Talkings of a Tyrant

One of the biggest problems with Mozilla Firefox has been incompatible websites.

Or, rather, websites designed only for Internet Explorer. Firefox can’t render sites designed with Microsoft, specifically ActiveX, in mind. This isn’t Firefox’s fault, but rather the lazy web developer’s/web programmer’s/web master’s fault.

Previously, there was no way around this, other than opening up Internet Explorer (IE) and viewing the site from there. No longer.

IE Tab embeds IE into Firefox at your command to allow you to view the website as it would be viewed in Internet Explorer. The browser is the same, the buttons, the tabs, and the menus are all the same, except for what is inside the tab. Inside the tab, the website is displayed exactly how it would be if you were viewing in in Internet Explorer.

You can easily switch between viewing the site in Firefox and IE at will. Just click on the Firefox symbol on the status bar, and you can switch back and forth. You can also create a list of sites to always view in IE Tab, so your favorite/hated bank’s website always works fine.

One downside is that any extension that affect the web page (Adblock, PasswordMaker, Aggregate Yahoo! and Google, and anything from a context menu) won’t work in IETab. Ads still show up, your context menu (right click menu) is IE’s context menu, and PasswordMaker does nothing (you have to copy to clipboard and paste). This is perfectly understandable, as IE is not Firefox.

Ideally, this extension wouldn’t be used that much (unless you liked IE more and just use Firefox for the menus and toolbars). However, it is still useful for those renegade sites that refuse to make their sites conform to standards, and to web developers who want to see how much IE butchers their beautiful site. This extension is highly useful as a backup to what could be a tricky situation.

It is also interesting to easily see how different sites are between Firefox and Internet Explorer.

Download IE Tab (Windows only)
IE Tab Website
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If you’ve never used Google Suggest, then I suggest you check it out now.

Google Suggest instantly give you suggestions of a search, narrowing it down with each letter you type. Type in “password” and a list will drop down of everything from “passwords” to “password hacker” (see picture). Keep typing and it will continue to narrow down your search to whatever you want.

Firefox comes default with Google in its search bar. It is just a search for Google.

However, Google released an extension that turns that ordinary Google search into Google Suggest search, with suggestions popping down based on what you’re typing.

You probably notice that the search box for my Firefox is bigger than the standard. Google Suggest often has entries that are too big for the normal search box, as the normal search box is pretty small.

If you want your puny search box to be expanded into my courageously space-consuming search box enter the following code into your userChrome.css file:
/* Make the Search box flex wider
(in this case 200 pixels wide) */
#search-container, #search bar {
-moz-box-flex: 200 !important; }

Save the userChrome.css file, restart Firefox, and *presto!* Your search box is larger and more fitting.

I was personally surprised by how useful Google Suggest is. You can easily and quickly see all of the suggestions that Google has, and figure out if there is a better way to say what you’re trying to search for.

In case there is any doubt, after you find the search you want, and hit Enter, this extension does nothing. Everything else behaves just like a normal Google Search.

Also, it uses stuff like Google Zeitgeist to determine what appears, not your personal search history.

Google Suggest Extension
Google Suggest Website
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The BlinkList toolbar extension is a must have for anyone who has a BlinkList account.

I have a BlinkList account, therefore, I must have this toolbar (oooo! big leap there!)

It is rich in BlinkList features, and yet simple to use (something that every technology should strive for). The only thing you have to configure is your BlinkList username. No passwords, no API, nothing.

You can:

1. Instantly Blink the page! Uses the same functionality as the bookmarklet to automatically add selected text as a description.
2. View your BlinkList from a button. Simple and easier than typing it in.
3. View your friends page. Your friends page will show you all of the things that your friends have recently added. Quite useful.
4. Search public tags, your tags, or Google. This is the same basic functionality as the searchbox at the top of BlinkList.
5. Tag the page from the search bar. You add your tags, and then Blink It! Your tags and whatever description you added are automatically inserted.
6. QuickBlink and QuickStart Both are features that I don’t really use, but are useful nonetheless.

As I said, this extension has the most used and most useful things BlinkList can do (which is a lot) in one easy-to-use toolbar. A true necessity for BlinkList users.

BlinkList Toolbar 0.2.3 for Firefox 1.5 (no support for Firefox 1.0)
BlinkList Toolbar 0.1 at Mozilla Update for Firefox 1.0-1.0.7
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The StumbleUpon extension for Mozilla Firefox is an excellent extension for websurfers who are on the lookout for new sites.

