gHacks technology news » firefox tips

Tab Preview Features In Firefox 3.6

Martin — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 15:12:05 +0000

Mozilla has integrated several new tab preview features in the recent release of Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 which were initially planned to be integrated into earlier release versions of Firefox 3. Even more problematic than the late implementation of this features is the fact that they are not enabled by default in the web browser. Lets take a closer look at the new tab preview features in Firefox 3.6. It has to be noted that this features are not available in previous versions of the web browser.

browser.allTabs.previews

Enabling this preview feature in the advanced Firefox configuration will add a new button to the right side of the Firefox tabbar. This button, when pressed, will display an overlay window that contains thumbnail previews of all open tabs in Firefox. A click on any tab thumbnail will make that tab the active one in the web browser.

browser.ctrlTab.previews

Enabling this parameter in the advanced configuration will change the default CTRL-Tab feature in Firefox. If you press CTRL-Tab by default in Firefox the browser will cycle through the open tabs in the web browser.The new feature, when enabled, will display a visual tab switcher that is displaying thumbnail images of the current and the five most recent tabs with an option to quickly flip through them by pressing Ctrl-Tab again. The same preview contains an option to display all open tabs.

The very same configuration changes the default behavior of pressing Ctrl-Tab once. It will now switch back to the last tab that was in focus instead of offering the option to cycle through all tabs in the browser.

Do the following to enable one or both of the new features:

Enter about:config in the Firefox address bar, promise that you will be careful and filter for the term previews. This should bring up several parameters with the two mentioned above in the list.

A double-click on either of the parameters will change the default value false to true. The feature is instantly active and can therefor be tested right away.

Tags: firefox, firefox 3.6, firefox tabs, firefox tips

Prioritize Tabs In Firefox

Martin — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 07:28:56 +0000

It is possible to load several websites in different tabs or windows at once in Firefox. This can happen after a session restore for example where all websites that had been open before are loaded again, while opening a bookmark folder with all its bookmarks, using add-ons like Snap Links to open multiple websites at once or by loading multiple links manually in new tabs or windows.

Firefox by default will not prioritize any of the links. The Firefox developer’s now thought that it might make sense to prioritize certain tabs in Firefox. Why would that make sense? The active tab for example is the tab that the user is currently looking at. Should not that active tab load faster than tabs that are not in the focus of the user?

That’s basically what the experimental Firefox add-on mozNetworkPrioritizer tries to accomplish. It prioritizes tabs based on their status based on the following order:

Selected Tab in a Focused Window
Background Tab in a Focused Window & Selected Tab in a Background Window
Background Tab in a Background Window
Any Tab in a Minimized Window

The add-on will speed up the loading of websites from top to bottom. The developer of the extension shared his experience at his website.

Initial results showed some improvement when loading large groups of tabs. It was most noticeable when loading many tabs from the same site (e.g. the default BBC livemarks). It was somewhat noticeable during a typical (for me) session restore. There was no difference during normal browsing

The Firefox add-on is available at the Mozilla website if you want to give it a try.

Tags: firefox, firefox add-ons, firefox priority, firefox tips, mozilla-firefox, web browser

Recover Firefox Master Password With FireMaster

Martin — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 10:46:45 +0000

The Firefox Master Password is a security option in the Firefox web browser that password protects saved login information in the web browser. These login information can be accessed directly in the web browser if no master password has been set.

We reviewed FireMaster back in 2007. The principle to recover the Firefox master password has remained the same but the options to recover it have been improved. FireMaster is compatible with the latest version of the Firefox web browser. It uses brute force, dictionary attacks or a hybrid of both methods to recover the Firefox master password.

The command line tool requires the key3.db file which stores the master password information. The tool uses the following method to recover the password.

FireMaster generates passwords on the fly through various methods.
Then it computes the hash of the password using known algorithm.
Next this password hash is used to decrypt the encrypted data for known plain text (i.e. “password-check”).
Now if the decrypted string matches with the known plain text (i.e. “password-check”) then the generated password is the master password.

The success rate of the available methods depends largely on the Firefox master password. One interesting feature is the ability to specify known parts of the password in the command line argument.

FireMaster.exe -b -c "abyz" -l 12 -p "fire?????123" c:\testpath

This command above will perform a brute force crack using the character set abyz. The minimum password length has been set to 12 in this example and the password begins with fire and ends with 123. The path at the end points to the key3.db file that contains the master password information.

