The Firefox extension supports all userscripts that can be loaded into Greasemonkey, and then some that make use of Google chrome functions that Greasemonkey does not support right now.

Probably the biggest problem for existing Greasemonkey users is that Scriptish cannot import userscripts from Greasemonkey, which means that they need to be installed anew before they become available in the new extension. But that is a one time process and should not take that long, especially since the developer has posted a guide to manually import Greasemonkey userscripts into Scriptish on the official website.

Scriptish offers a better manageability of userscripts. It is for instance possible to edit excludes and includes, and a userscript’s options in the Firefox add-on manager. Greasemonkey users need to be on one of the pages supported by the userscript to access the options. The extension in addition reveals more information about userscripts directly in the add-on manager.

Is Scriptish the better Greasemonkey? It certainly offers support for features that Greasemonkey does not offer. More interesting than that may be that it offers better access to configuration options and additional information about individual userscripts.

Does it offer a better performance than Greasemonkey? I could not really tell a difference, but that does not mean there is none as it depends a lot on the computer and the scripts that are used.

Scriptish is an option for Greasemonkey users who experience performance problems when running scripts, users who want to run userscripts that are working in Chrome but not in Firefox and users who prefer extensions that receive regular updates. For the rest it is definitely an extension to keep an eye on.

Currently, only Firefox 4 beta users can install the new version of F1. A lot has changed in the new release, especially the user interface has been overhauled. The first version of F1 was displayed as a “horizontal layout stretching across the width of the browser” which worked fine for a first prototype but limited the ability of the team to add service specific features to the add-on.

The new version uses a vertical layout which “allowed more space for direct messaging UI” and made the “doorhanger UI [...] less intrusive”.

The developers have added LinkedIn as a new service so that it is now possible to use Mozilla F1 to send links to everyone, your connections or individual users via direct messages.

Capabilities with Facebook and Twitter have been expanded as well. It is now possible to send direct messages to any Twitter follower and share links directly to a group wall on Facebook.

Gmail, Google Apps and Yahoo Buzz are the other three services that are currently supported by Mozilla F1.

F1 Panel

Users share messages with Mozilla F1 by clicking on the F1 icon in the Firefox toolbar after installation. They are then able to selected one of the supported services from the menu before the sharing options are displayed.

It is possible that the developers plan to integrate Mozilla F1 into the upcoming Firefox 5 web browser which is currently slated for a mid-2011 release.

Mozilla F1 can be installed directly on the official project website over at Mozilla Messaging.

Extension Options Menu is a Firefox add-on that provides quick access to all option pages and windows of installed Firefox extensions.

A new entry is added to the Tools menu by default which offers faster access to the extension configuration pages.

A click on an entry in the new context window opens the options page or window in the web browser. It is furthermore possible to add quick access to the options menu to one of the Firefox toolbars. This is done by right-clicking free space in one of the visible Firefox toolbars and selecting Customize from the options in the context menu.

A new window opens with icons. It is now necessary to locate Extension Options (should be located near the end of the listing) and drag and drop the icon to the desired location in one of the toolbars.

Placing the icon in one of the toolbars improves the accessibility further, as it is now possible to access the option windows of all installed extensions with just two clicks. A right-click on the new icon opens the Firefox add-on manager, another handy feature.

Extension Options Menu is exclusively available for Firefox 4. It can be installed directly on the project page at the Firefox extension gallery.

One problem that Firefox 3 users experience is that they cannot access information about the last modification dates of extensions directly in the browser. These information are simply not listed in the Firefox add-on manager or elsewhere.

This has changed in Firefox 4 where it is now possible to display the last updated date with a click on the More link next to each extension.

Firefox 3 users have the option to open the profile folder on the hard drive to evaluate the modification dates directly. Windows users for instance will likely use Windows Explorer to see those dates. While it is possible to do that it is usually not that comfortable, and inexperienced users will have a hard time finding the profile folder in first place.