It is a toolbar with (*gasp!*) a bunch of buttons on it! It doesn’t seem all that complex, but you can do a lot with this simple toolbar.

When you hit that tempting button that says “Stumble,” Firefox will automatically be sent to some randomly awesome website on the web. Granted, some of these websites suck. Most of them don’t.

The thing is, whether web sites are good or bad is determined by what people do after they are sent there. Once at the web site (or at any web site you want) you can rate it favorably or not. Simple. The more sites you rate, the more good sites StumbleUpon will bring you to. It learns from you.

Once you get to that site, you can also tag the page. Yes, tag it. Decide what words fit it best and tag it. You can’t bookmark anything directly from StumbleUpon (as far as I can tell), but you can still tag sites.

Or, if tagging and giving a thumbs-up or down isn’t enough for you, you can give a full fledged review of the website.

Granted, there are some inherent security issues from telling StumbleUpon what sites you like to visit. But there are the same issues from searching Google, or using social bookmarking. Face it, it is nearly impossible to be truly anonymous on the web. Might as well get used to it.

While these might seem simple, it is really well done. This is possibly the most Web 2.0 extension out there. Democracy and user-control is almost hardwired into this thing.

The main downside to this extension is the registration process. Registering itself isn’t bad, but doing otherwise simple stuff like changing your password or having two profiles on the same Firefox is annoying.
A word of advice: Do not delete the Firefox profile that you originally created your StumbleUpon account on! If you delete it, or move to a new computer, you will not be able to change your password.

This extension is especially good for those who like to randomly surf the web. With StumbleUpon, you can do it in style! It is difficult to explain, but something about tagging and rating every site you come upon is incredibly appealing. Useful with a “Post to BlinkList/del.icio.us” bookmark on you bookmark toolbar the BlinkList toolbar so you can rate and bookmark what sites you visited.

Download StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon.com
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There are several tab extensions for Mozilla Firefox. These all add tab functionality in some way, from something as simple as allowing double clicking to close a tab, to the notorious Tabbrowser Extension. My favorite is Tab Mix Plus.

But first, a background:

Warning: Do not install the Tabbrowser Extension! Ever! It is almost officially the most buggy and bloated extension ever. It has a crudload of functionality, but will seriously mess up Firefox’s core system files.

It is, at least in part, due to Tabbrowser Extension that a functional, but bug-free, tab extension was called for. Never again would people want to have to accept major bugs in exchange for functionality (yeah, right)! They called for better tab functionality in a bug-free extension!

Tab Mix answered the call! Tab Mix’s description was:

Tab Mix’s main objectives are to be small, fast, easy to use, logical and without bugs while containing the most natural features related to tab browsing.

Clearly it was a reference to the Tabbrowser Extension.

However, Tab Mix fell out of its updating schedule, and hasn’t been updated since early July (for Firefox 1.0.4). In August, some people apparently decide to take up the project, rename it to Tab Mix Plus, and have been updating it ever since.

Tab Mix Plus, following the description of Tab Mix, is basically everything you’d ever need to do with tabs, sans bugs.

There are possibly a hundred different things you can do with Tab Mix Plus. It is infeasible to list them all here, and don’t ask me to try. Some major ones:

1. Undo Close Tab: Self-explanatory. Never scream in frustration when you accidentally close a tab again!
2. Load last session upon startup: Whatever sites you were viewing when you closed the tabs are there when you start up Firefox! I personally don’t use this. I normally have somewhere between 20-25 tabs up at once, so it takes forever to load up with this option on.
3. Unread tabs are Different: Any tab you haven’t visited is marked with red text. I find it useful, as I always have some article in one of those 20 tabs that I forgot about.
4. Crudload of per-tab functions: Seriously. You can right click on a tab and do just about anything (assuming you’ve enabled this). You can do stuff with these tabs that I’ve never heard of.
5. Bunches upon bunches more. There isn’t even a complete list of features (that I can find) online!

It isn’t until you install Tab Mix Plus that you truly realize how many things you can do with tabs. A hundred different features is probably a good estimate!

Tab Mix Plus is fast, easy, and small. Very small. They managed to fit in into a 100 kilobyte download! Nice work!

Download Tab Mix Plus
Tab Mix Plus Website
Tab Mix Plus Forums
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