Building a Better Mozilla With Plugins 429
Ant writes "Wired has a story on how to improve Mozilla and Firefox web browsers with various plugins/extensions (XPI installations). It lists some of the extensions that have been rated highly by Mozilla users like BugMeNot. One of them not listed and my favorite is PrefBar."
Finally! (Score:3, Funny)
I mean, all these articles about TV and movies this morning? Bring on the Mozilla, Linux, and Mac articles. Let's get some good Microsoft bashing going! Daddy needs his fix!
At least (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:At least (Score:5, Funny)
How about a
Re:At least (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:At least (Score:2, Informative)
I guess its not completely implemented yet.
Re:At least (Score:3, Informative)
IE5 usage:
April 2004: 10.1%
May 2004: 9.2%
June 2004: 8.3%
July 2004: 8.1%
Were you reading the chart backwards?
Re:At least (Score:3, Informative)
Re:At least (Score:4, Informative)
Re:At least (Score:3, Informative)
An extension developer can submit their extension to Mozilla Update and directly link to the XPI from their homepage.
Or they can provide a downloadable XPI file, the user has to open it (from File > Open), and it'll be installed.
So there is no automatic installation, and the avarage user can't be tricked to click yes for an installation dialog.
Re:At least (Score:5, Informative)
Are you sure about that? [squarefree.com] That security hole won't be fixed until Firefox 1.0.
Why prefbar is not listed (Score:5, Informative)
It does not work with Mozilla Firefox
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:5, Informative)
I'm running PrefBar in FireFox
PrefBar 2.3 RC2 - works with Firefox, and has many new features
Granted, it's a "release candidate" but it works just fine..
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:2)
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:2)
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:4, Informative)
Permit Cookies [gorgias.de] is almost this.
It doesn't let you fix up just any cookie on the fly (so cookies coming through from ads can't be adjusted "on the fly"), but you can bring up "allow, block, remove" with a key press. You can change the cookie it's going to adjust (say if you know the ad server), but there's no list of cookies accessed for this page, just the current server in an edit box.
I should say I'm using 0.2, so it's possible that it does more already, or that there are plans to do more.
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:3, Informative)
PrefBar 2.3 RC2 [mozdev.org]- works with Firefox, and has many new features
Re:Why prefbar is not listed (Score:2)
RC2 works in FireFox (Score:5, Informative)
IE (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:IE (Score:5, Insightful)
Unless (as in the case with Firefox) you explicitly tell it to do slightly more
With IE its the opposite, it is more than a browser unless you explicitly castrate its overzealous (and insecure) functionality
Re:IE (Score:3, Interesting)
RadialContext (Score:5, Informative)
Re:RadialContext (Score:4, Informative)
But since you get visual feedback it is much easier to memorize the gestures than with "invisible" gestures".
It is hard to describe, so just check it out.
Corporate Acceptance? (Score:5, Interesting)
IE blends easily with M$'s large arsenal of server-side applications, which the execs just to love to see. Easy integration.
What can Mozilla offer that will aid its cause in the enterprise environment. They added Integrated Authentication in v1.6 which was brilliant, but what else?
How about some add-in for policies?
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:4, Insightful)
There seems to be a lack of knowledge where I work in general about such things and that is the problem.
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing is that, for the most part, it does work. Its also extremely well tested and what weaknesses there are are well known and documented. This is one area where the OSS camp has yet to catch up - and I don't mean providing access to a Bugzilla database with 100,000+ known issues, mostly minor. In the business world, predictibility wins out over other areas nine times out of ten.
Heck, even if I know that everything works perfectly but that my server will only stay up for 10 days in a row before performance degrades, if I have a 15 minute reboot window every week then that's fine too. I'd much rather go with a known solution - with workarounds as needed - than an unproven one that may be better. In that situation, a machine that stayed up for the most part but would randomly stop servicing requests once a quarter - while far superior in uptime stats - would be a greatly inferior solution. Its a different mindset.
Of course, this comment is slanted towards enterprise customers.
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the sort of uncertainty that might make enterprise customers nervous.
Lack of drivers could lead to rejection (Score:3, Insightful)
It would have been better in my opinion to make switching browsers also entail switching OS, in the sense of "if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right".