Firemaster is compatible with all official versions of Firefox and runs on Windows operating systems.

Tags: firefox master password, firefox password, firefox tips, firemaster, master password, restore master password

Three Local Firefox Search Tips

Martin — Tue, 18 Aug 2009 14:51:29 +0000

Firefox users have an almost unmanageable amount of add-ons, bookmarklets, user scripts and other tools for searching the Internet at their disposal. The choice is however severely limited when it comes to local searches. Local meaning searches on websites that are currently displayed in the Firefox web browser.

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.

Tags: firefox, firefox add-ons, firefox search, firefox tips, firefox-extension, search

Display Firefox Unsorted Bookmarks More Visibly

Martin — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 09:17:01 +0000

The Mozilla development team has introduced several new dynamic bookmark folders in Firefox 3 including the recently bookmarked, unsorted bookmarks or recent tags folders. All but the unsorted bookmarks folder are displayed in the default Firefox bookmarks menu. The unsorted bookmarks folder on the other hand is only visible in the Firefox bookmarks manager. It is unclear why that decision has been made by the developers as it is quite uncomfortable to access the unsorted bookmarks this way. Remember that new bookmarks that get added by clicking on the star in the Firefox address bar appear in the unsorted bookmarks folder.

There are actually two possible solutions to display the unsorted bookmarks folder more visibly. The first option is to go into the Firefox bookmarks manager by pressing [CTRL Shift B] and dragging and dropping the unsorted bookmarks folder into a different location. This can be either one of the toolbars or a location in the visible Firefox bookmarks menu.

The second option is to add a new bookmark in the location the unsorted bookmarks folder should appear and add the following line as the location:

place:folder=UNFILED_BOOKMARKS

The name of the bookmark can be anything. It might be required to restart Firefox before the folder is accessible in the web browser. Dragging and dropping the unsorted bookmarks folder is probably the best way of adding the unsorted bookmarks folder to another location.

Tags: bookmarks, firefox, firefox special folders, firefox tips, firefox unsorted bookmarks, unsorted bookmarks, web browser

Make Tabs Permanent In Firefox

Martin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 16:32:02 +0000

Firefox by default handles all tabs the same way. A tab gets closed if a user presses the close button, no matter if that action was intended or not. It is also true that new websites get loaded in the active tab under certain circumstances which is another thing that some users might want to avoid in certain situations. The PermaTabs Mod add-on for the Firefox web browser can make tabs in the web browser permanent so that they cannot be closed by normal means. The default setting disables the right-click close tab button, nullifies the action of the close tab icon at the end of the Firefox tabbar and ignores the close all other tabs command for permanent tabs. In short, it makes it impossible to close the tab unless the permanency of it is disabled beforehand.

The permanent tabs are loaded automatically when starting Firefox with the difference that their contents are loaded when the user first accesses the tabs in the tabbar. Permanent tabs can be displayed in a different color to make their identification easier for the user. New permanent tabs can be added by right-clicking a tab and selecting the Permatab option from the menu. This is also the way to undo the action so that the tab once again behaves like any other tab in Firefox.

The PermaTabs Mod is a great way to add indestructible tabs to the Firefox browser which should be interesting for users who work with the same basic set of websites all the time. It could for example be used to protect services like Gmail, Google Search or an individual website from being closed accidentally. The Tab Mix Plus add-on can protect tabs as well but some users might prefer a solution that is not coming with such a huge feature set.

Tags: firefox, firefox tabs, firefox tips, firefox-add on, mozille firefox, permanent tabs, protect tabs, tabbar, tabs

Save Firefox Bookmark Searches

Martin — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 08:38:30 +0000

If you open the menu to organize (some would call it manage) the Firefox bookmarks you are presented not only with an interface to sort, delete or add bookmarks but also with the possibility to search them. All you need to do is to enter a search term and perform a search in the bookmark’s interface. Firefox will return all bookmarks that match that search term either in the url or title (and probably additional information like tags or descriptions if they exist)

One interesting option that is provided by Firefox is the option to save a search in the Firefox bookmarks. This will create a new dynamic folder in the Firefox bookmark’s menu that will contain all the bookmarks matching the entered search term.

What’s probably even more interesting is the fact that it will automatically display new bookmarks that have been added after performing the search in Firefox if they match the search term. This way it is possible to create a dynamic bookmark folder that will always contain all matching bookmarks of the entered search term. The dynamic folder can be moved into a Firefox toolbar for quick access or to any other location that can display Firefox bookmarks folders.