Long time reader Jojo just emailed me another option. The Firefox extension Extension List Dumper offers to dump information about all installed extensions in the web browser.

The new export option is displayed in the Firefox add-ons manager. A click on the new button Dump List opens the menu shown in the screenshot above.

It is then up to the user to select the information that should be included in the export. Available among others are the program name, version, url, date and install date.

The last two display the modification date and the date the extension was installed.

Information can be exported in a variety of file formats, including text, html and csv.

Extension List Dumper can be a handy extension for Firefox users who want to troubleshoot issues in the browser, providing of course that the browser is still starting up.

One way to resolve that issue is the ImageFit add-on for Firefox which has been designed for exactly that purpose. The extension “resizes large images in forum post and webpages” to automatically fit the layout of the site. It “shrinks images down to sit neatly within the existing layout of the page, using the surrounding elements as a guide”.

The developer has created a demonstration page. The effect is best demonstrated by visiting the page once without the extension installed, and then again with it installed.

The image breaks the layout without the extension. A horizontal scroll bar is displayed on the screen which is needed to view the full image on the screen.

The same page with Image Fit installed and activated looks the following way:

The add-on improves the usability of web forums and websites where images that break the layout are often posted. ImageFit is compatible with all Firefox 3 and Firefox 4 releases.

A right-click on the entry and the selection of About Default Manager 2.2 reveals that it is a Microsoft extension. No further information are provided on the other hand how it was installed in Firefox.

default manager 22

No information is provided on the extension’s purpose, which surely leaves many Firefox users puzzled about how the extension was installed and what service it provides.

microsoft default manager 22

A search on both Bing and Google reveals no relevant entries for Default Manager 2.2. A broader search for Default Manager links it to Microsoft’s Search Enhancement pack, the same pack that installs the Search Helper Extension in Firefox.

The Uninstall A Programs Control Panel applet revealed that a Microsoft Default Manager was installed yesterday, the same day that Windows Live Essentials Beta was installed on the test system.

microsoft default manager

Uninstalling the Microsoft Desktop Manager from the system removes the Firefox extension as well. To verify the finding we installed Windows Live Essentials beta again. A restart of Firefox after the installation confirmed the findings. The Firefox add-on Default Manager 2.2 was once again installed in the web browser.

There are still two questions remaining:

• What’s the purpose of installing the Default Manager 2.2 extension in Firefox
• Why is there still no option in Firefox to ask the user before new extensions are installed this way.

Have you discovered other extensions that are installed with your consent? Let us know in the comments

Back in 2008 we reviewed a Firefox add-on called Text Area Resizer & Mover which did a great job of resizing textareas. Not only the ones that were to small but also the ones that were to big. It was even possible to move the textarea but this often caused problems with the site layout.

Textarea++ is a new experimental add-on for the Firefox web browser that offers a similar functionality except for moving textareas on the screen. It has a few aces up its sleeve though making it interesting enough to justify a review. Textareas can be resized by simply moving the mouse cursor to the lower right corner. The textarea can then be increased or decreased in size. The developer claims that it works with all textareas even those that are loaded dynamically and we have not found a textarea during our tests that would make that claim invalid.

Another interesting option is the addition of a scrollbar for textareas where more text than the visible limit can handle has been entered. This scrollbar is added even if scrollbar functionality has been locked by the webmaster.

Textarea++ is an interesting add-on for users who regularly post on websites that offer an improper textarea for that task. Users who prefer a bookmarklet find the Form Text Resizer bookmarklet at The Man In Blue page. And there are also quite a few userscripts, for example that by Julien Couvreur that provide a similar functionality.

Update: Textarea++ has been discontinued. Firefox users can instead install the Resizable Textarea add-on.

The Greasemonkey Compiler is an online tool that can be used to convert Greasemonkey userscripts into Firefox add-ons. One of the main advantages of Firefox add-ons is that they do not require the Greasemonkey extension to be installed. This makes it also easier to distribute the script.

