handy.

The Google Wave add-on for Firefox informs the user when new messages arrive for him. It works like any other notification add-on and tool available on the Internet these days. It starts by entering the account data of the Google Wave account in the add-on’s settings.

This is required to access the data of the account. It can – and certainly will – turn away security conscious users who do not want to part with their account data. Those who do will from then on be notified of new Google Wave messages in Firefox. The add-on places an icon in the Firefox status bar that is displaying the number of unread messages with the ability to hover over the icon to see previews of the messages.

The Google Wave add-on for Firefox is available at the Mozilla Firefox website. The add-on is compatible with Firefox 3.5.x only at the moment.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, Google, google wave, google wave add-on

Firefox: Show Mouse Over Urls In The Firefox Address Bar

Martin — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:02:56 +0000

Firefox users: What do you need the Firefox address bar for? Many will probably answer that they do not need it at all while some say that they use it to check out links by hovering the mouse over them on the website. Then there is also the group of users with other add-ons that have placed their icons in the status bar to fill it with life.

Displaying the url of a website that the user is hovering the mouse over on the page. That’s something that can be achieved in another way; That must have been the reason for Josiah Decker to create the Firefox add-on Status Address Bar. The add-on displays the urls of links that the user hovers over in the Firefox address bar as well.

Why would someone want this? The answer is screen estate. Moving the functionality to the address bar makes the status bar in Firefox redundant if it is only displayed for that purpose. The status bar can then be set to hidden so that it does not appear on the computer screen anymore.

It is at first confusing to see the link urls appear in the Firefox address bar especially since it removes the url of the website the user is on for that time. There is another problem that was acknowledged by the developer of the add-on: Relative links are shown without part of the domain structure, e.g. /en-US/firefox/ instead of https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/ which would appear in the Firefox status bar at the Mozilla website.

Status Address Bar might still be an interesting option for users who use the “hover over link” functionality in Firefox regularly but do not need the status bar otherwise and run Firefox on a small computer screen. It can be downloaded for all Firefox 2 and 3 versions at the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, status address bar

Automatically Shutdown Computer After Firefox Downloads Finish

Martin — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 09:24:49 +0000

Auto Shutdown is an add-on for the Firefox 3 web browser that adds the option to automatically shutdown the computer after downloads finish. It is generally not advised to use the Firefox download manager to download large files as it does not play well with download problems like interrupted downloads. Third party download managers like Down Them all for Firefox are generally a better choice for downloading large or multiple files in the web browser.

That’s probably the main reason why Auto Shutdown supports the Down Them All Firefox add-on. The Auto Shutdown add-on places an icon in the Firefox status bar that will automatically try to configure the shutdown on the first left-click for the operating system that it detects. This left-click enables the auto shutdown feature which can be easily disabled again with another left-click.

The add-on could be very handy in situations where a large download will finish at a time where the user is not near the computer system. This would mean – without the add-on – to either stop the download or keep the computer running until the return. Main features of Auto Shutdown are:

Executing user scripts after all downloads are finished or computer is idle for specific time
Play sound after each/All downloads are finished
Restore Firefox from last session
Customizable shutdown/idle scripts
Supporting DownThemAll

Auto Shutdown can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: automatic shutdown, download-manager, firefox, firefox-add on

Download Panel Displays In Depth Information About Firefox Downloads

Martin — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 12:45:53 +0000

The download manager of the Firefox web browser is not displaying many information by default. Only the name and size of the file, the time and the main domain it was downloaded from are displayed in the Downloads window. A right-click offers the possibility to open the folder the file was downloaded to, to load the url of the download or to copy the download path.

Download Panel is a Firefox add-on that displays additional information about each download during the downloads and afterwards. The add-on displays the full path to the file directly in the download manager next to the referrer (the site the download was initiated on), the size of the download in bytes and the directory it was saved to.