Tags: bookmark search, firefox, firefox bookmarks, firefox tips, mozilla-firefox, save bookmark search, web browser

Speed Up Firefox By Limiting The History

Martin — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:09:17 +0000

The Firefox web browser will save visited websites for a minimum of 90 days and a maximum of 180 days in the Firefox history by default. The hard limit is set to 40000 websites that are stored in the History. When that limit is reached old history entries will be deleted from the database that contains all the visited websites. Some users have experienced massive startup problems if their Firefox history database contains lots of entries.

Some users, especially those with the Google Toolbar installed, experienced a huge history database that had a size of several hundreds Megabytes. A good way of speeding up the Firefox web browser is to limit the history that it records.

Most users know that it is possible to change the minimum days the history is stored in the Firefox options. What only a few know is that there are additional settings in the about:config dialog that make it possible to change the hard limit and the maximum days a website is kept in the history.

To speed up Firefox by limiting the history do the following: Open a new web browser tab and load the page [about:config]. Now filter for the term [browser.history] and locate the following three parameters:

browser.history_expire_days: The maximum days that Firefox stores websites in the history database. (default 180)
browser.history_expire_days_min: The minimum days that Firefox stores websites in the history database (default 90)
browser.history_expire_sites: Defines the hard limit (that is the maximum) of websites that are stored in the Firefox history. Reducing the amount from 40000 to a lower value can help a lot.

Reducing both the minimum and maximum values to a lower number can improve the performance of the web browser especially during startup. There are no perfect values which means that the user has to experiment a bit to find the values best suited for the browsing situation. Suggested values are 7,14,28 or 56 days for both settings. Users who want to get rid of the history completely need to use 0 as the value in both parameters.

Restarting the web browser after changing the parameters should get rid of the websites that exceed the maximum that has been set by the user. It might be needed to optimize the SQLite database after the procedure to ensure that the database is not fragmented because of this change.

Tags: firefox, firefox history, firefox speed up, firefox tips, history, limit history, mozilla-firefox, speed up firefox, web browser

Change The Default Email Client In Firefox

Martin — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 07:40:00 +0000

Many Firefox users do not know that they can change the default email client in the web browser easily. What even fewer know is that it is even possible to not only select desktop email clients but also the web based email providers Yahoo Mail or Gmail as the default provider for all mailto links.

The mailto links in the format mailto:email@example.com are launched with the default application that has been set in the Firefox web browser. To change that one needs to open the options of the web browser. Windows users go to Tools > Options to open the Firefox options.

Users then need to locate the applications tab and filter for the term mailto. The menu should then look pretty much like the menu in the screenshot above. They then need to click on the pulldown menu on the right side to change the default email client in Firefox. Displayed are the current email client, the web based email clients Yahoo Mail and Gmail, the option to always ask the user and to select another email client not on the list.

The last option opens the file browser which makes it possible to select an executable on the computer system. It is therefor possible to select installed and portable email clients on the local computer system. It does feel a bit strange that neither Windows Live Mail nor Aol Mail are available from the menu.

Tags: email client, email provider, firefox, firefox mailto, firefox tips, gmail, yahoo mail

Force Firefox To Open Links In Same Tab

Martin — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 09:03:15 +0000

One of the great annoyances on the Internet are links that are configured to open in new links or tabs. Outbound links, which means links that point to another domain, are usually prime targets for this method of linking but there are also cases that links on the same domain open up in new tabs or windows. The Firefox web browser comes with a set of options to open links in new tabs or windows but no obvious ones to prevent that from happening.

To open a link in a new window or tab one would simply right-click the link and select the appropriate option from the context menu. Users who like keyboard shortcuts can press the Ctrl key for opening links in new tabs or the Shift key to open them in new windows.

Thankfully though there is a parameter in the Firefox configuration that allows Firefox users to force the web browser to open links in the same tab unless one of the previously mentioned ways of opening links in new tabs or windows is selected.

Users who want to change this behavior need to type in [about:config] in a tab in the Firefox web browser. This should open the Firefox configuration. First time users need to accept a disclaimer. They then need to filter for the term [browser.link.open_newwindow]. The default value of that entry is [3] which opens links that would normally open in a new window in a new tab.