The Greasemonkey Compiler is a simple web form. Some of the needed parameters are already filled out automatically including a random GUID and the compatible Firefox versions. They can be edited easily to keep the Greasemonkey script compatible with future Firefox versions.

All that needs to be done is to paste the complete source code of the Greasemonkey script into the User Script text form on the website. A click on Compile will create a Firefox add-on based on the uscript with the xpi extension. This add-on can then be installed in the Firefox web browser where it will provide the same functionality that the Greasemonkey script would offer.

There are two problems associated with the conversion of Greasemonkey scripts into Firefox add-ons using the Greasemonkey Compiler. Options that might have been provided by the Greasemonkey script are not carried over into the Firefox add-on. This can be problematic for some scripts that can be configured. The second problem is that the script has to be updated manually by performing the same conversion with a newer version of the script.

The Firefox add-on basically offers two options to optimize the SQLite database. The first option will remind the Firefox user every x starts to clean the SQLite databases by displaying an icon in the Firefox status bar.

The second option, which is probably more comfortable to most users, is the option to clean the SQLite databases every x startups of the Firefox web browser. This means that the optimization will be run automatically. Both numbers can be changed in the options of the add-on to increase or decrease the number of startups that are required before the reminder or optimization takes place.

Vacuum Places Improved is compatible with Firefox 3.5 and later and can be downloaded from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

The Firefox extension will automatically display an Edit button in the lower right corner of every text form on websites. A click on the Edit button will launch the external text editor which can then be used to write the text. Saving the text in the text editor will send it over to the web form in the web browser. It is then possible to continue editing the text in the text editor or to send the web form in Firefox. A backup copy is always at hand as long as the text editor window remains open.

The default text editor will have to be selected at first use. A few other options are available in the add-on’s settings including moving the Edit button to a different location, the character set or defining a hotkey for the process.

It’s all text is available for Firefox 3.x at the Mozilla Firefox website.

The shortcut [CTRL F] allows them to search in the active tab but that’s about it. The following article contains three interesting and hopefully useful Firefox tips that improve the local search in the Firefox web browser. Two of the tips are add-ons for the web browser while the last is a setting that provides smoother access to the local search options.

Tip 1: Getting rid of [CTRL F]

The first tip is a basic tip but nonetheless helpful for users who search on pages regularly. Firefox offers an option to start the search on the page immediately without having to press CTRL F first.

Users who want to change to the faster way of searching on a page can do so by opening the Firefox options, switching to the advanced tab in the options and checking the Search for test when I start typing box. It is from then on possible to perform a search on the same page by simply typing the search term.

Tip 2: Search in all open tabs

The Find in tabs add-on provides another interesting search option. It allows Firefox users to search in all open tabs instead of just the active tab. This can be pretty useful for users who do research and have multiple tabs open on the same subject.

Find In Tabs

Tip 3 Smart Find Add-on

The Smart Find add-on adds another interesting option to the Firefox search option. It can find words related to the search phrase which is extremely helpful if words (either the search phrase or the phrase on the website) has been misspelled.

Smart Find

Do you know other tips or Firefox add-ons that improve the local search in the web browser? Let us know in the comments.

Tab Navigator introduces an ingenious method that should remind Windows users of the Alt Tab navigation in their operating system. The Firefox add-on enables the keyboard shortcuts [ALT W] and [ALT R] which can be used to open a small window and navigate to all tabs pressing the W or R keys repeatedly. The keys that are used to power this new function can be changed in the add-on’s options. It is possible to use a combination of CTRL, ALT, Shift plus one other key on the keyboard for each function.

This is important for users who make use of other add-ons that use these keyboard shortcuts (the Last Pass password manager for example uses [ALT W] to open the site search window. Another interesting option that is provided by the add-on is the ability to enable thumbnail previews of open tabs. The thumbnail preview size is set to 400 pixel with the option to decrease or increase the size in the options.