I find "get them to switch operating systems NOW" a bad policy. Many households and organizations have sunk significant amounts of money into hardware for which no Free device driver or ported proprietary device driver exists. I will consider your opinion on the matter the moment you point to a working Linux driver for (say) the Microtek Scanmaker 485
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:3, Interesting)
Right, but if the company has a choice between pissing you off and having a solution that, while not perfect, will run an aspect of their business that would cost them hundreds of $k per hour if it went down, or keep a smaller staff of very happy techies and occasionally run into an issue that they hadn't foreseen, gu
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:3, Insightful)
had a longer comment but slashdot said it was a bunch of seconds until you can reply and wiped out my post.
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:2)
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:2, Informative)
Rapid Application Development with Mozilla [informit.com]
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:2, Funny)
A swift kick in the nuts to the C[E|I|T]O. OK, that wouldn't really be helping its cause, but it would make me feel better.
Re:Corporate Acceptance? (Score:3, Informative)
mozilla lacking features (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:mozilla lacking features (Score:2)
Re:mozilla lacking features (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mozilla lacking features (Score:2)
When the author says that either Mozilla or Firefox are slim and/or lacking features, he is clearly talking out of his arse.
der Joachim
Tabextension (Score:2, Interesting)
Mainly because I don't like to have lots of new windows popping up all the time filling up my desktops.
Re:Tabwarning (Score:3, Informative)
magpie (Score:5, Funny)
Especially as I can now do it one-handed.
Re:magpie (Score:2, Informative)
You also get this with Opera, just hit "Fast Forward", or the space bar, or use the right mouse gesture and you're away. Not that I'd know about this in your particular sceanario, of course ;-)
Tom.
Re:magpie (Score:5, Informative)
Linky [extensionsmirror.nl]
and
JumpLink [extensionsmirror.nl]
Why do I get the feeling the Slashdot community may find these of some assistance
Re:magpie (Score:5, Informative)
Yup. I find this priceless while "researching" the webs many sequentially numbered jpegs.
If you're stuck browsing sequentially numbered jpegs at work using internet explorer (or you just don't use extensions), you can also use Jesse's bookmarklets [squarefree.com].
Just drag them to your bookmark bar!
Re:magpie (Score:3, Funny)
actually (Score:4, Interesting)
What? No Adblock? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:What? No Adblock? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What? No Adblock? (Score:3, Informative)
Mind you, I don't have Flash loaded, and I have moving gifs set to repeat only once (a spiffy extension called Things They Left Out [mozdev.org]). So the ads aren't nearly as intrusive as they might be.
I'd even click through an ad, if it were well done (I don't want to reward obnoxious ads) and
missing adblock (Score:5, Informative)
Re:missing adblock (Score:5, Insightful)
Mouse Gestures (Score:5, Informative)
My personal favourite... (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I don't get it (Score:2)
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox for linux (with gtk+ and xft) comes with an installer. Just extract the tarball and run firefox-installer in the extracted directory and it will behave essentially the same as any winbloze installer. If you want an rpm, I'm sure google will find one if you're that desperate.
Re:I don't get it (Score:4, Informative)
Personally I just untar into
Also the reason Mozilla does it this way, is it makes it super easy for any of the distro's to create an install package for it. They dont even have to compile the app if they dont want. So if your really missing that rpm to install, complain to your distro for not releasing one yet.
All-in-One Gestures (Score:3, Interesting)
The best of the bunch... (Score:5, Insightful)
But of course she didn't mention that one, since it would be too efficient against Wired News' own ads.
Disabling my Adblock showed ads on their page at least.
Re:The best of the bunch... (Score:3, Interesting)
W0t? (Score:5, Informative)
Adblock. Simply amazing. (Score:5, Informative)
http://adblock.mozdev.org
Re:Adblock. Simply amazing. (Score:3, Interesting)
fav ext (Score:5, Interesting)
Do these work in Camino (OS X) ? (Score:2, Interesting)
What they really need... (Score:4, Interesting)
My browsing habits are different (Score:3, Interesting)
Flash Click to View (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Flash Click to View (Score:5, Informative)
Launchy not mentioned (Score:5, Informative)
Works in: Mozilla and Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird Launchy Homepage [gemal.dk]
BugMeNot (Score:5, Interesting)
After installation, BugMeNot supplies an appropriate name and password from a database that seems to include registration info for the vast majority of websites that request registration. The BugMeNot developers note that most people enter false information on registration forms to protect their privacy, so BugMeNot actually cuts down on database pollution. The only problem is that The New York Times may wonder what happened to all those 86-year-old Albanian grandmothers who head up huge technology firms that used to sign up to read the NYT website.