To force Firefox to open links (no matter if they have been designed to open in a new tab or window) in the same tab one would need to change the value to [1] which will open all links that would normally open in a new window in the same tab. Changing the value to [2] would open new windows in a new window (duh).

Update:

Just noticed that changing the value to 1 does affect links that are opened in external applications as well. These links will now open in the active tab and not a new tab.

Tags: firefox, firefox links, firefox tips, mozilla-firefox, web browser

Hide The Firefox Tabbar

Martin — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 15:22:06 +0000

The Firefox tabbar is always visible in the web browser unless it is permanently deactivated in the View menu. It does not really make sense to deactivate it unless there is never more than one website open on the computer system. What’s missing is an easy way of hiding the Firefox tabbar when it is not needed and displaying it again when it is.

That’s exactly what the experimental Firefox add-on Hide Tabbar is doing. Hide Tabbar works by configuring a keyboard shortcut to hide and display the tabbar in the web browser. The default combination has been set to CTRL F11 which is not that comfortable as it can only be accessed with both hands.

The keyboard shortcut can be changed easily in the options of the add-on so that only one hand is needed to hide and display the tabbar in Firefox. Hide Tabbar offers an auto-hide function as well which will automatically hide the Firefox tabbar after a certain time. The tabbar will be displayed again if the user hovers the mouse cursor over the area were it was initially displayed.

Hide Tabbar is an experimental add-on for the Firefox web browser that is compatible with all versions of Firefox.

Tags: firefox add-ons, firefox tabbar, firefox tabs, firefox tips, hide tabbar, tabbar, web browser

Disable Location-Aware Browsing (Geolocation) In Firefox

Martin — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 12:26:25 +0000

The next installment of the Firefox web browser comes with a new location-aware browsing (geolocation) feature that is enabled by default. Geolocation makes it possible to identify the user’s location in the world based on data such as the computer’s IP address. It has to be noted that messages will be displayed whenever the user opens a website that makes use of the new location-aware browsing feature. The message looks similar to those when installing add-ons from third party websites and basically gives the user the choice to allow or disallow the gelocation service on that specific website.

A click on the Share Location button will share the current location with the website while a click on Don’t Share will prevent it.

To be precise, the following information will be send to the website:

Your computer’s IP address,
Information about the nearby wireless access points, and
A random client identifier, which is assigned by Google, that expires every 2 weeks.

Firefox users who never intend to use the geolocation feature might want to disable it permanently. This can be done easily by typing [about:config] in the Firefox address bar to open the Firefox configuration. The feature can now be disabled by entering [geo.enabled] into the Filter form at the top and pressing the enter key. The geo.enabled parameter should now be displayed. The easiest way to disable geolocation is to double-click the entry so that the Value displays false afterwards.

You find more information about geolocation on the Location-Aware browsing page over at Mozilla which also explains how to get remove permissions that have already been granted to websites and the random client identification number.

Tags: firefox geolocation, firefox tips, geolocation, location-aware browsing, mozilla-firefox, web browser

Quick Jump To Text Fields In Firefox

Martin — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 14:02:22 +0000

While some websites like Google Search set the focus on their text fields automatically it is avoided on other websites either because the webmaster does not know that such a feature exists or because of reasons kept secret. Search engines should auto-focus on the main text field, period. While not all users tend to agree on this stance it surely becomes helpful if you perform dozens of searches in a browsing session.

While there is no known way of automatically jumping to the first text field on a page if the option is not enabled at the website itself there is a way to make the procedure less complicated and mouse-less. Pressing tab will flip through the elements on a website. By default all elements – this includes links and forms – will be focused when pressing the tab key. There is however the possibility to alter that setting in the web browser’s options to only focus on text fields on the active website.

The setting can be changed in the about:config parameters of Firefox. To open these settings enter about:config in the Firefox address bar and hit enter. If this is the first time that you access the options you need to press the I’ll be careful button before to continue.

Filter for the setting accessibility.tabfocus.

Double-click the entry to change the parameter to one of the following:

7 – Default value. Jumps to any form and link element on the page.
1 – Will only jump to text fields.
2 – Will only jump to form elements other than text fields.
3 – Will jump to all form fields.
4 – Will only jump to links.

Changing the setting from 7 to 1 will have the desired effect. Pressing tab on any website will now focus the first text field on the website.

Update: There is a Greasemonkey script that can enable the behavior on specific websites automatically.