The main benefit of tab navigator is the use of only one hand to switch to another tab. Tab Navigator is an experimental add-on for the Firefox web browser. It can be download from the official Mozilla Firefox website.

Webmail Notifier is without doubt one of the most popular Firefox email notification add-ons. It supports a wide variety of email services with some already build into the add-on and others available as userscripts.

Webmail services that can be configured right away include Google Mail (Gmail), Yahoo Mail or Live Mail (with msn, live and hotmail). Userscripts are available for GMX, Web.de, Lycos, Fastmail, QQ and Orkut among others.

New email accounts can be added in the options of the add-on after installation. The users only need to add the username and password of the email account.

Some options are available that include the frequency of email checks and if alerts should notify the user if new or unread emails have been received.

Userscripts can also be added in the options. Several userscripts to add new email providers are available at the developer’s homepage.

The Firefox add-on can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

That’s where the new Firefox add-on History Tree comes into play. History Tree can generated a tree structure from the Firefox history in realtime. It can either visualize the history of one tab at a time or all tabs at once.

The name and time of each website are displayed in rectangles on the screen. Connections visualize that websites have been opened after each other. A color code is being used to provide additional information:

• Orange: Active Firefox Tab
• Yellow: Open Tabs
• Blue: Closed Tabs
• White: Pages that can be accessed with the back and forward buttons in Firefox
• Gray: Pages that cannot be accessed with the back and forward buttons

A click on the question mark will display a preview screenshot of the selected website on the same screen while a click on the triangle hides the sub-pages from the display and replacing them with a number representing their amount. Websites can be opened by left-clicking on their boxes in the history tree window.

Filters are available on top to display specific tabs only. Those can be open tabs, open pages, selected tabs or closed tabs. A search aids the user in finding information faster.

It is furthermore possible to change the tree view to a thumbnail view of the visited websites instead. This will display all websites as thumbnail images in the same window.

History Tree distinguishes between different Firefox windows, something that the default Firefox history manager is not offering as it only displays a combination of all visited pages regardless of the window they have been opened in.

One thing that would be nice would be the configuration of a default action when left-clicking on a thumbnail or box in the History Tree window so that users could open sites with just one click instead of having to work with the selection box all the time.

The SortPlaces add-on adds many important sorting options plus the incredibly useful option to automatically sort new bookmarks according to the sorting parameters that the user defined in the add-on’s options.

The Firefox add-on distinguishes between menu, toolbar and unfiled bookmarks and offers different settings for each bookmarking category. Nine different sorting options are available in each category including sorting them by name, url, visit count, keyword or date added. The sorting order can be reversed in the same menu and it is possible to define the sort order for queries, folders, livemarks and bookmarks as well. By default queries appear above folders which appear above livemarks and bookmarks.

It is furthermore possible to enable automatic bookmark sorting and to include or exclude bookmarks or bookmark folders from the operation. It usually did not take longer than a second to sort through individual bookmark folders with dozens of bookmarks. A complete run on the other end did not seem to end at all. Maybe it is broken or maybe it is just taking very long. SortPlaces is nevertheless a great add-on for users who want to sort their bookmarks in a certain order that is not offered by default.

The add-on is actually not only compatible with Firefox but also with the email client Thunderbird and other Mozilla based applications such as Seamonkey, Songbird or Flock. The extension will automatically change the mouse scrolling speed in the application it was installed in.

The options of the add-on provide access to very extensive parameters that can be used to fine tune the scroll speed. Available are both basic and advanced settings.Basic mode contains settings to change the speed and step size. Speed ranges from very slow to turbo while the step size ranges from 1/10 page to 1 page or 10 pixels to 500 pixels. It might take a few tries before the ideal scroll speed settings can be found but it is very well worth it in the long run.

Holding down the alt or shift key will increase or respectively decrease the scrolling step size to allow for a bigger or smaller scrolling area. Additional options are available in the basic settings window like enabling the same scrolling speed when using the computer keyboard to scroll. The advanced settings on the other hand can be configured to change adaptive duration and steps and a fps limit. SmoothWheel is a great add-on for users who are not satisfied with the mouse scrolling behavior of Firefox or other Mozilla software programs.