It can furthermore add the start and end time of the download which includes information about the date the download was started. The referrer and directory link are clickable in the downloads window. The first link will open the website the download was started from in a new tab while the second will open the folder in Windows Explorer.

The add-on might be useful for users who keep the downloads in the Downloads history. Most of the additional information that are displayed are accessible through other means which are usually more complicated (e.g. right-clicking on the download link and selecting to go to the download page versus left-clicking on the displayed download link). Download Panel (via How To Geek) is available at the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: download panel, firefox, firefox downloads, firefox-add on

Price Comparison With Invisible Hand For Firefox

Martin — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 17:41:21 +0000

Price comparison is one of the essentials things that Internet users should do before buying a product on the Internet. It does not matter if they do it manually by visiting several Internet shops that carry the product or use one of the price comparison services. Users can save lots of money when comparing prices before buying a product.

The Invisible Hand add-on for Firefox is an unobtrusive add-on that will notify the user if it knows of an Internet shop that is offering the product for less than the current shop the user is visiting. It will display a row beneath the tabs in Firefox whenever it found a shop with a lower price. The system only works if the user is visiting one of the 50+ supported Internet shops in the United Kingdom or United States.

The bar with the better price will not appear if there is no better price or if the shop is currently not supported by the Firefox add-on. There are currently a few problems associated with the add-on that I would like to outline below:

Supports only 50+ shops in the UK or US. That’s ok for popular items but no where in the range that the price comparison services offers.This also means that users from other countries have no use for the add-on unless they do shop in the US or UK.
A click on the better price button (or the other retailers button) will open that website in the same tab. There is no way of opening the site in a new tab or window.
The service does not add (potential) shipping costs to the price comparison. It can be that the price at a lower price shop can turn out to be higher if shipping costs are added to the price.
The service sometimes fails to find the right product. A Guitar Heroes 5 bundle with hardware for the Nintendo Wii for example was said to be about 30 Pounds cheaper at another retailer. It turned out to be that this was the version of the game without the hardware.
The price comparison is restricted to the same country. It is for example not possible to see if the price in another country is cheaper than the price in the current country. This is probably linked to the shipping costs problem. It would make a lot of sense once more countries of one continent (e.g. Europe) are added so that users from one country could check if the product is a lot cheaper in another country (which often is the case if you look at the German and UK Amazon shop for example).

The service is currently in beta and the developers have already mentioned that they are working on several of the problems listed in this article. Invisible Hand is nevertheless an interesting alternative for Firefox users from the UK and US who do a lot of online shopping. Interested users can take a look at the developer website to see the list of supported retailers or download the add-on from the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: firefox, Firefox Price Comparison, firefox-add on, invisible hand, Price Comparison

Backup Facebook Accounts

Martin — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 09:52:10 +0000

Many online services do not offer the means to backup data locally. Users who want to backup data are usually left with a tedious manual process (like downloading pictures or videos one by one). Data that cannot be downloaded right away is even harder to backup, think of contacts or private messages for example.

Archive Facebook is an add-on for the Mozilla Firefox web browser. The purpose of the add-on is to provide the tools to backup facebook accounts. The add-on can backup photos, messages, friends list, notes, events, groups, information and the activity stream. And since it is an experimental add-on it is likely that the developers will add new features to it in the future.

Here is how the add-on works:

An ArchiveFB entry is added to the Firefox Tools menu after installation of the add-on
Activate ArchiveFV > Archive from the menu after logging into a Facebook account
The process is automatic and can take minutes or even hours depending on the data in the account
A Facebook menu option is added to the ArchiveFB menu giving the user the option to view archived accounts

Once the archiving process has completed, you will see an entry in the sidebar that says “Facebook | username date” where username is your Facebook username and date is the current date. Click on the entry. You will see your Facebook profile page appear and at the bottom will be an annotation bar where you can highlight text or make comments on a page for your personal records. Click through your archived Facebook pages to ensure that all pages have been archived. All pages listed in the introduction should be archived. You can tell if a page has been archived by placing your cursor over a link. Look in the bottom left hand corner and Firefox will show the location of the link i.e. if the location starts with “file://”, it is on your hard drive, if it starts with “http://”, it is on the web. If it is not on your local hard drive, try to archive your account again. If the second attempt doesn’t work, please notify us and we will attempt to fix the problem.