Tags: firefox, firefox tips, focus, jump to form, mozilla-firefox, tabfocus, web browser

Firefox 3 Site Specific Zoom

Martin — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 08:14:44 +0000

The last article about Firefox’s zoom capabilities received several interesting comments about the zoom function. What many users who commented did not know was that the zooming behavior changed in Firefox 3. It is still possible to zoom in or out of a website using keyboard shortcuts or the Firefox menu but observant visitors will notice that the zoom level seems to get saved on a per-domain basis. This means that the actual zoom level will always be saved in Firefox 3 and therefor be displayed whenever the user visits a page on the domain.

In short: Firefox 3 will remember the current zoom level and display any page on the domain in it. This can lead to all kinds of troubles if a user does not know that Firefox 3 stores that setting. There is however a new parameter in the Firefox configuration that can be changed to disable the automatic storage of zoom levels in Firefox 3.

Type [about:config] in the Firefox 3 location bar and filter for the following term: browser.zoom.siteSpecific. The default value for the parameter is true which means that the feature is enabled. To disable it simply double-click the entry so that it changes to false. This has the effect that Firefox 3 will not remember the zoom level and display all websites in default view.

Tags: firefox 3, firefox tips, firefox zoom, mozilla-firefox, remember zoom, size specific zoom, zoom page, zoom website

How To Zoom In Firefox

Martin — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 16:55:46 +0000

I recently had two conversations with Firefox users who did not know that Firefox came with the means to zoom in and out of a website. They were using external applications to magnify parts of the screen and where surprised that they could achieve the same effect with less work.

All of the zooming options are available from the View menu in Firefox. Firefox users find options to zoom in, zoom out and restore the default level in the Zoom submenu there. There is also one additional option to change the default zoom behavior to only zoom the text of a website. The default behavior is to zoom all elements of a website. Not many users will use the View > Zoom menu though to zoom in Firefox. It simply takes to long which is why the same effect can be achieved with keyboard shortcuts:

Zoom in: [CTRL +] or [CTRL Mousewheel up]
Zoom out: [CTRL -] or [CTRL Mousewheel down]
Reset Zoom: [CTRL 0]

The keyboard shortcuts come in really handy if you stumble upon badly designed websites or those that use images or other elements that are barely decipherable in default view. The only thing that one should realize is that the zoom level works on a domain basis. Multiple pages of the same domain that are opened in different tabs will all be effected by the zoom.

Tags: firefox magnifier, firefox tips, firefox zoom, firefox zooming, mozilla-firefox, web browser, zoom

Remove Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant From Firefox

Martin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 21:02:33 +0000

If you take a look at the installed add-ons in Firefox you might notice an add-on called Microsoft .net Framework Assistant. That add-on is different from most other installed add-ons. The first thing that you will notice is that you cannot uninstall it as the uninstall option is inactive in Firefox. You might also realize that you did not install that add-on actively which means it must have been installed by another application.

The Firefox Extension Guru posted a walkthrough on how to remove the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant. It basically comes down to the following steps (it might be a good idea to backup all data before proceeding).

Make sure Firefox is closed.
Go to C:\WINDOWS\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v3.5\Windows Presentation Foundation\DotNetAssistantExtension in Windows Explorer and delete everything in that folder but keep the folder name.
Start Firefox. The add-on should not be in the list anymore.
Type about:config in the Firefox address bar.
Filter for the entry general.useragent.extra.microsoftdotnet
Right-click that entry and select Reset

The process is apparently a bit more complicated for Firefox 3.1 beta versions as the Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant is not yet compatible with that version of Firefox and thus not completely installed.

Tags: firefox, firefox 3, firefox add-ons, firefox microsoft .net, firefox tips, firefox-add on, Microsoft .Net Framework Assistant, remove firefox add-on

Greasemonkey No Scripts Installed

Martin — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 09:30:32 +0000

It can happen that the Firefox Greasemonkey extension is displaying the message “No Scripts Installed” even if you have installed a script a second ago or already use Greasemonkey scripts. Some users might suspect that they need to restart the browser or at least refresh the page before the new Greasemonkey script is shown as installed.

That is however no the case. One of the main principles of Greasemonkey is that the scripts are site specific. They might work on multiple sites but they are usually limited to less than ten sites in total.

Greasemonkey is displaying “No Scripts Installed” because the script has not been designed for the currently active website. To see that a script has been installed the user needs to visit a site it is compatible with.

Only there will he be able to use it and configure it if the script provides that functionality.