Yahoo Downloader is another Firefox extension that has been designed to download videos from portals like Youtube, Yahoo or CNN but also music from sites like Pandora, Last.fm or Imeem. Probably the most interesting feature for many users is the ability to automatically download videos from these websites.

The Firefox add-on places an icon in the Firefox address bar. Some users might not like the location of the icon as it is placed on the left side of the address bar. This can however be easily changed by right-clicking blank space on that toolbar and selecting the customize option. The Yahoo Downloader icon can then be dragged and dropped to another location, toolbar or even removed completely as it is not needed for most of the functionality.

A left-click on the icon will display the window of the download that will list all the videos that have been discovered in open tabs in the Firefox web browser.A click on the download it button will start the download. This can be automated if automatic downloads have been enabled in the options of the Firefox add-on. This setting makes it very comfortable to download youtube videos or videos and music from the other supported audio and video portals.

All videos will be downloaded to a location on the local computer system which can also be changed in the options of the add-on. Yahoo Downloader is a great add-on for users who download many videos or music and want to automate the process as much as possible.

The core option that the add-on provides is a menu that is displayed when user’s right-click on the bookmark star icon in the Firefox address bar (at the right side). A left-click on the icon adds the active page to the browser’s bookmarks. The right-click menu gives the user direct options to store the bookmark in a particular bookmark folder. The star option in contrast places bookmarks automatically in the unsorted bookmarks folder.

The bookmarks menu is expanded and offers way more comfort than the default one.

The expanded bookmarks menu will be displayed all the time. The add-on will also add a Add Bookmark Here option to all bookmark folders which is especially useful for those located in on of the Firefox toolbars as it means that it is possible to add bookmarks to a specific bookmark folder with just two clicks. It is possible to hide some of the features of the add-on in the options. It is for example possible to remove the Add Bookmark here menu from the bookmark folders or to place it at the bottom instead of the top.

Add Bookmark Here is an interesting add-on for users who bookmark regularly. (Thanks Roman for the tip)

Firefox users have another possibility in the form of the Firefox History Block add-on. This add-on allows to specify websites or domains that should not be added to the Firefox history. Every other website and domain is added to the Firefox history normally.

New websites and domains can be added by simply opening the options in the Firefox add-on menu which gives users the opportunity to block urls from being displayed in the Firefox history. The very same menu offers the means to unblock websites the same way they are blocked. There is unfortunately no way of managing the list of blocked add-ons more easily. There is no way of displaying the blocked websites and domains at the moment.

The Block History add-on is available at the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

The Firefox add-on External Application Buttons mod changes this as it allows Firefox users to add software links right in the web browser. Using the add-on is unfortunately a bit complicated, at least at the beginning. There is no visual sign of the add-on after installation.

What the Firefox user needs to do is to right-click on empty space in the Firefox toolbar and select customize. There should be a new item called applications in there which has to be dragged to one of the Firefox toolbars. There is apparently no icon for that item which means that it will show up as blank space in the toolbar at first.

A right-click on that blank space will open a context menu with the option to add a button to the toolbar. This will open a file browser giving the user the option to select any executable file from the computer system. The icon of that software program will then be displayed in the location in the toolbar. It is possible to add multiple icons (one after the other) until all program icons that should be launched from within the Firefox web browser are displayed there.

A click on a software icon in the toolbar will launch the application on the computer system. The add-on is working with all Firefox 3.x versions and can be downloaded from the Mozilla website.

Update: Forgot to mention that some advanced properties become available after adding a link to the Firefox toolbar. It is for instance possible to change the icon size, create a keyboard shortcut or set arguments for the application launch.

Update 2: The add-on has been removed from the Mozilla Firefox add-on repository. There does not seem to be a comparable solution at this point in time.