Facebook users who like to backup their Facebook accounts can download the Firefox add-on from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

archive facebook

backup facebook

backup facebook accounts

facebook

firefox

firefox-add on

Firefox Tab Progress Bar

Martin — Fri, 02 Oct 2009 21:17:51 +0000

Those users who are paying attention to the development of the Firefox web browser might have already seen the design mockups of future Firefox versions. While these mockups can be subject to change (and most likely will) they do demonstrate how the Firefox development team visualizes future versions of the Firefox browser. One of the additions that was added to one of the last mockups was a progress bar for every tab. This can be helpful for users who open several tabs at once as it visualizes the loading progress of each tab individually.

The experimental Firefox add-on Tab Progress Bar adds this functionality to the latest releases of the Firefox Internet browser. To be precise to versions 3.5 to 3.6a2pre of the browser.

The blue progress bar appears immediately on top of every tab in Firefox if a website is currently loading in that tab. The bar does not alter the design of the web browser in any form as it is cleverly placed above the names of the websites.

Users who are interested in the tab progress bar add-on can download it from the official Mozilla Firefox website where it is provided as a download.

Tags: firefox, firefox tabs, firefox-add on, tab progress bar

Automatically Clear The Firefox Search Bar

Martin — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:37:28 +0000

Firefox users have quite a few ways to perform searches without visiting the website of a search engine first. The most common option is the search bar that is displayed by default in one of the Firefox toolbars. Another option is to enter the search term in the Firefox address bar.

The former method is probably more convenient for most users. Some users however do have a problem with the way the search form keeps the search phrase in its form after the search has been performed. This is a privacy issue for some users who prefer that their previous search is not displayed in the Firefox toolbar.

The Firefox add-on Clear Search offers a solution by cleaning the Firefox search form whenever a search was performed in the web browser. This is also helpful for Linux users using Linux’s highlight and paste shortcut according to the developer of the add-on.

Clear Search is an experimental search add-on that is compatible with all versions of Firefox 3. It can be downloaded and installed from the Mozilla website.

Tags: clear search, firefox, firefox search, firefox-add on

Organize Firefox Bookmarks In Tabs

Martin — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:26:30 +0000

Firefox opens the bookmark manager (which is officially called library) in a new window by default. I always felt that this was kinda weird as it meant to navigate back and forth between the web browser window and the bookmark manager. One could try to place the two windows next to each other or display the bookmarks in the sidebar instead but it always nagged me why there was not an option to display the bookmark manager in a tab instead of a window.

Places in Tabs changes this. It is an experimental Firefox add-on that will add the option to launch the bookmark manager in a tab in the Bookmarks menu. The library is then displayed in a new tab in the active web browser window. Users who want to work with the bookmark manager that way need to know that a left-click on any bookmark will load that website in the active tab. To keep the bookmarks manager open users need to middle-click (or right-click and select Open in a new tab) instead.

Places in Tabs might be interesting for users who would like to open the bookmarks manager in a tab. The add-on is compatible with Firefox 3 only and can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

Tags: bookmarks manager, firefox, firefox library, firefox-add on, places in tabs

PageZipper Makes Browsing Multiple Pages More Comfortable

Martin — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:24:54 +0000

Ever been to a website that likes to divide articles into multiple pages to artificially increase their pageviews and thus advertisement revenue? I remember websites that would display every item of a top 50 or top 100 list on individual pages with each page consisting of a few sentences and a screenshot.

