June 28, 2009 - 1:15 am
Mozilla Labs has released an important update to Weave, a Firefox extension that aims to synchronizes the complete Firefox user experience among all computers you use and have installed Weave on, including mobile devices running Fennec (available for Windows Mobile and Maemo).
Weave is now capable of synchronizing preferences in addition to tabs, forms, passwords, history and bookmarks as seen in previous versions.It also improves startup performance, provides a better API for extension developers, and most notably, the ability to automatically log into sites, as initially demonstrated last May.
June 24, 2009 - 3:45 pm
Here’s FoxWorld, a modern, elegant Firefox theme by akgo, for those who prefer modern and elegant. Some of the secondary icons still missing, but a very nice approach indeed.
Available at the equally cool and revamped Mozilla Add-ons.
June 20, 2009 - 1:38 am
Mozilla has released Firefox 3.5 RC2, the second release candidate of the next major Firefox upgrade.
If you’ve been following Firefox 3.5 development you may realize there was no RC1 as expected. In fact, this is a new approach Mozilla is taking for this stage. As explained by Mike Beltzner, Firefox product director, basically, the first RC (not as thoroughly tested as a public RC but considered safe) is offered to beta users only so this large audience (around 900K users) can provide feedback while full QA is done on the build. With beta feedback and QA results a second RC is produced, quickly tested (as changes are minimal) and this one is released to the public, which has been the case. In short, RC1 existed but it didn’t make it for public availability.
June 17, 2009 - 12:05 am
Netscape has been dead for a while now, and while probably no one misses it, there is at least an extension that users may want to thank Netscape for: Link Pad.
It consists of an icon in the status bar where you can drop links (or favicons from the site button) to create a list of web pages you want to revisit available from a new sidebar. Yes, it sounds just like bookmarks, but unlike these, it is all kept in a flat list and there’s even an option to automatically clear the links as they are revisited, serving its purpose as a handy link jotter that will help with the bad habit of piling up windows and tabs (hurting performance), your unsorted bookmarks, or both.
May 12, 2009 - 11:49 am
I think I’ve said it before but I’m not a big fan of web services and add-ons that promise text, audio, or video content related to the page I am currently viewing. At the same time I’ve always wanted a PIP (picture in picture) kind of extension so I can keep an eye on a (long) video while I keep browsing around.
Thanks to KwiClick, a Firefox extension (compatible with versions up to 3.5 Beta 4) developed by KwiClick, I can now. Select some text, right click and select KwiClick Search. A floating window will rise with Google search results in a tab, but you can quickly see search results in YouTube, Wikipedia ,Twitter, Facebook and a few others in just a click, all within the floating window, without breaking your browsing flow.
And since you can even play a YouTube video (and rip it) and pin the window so it remains visible at all times, I am now watching an old 1930 video of La Habana, Cuba, as I post this. A keeper for me.
You can get KwiClick from Mozilla Add-ons.
March 27, 2009 - 7:35 pm
Whether you had the first Nintendo Entertainment System or not, FireNES, a Firefox extension developed by Argentinian site FireNES.com.ar, will put all the fun and nostalgia of the 80s video gaming right inside your favorite browser.
FireNES provides a pretty simple interface to vNES, a Java NES emulator that is automatically downloaded and started from the web. A sidebar provides a comprehensive list of virtually all NES game ROMs available on the web, a popular list, and a list of your favorites for quicker access.
The whole experience is a snap: the Java applet loaded very fast as did all the games I tried. Some of them don’t work but still you can play Super Mario Bros., Legend of Zelda, Double Dragon, Castlevania, and others, in their original forms.
Whether it’s legal or not to use FireNES may depend on your country. At the very least it is a good way to try before you buy some title in the Wii’s Virtual Console Store.
March 25, 2009 - 12:16 am
One of several new privacy improvements and features Firefox 3.5 will bring is the ability to forget about a particular web site we have visited. In the Library, we will be able to right click on a history item, select Forget About This Site and Firefox will remove all entries related to that site from your history right away.
You can do the same thing and more with Close’n forget, a Firefox extension developed by Benoit Bailleux. Select Close and erase cookies for the current site from the context menu and you will get the same privacy boost described above.
Even further, you can set it to only have pages visited in the current tab to be forgotten and whether to include or not subdomains.
While an item in the tab context menu seems like a more natural place to access this feature to me, Close’n forget is a handy way to get more control over what Firefox knows about you.
Get if from Mozilla Add-ons.
March 20, 2009 - 12:51 am
There’s now a quicker way to reach you favorite sites. ShortcutKey2URL, a Firefox extension developed by onozaty, lets you define a key you can press to access a site. It’s not a direct shortcut though: you need to press Ctrl + Q or other customizable shortcut before entering the site key or keys.
For added flexibility, SK2URL can open the wanted site in a new tab, reuse the current one, or switch to a tab currently open in the same page.
Strangely, it adds an icon to the location bar which I found to be distracting and unnecessary.
While SK2URL’s functionality can be replicated to some degree using bookmark keywords from the location bar, its ability to do so without clutering your bookmarks folders could be of great help for some users.
ShortcutKey2URL is available at Mozilla Add-ons.
March 19, 2009 - 10:22 am
Forget about clicking the reload button, F5, or right clicking a tab and selecting Reload Tab. The self describing Reload Tab on Double-Click, a Firefox extension developed by Kyo Nagashima, is the way to go for buzzing a rebel site and getting a freshly brewed web page.
So minimal there is no screenshot! Available at Mozilla Add-ons.
January 5, 2009 - 10:09 am
Just in case one of your 2009’s resolutions is to get a new Firefox theme, here’s a suggestion: SKY. Created by Andrew Shay, it gives your web browsing a fresh, glassy look you may enjoy.
A plus! version is already in the works (for 3.1 betas only at this time) that adds a glossy toolbar background.
You can get SKY from Mozilla Add-ons.