Tags: firefox, firefox tips, firefox-add on, firefox-extension, greasemonkey, greasemonkey script, no scripts installed, userscripts

Firefox Password Revealer

Martin — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 09:37:08 +0000

Use long secure passwords. That’s what they say. Did you ever try to type in a secure password with a length of 25+ characters several times because the web form would not accept it? Since you do not see what you type you cannot easily identify what went wrong. Even more so because the password will obviously be removed when the form pops up again. It could be related to several things. A typing error, numlock, shift-lock, a wireless keyboard with problems or site problems. Most tech savvy users try to enter the password again thinking that they made a typing error before they start investigating why it is not accepted.

One of the easiest ways to do that would be to compare the entered password with the correct password. To do that the entered password has to be revealed and that is what the Firefox password Revealer Show Passwords does. (another way to make sure the right password is entered is to type it the address bar in Firefox and copy paste it into the password field).

Show Passwords adds an icon to the Firefox Status Bar that will change the behavior of Firefox password forms when activated. Password forms are usually showing asterisks instead of the real characters, Show Passwords changes that behavior and turns the asterisks into visible characters again.

All that needs to be done to verify a password is to enter it, click on the button of the Firefox password revealer and compare it with the correct password. All password forms will show the real characters instead of asterisks from that moment on. Another click on the button in the Status Bar will change the behavior again to the default one so that asterisks are shown in password forms.

Tags: firefox, firefox browser, firefox tips, firefox-add on, firefox-extension, firefpx password, password form, show password

Load Websites With Hotkeys In Firefox

Martin — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 11:47:20 +0000

Web browsers usually offer several ways on how to access websites quickly. Users can type in the url, assign keywords to urls or use their bookmarks to do that. Something that has not been on the radar yet is the ability to use hotkeys to launch websites. It is actually a very good question why no web browser is offering that feature yet. What’s easier and faster than opening a website with a keyboard shortcut?

Site Launcher is a Firefox add-on that adds this functionality to the web browser. It does that in two ways. The first is by proving access [via CTRL SPACE] to an overlay menu which displays the configured websites that can be launched from there. Each website is assigned a single key on the keyboard which has to be pressed to launch it.

The second method [via ALT SHIFT KEY] is there for keyboard junkies who prefer to press one hotkey for the same effect. Adding websites to the Firefox extension is easy. It is possible to open the Site Launcher Manager right away and add websites manually or add websites directly when they are loaded in the active tab.

It is furthermore possible to change the default hotkeys if other combinations suite you better.

It does not really matter which way you choose as you can modify all parameters afterwards. You have to enter a key, a title and an url to add a new website to the application. Each key can only be added once to Site Launcher. There is also only room for lower case characters.

Each website that is opened this way will be opened in a new tab by default. This behavior can be changed in the extensive options. It is possible to change the appearance of the menu and other functionality in there.

Tags: firefox, firefox tips, firefox-add on, hotkey launcher, mozilla, mozilla-firefox, site launcher, website launcher

Automatically Discover New Greasemonkey Scripts

Martin — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:54:07 +0000

If you like to test and install Greasemonkey scripts on a regular basis you might be regularly hanging out at the Userscripts website which contains the largest collection of Greasemonkey scripts on the Internet. It is not that practical as you have to always head over to the site to search for Greasemonkey scripts for a particular website but it was the only way to discover new scripts. The checks would have to be performed regularly as scripts are added and updated regularly.

The Firefox add-on Greasefire changes this to the better. It integrates itself nicely with the Greasemonkey extension and becomes active on every website for which Greasemonkey scripts are available. The extension maintains a list that gets regularly updated so that new and updated Greasemonkey scripts will be listed when the user takes a look at them

All available Greasemonkey scripts for that specific website will be displayed in a new window that opens when the user right-clicks on the icon in the Firefox status bar and selects the line telling him how many Greasemonkey scripts are available for it.

The manager can then be used to discover the various scripts to find out what they are doing. It is also possible to install them right away or take a look at the source code first to make sure they are not malicious.

Greasefire provides an easy and elegant method of discovering and installing new Greasemonkey scripts in Firefox. Should be definitely worth a test for users who use Greasmonkey or want to start doing so.

Tags: firefox, firefox scripts, firefox tip, firefox tips, firefox-add on, firefox-extension, greasefire, greasemonkey, mozilla-firefox

gHacks technology news » firefox tips

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