The Firefox add-on and bookmarklet PageZipper provides a solution to Internet users who are fed up with those websites. It’s most basic function is to append the next page to the existing one once the PageZipper button has been pressed once while the tab of the website is active in the web browser. The next page will then be automatically appended from then on until the tab is closed or the user navigates away from the starting url (e.g. by clicking on a link).

PageZipper displays an icon in the upper right corner of the screen that can be used to navigate the different pages that have been loaded. A more comfortable solution is to use the Ctrl [down or up] Arrow key to navigate the pages. The same keyboard shortcut can also be used to quickly navigate between images on a website again with the added benefit that the next page is automatically added to the end of the current one. This makes it much easier to navigate in image galleries. PageZipper can also automatically resize images so that they fit the browser window.

The bookmarklet works basically the same way as the Firefox add-on. This actually means that it does not make lots of sense to use the Firefox add-on as it does not offer any kind of benefit over the bookmarklet. Missing options that would make the Firefox add-on worth the install would be keyboard shortcuts to turn on and off the Pagezipper function on a page and a whitelist to automatically turn it on when visiting specific pages.These features are currently missing and it would be nice to see them added in a future update.

The Firefox add-on is available at the Mozilla website while the bookmarklet can be dragged and dropped in a web browser toolbar from the developer’s website.

Tags: bookmarklet, firefox, firefox-add on, pagezipper, web browser

New Firefox Tab Manager Tabberwocky

Martin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:13:09 +0000

Tabberwocky is a lightweight Firefox tab manager alternative of the popular Tab Mix Plus add-on. It offers popular options like protecting tabs from being closed, duplicate already open tabs, open new tabs next to the active tab and managing several other important aspects of tabs in Firefox.

The Firefox add-on will add several of its features (like protecting or duplicating tabs) automatically to the right-click menu when right-clicking on tabs in the tabbar in Firefox. Other features like opening tabs to the right of the current tab or switching to the last selected tab upon closing a tab are also activated right away.

Many of these features can be customized in the add-on’s options. Here it is possible to disable context menu entries, change the behavior when opening or closing tabs, alter the design of the tabbar and configure the action when the backspace key is pressed in Firefox.

The backspace key can be configured to navigate back and forward or perform a page up or page down action. Tabberwocky does not offer all of the features of Tab Mix Plus yet. This includes the ability to display tabs in additional rows in the web browser or offering session management.

Not all users need that functionality on the other hand. Tabberwocky can be downloaded from the profile page at the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: firefox, firefox-add on, tab manager, tab-mix-plus, tabbar, tabberwocky, tabs

Display Website Tracker Information

Martin — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 15:10:30 +0000

Most websites have tracking system installed. Some internal to analyze and create visitor statistics and many external by embedding advertisement and external website tracking tools in the code. Many users are not aware of these trackers and even fewer know what the individual trackers do and do not do.

That’s where Tracker Watcher comes into play. The Firefox add-on will analyze the active website for trackers and display all that have been found on an external page. It provides information about anonymity, sharing of information, Sensitivity and deletion in an easy to understand manner.

Anonymity: Is the data anonymized or tracked across websites?
Sharing: Do they share the information with third parties?
Sensitivity: Do they use the information in sensitive personal areas like health conditions or financial matters?
Deletion: Do they promise to delete the information?

Links to privacy statements of trackers are provided if available. Some trackers are not included in the list but are listed below the table. This could mean that the service does not have enough information yet about those trackers so that they could not be added to the table.

The very same page links to opt-out pages for advertisers that support that option. Those links lead to the website of the developer of the tracker where the opt-out can be announced. The Tracker Watcher website contains another link to a global opt-out page to opt out of all 91 companies that have been analyzed by the service or only 71 of those companies that have raised concerns.

Tracker Watcher can be downloaded from the Mozilla Firefox website.

Tags: advertisement, firefox, firefox-add on, opt-out, privacy choice, tracker, tracker watcher

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