... well, the other problem is: Now that the slashdot crowd has become aware of BugMeNot, NYT will need to prepare for Attack of the Clones: Geek Edition! :P
Mozilla as primary web-development platform (Score:2, Informative)
The web developers I know sadly just use IE and then ignores the other browsers.
Wait... (Score:5, Informative)
Super DragAndGo (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Super DragAndGo (Score:5, Informative)
flash click to play (Score:5, Informative)
BTW, Camino does not install this automatically, but is relatively simple to go into your chrome folder and hack it yourself.
Mozilla Extensions & MacOS 1-9 (Score:4, Interesting)
Naturally, the more extensions you loaded, the more time it took your computer to boot and the more system crashes and incompatibilities occurred. It got to the point that I spent significant time enabling and disabling extensions to try to identify incompatibilities and the sources of my computer crashes. I don't know anything about Mozilla architecture, but might an extension-based Firefox be edging us down that same path?
I know I'd personally prefer it if the Firefox team evaluated the best extensions, and incorporated them into the main code for optimum compatibility.
So here's my question to people familiar with the Mozilla codebase: is my comparison between Pre-OSX Macs and Firefox valid?
No, it is not a valid comparison. (Score:4, Informative)
Mozilla/Firefox don't come with any extensions at all. They are perfectly useful without them. Moz/Firefox may directly incorporate features of popular extensions in later versions, but they cease to be extensions at the point, and are considered part of the application proper.
Re:Mozilla Extensions & MacOS 1-9 (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox is purposely limited to the bare minimum of functionality that general users required. If any extensions ever rise to that level of ubiquity, they'll probably get adopted by moz.org and slipstreamed into the code base, which should remove the performance concern.
After all, that's how tabbed browsing made it into Mozilla -- first as a separate XPI extension (Multizilla), which
Bookmarklets (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html
I have 'zap plugins' and 'zap images' in my personal toolbar to stop strobing ads and flash on a page-by-page basis. Works great!
Re:Bookmarklets (Score:3, Informative)
Very useful for dealing with slashdot posters such as yourself! ;-)
FlashBlock (Score:4, Informative)
Bryan
Re:FlashBlock (Score:4, Informative)
Also, the article calls Mozilla 'stripped down', which is absurd. It has tabbed browsing and pop-up blocking by default, putting it light years ahead of the market leader.
My extensions. (Score:3, Informative)
http://flashblock.mozdev.org/
Preferential: Lets you change every option, not just the subset that they think you need. Lets me kill gif anims for one thing.
http://preferential.mozdev.org/
Tab Browser extentsion: The only current way to get true single window mode.
http://white.sakura.ne.jp/~piro/xul/_tabex
Adblock: Block annoying adds that get by above measures. I leave them alone if the don't blink/anim and flow in my text. One of those and they are gone. For some reason newegg flash adds were escaping flashblock so, I adblocked *newegg*.
http://adblock.mozdev.org/
Nuke anything: Sometimes a site will serve ads from the same place as usefull image so I don't want to filter. This lets me knock out anything from the page temporarily.
http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/mozi
No... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know of anyone who's disappointed that Firefox is "pretty bare" the first time they use it. What they notice is that it can do everything IE does, but with tabbed browsing and without the pop-ups or security holes.
Pref Bar is obsolete (Score:3, Informative)
It makes my life easier.
blah blah (Score:3, Interesting)
Ya'all really should check it out. Quicker, faster, works a lot better. No, it's not open source. But, it is possible that there can be software that's good that's not open source.
(now i'm going to get modded -255; Blasphemer!)
FIX THE CALENDAR! (Score:5, Insightful)
Build the calendar, and they will come.. come away from Outlook.
It *can* happen.
Calendar should be #1 priority right now.. mail & news is great, the browser is great.. but the lack of a calendar *really is stopping people* from switching. At least with the dozens of small businesses that I do consulting for, it is.
I cannot emphasize this enough - a lot of small businesses (without exchange) stick to Outlook because of the pretty pointy clicky calendar.
"sunbird" isn't even close. The Mozilla Calendar is waay far off.
Come on, guys... let's dooooo it!
Re:frist psot (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My two cents (Score:5, Informative)
Go to
Edit - Preferences - Navigator - Downloads.
Select the option to open a progress dialog.
Then works just about like IE.
Re:My two cents (Score:2, Funny)
Re:My two cents (Score:3, Informative)
I want to be able to see each window for a download so I know exactly when each finishes.
Perhaps you'd like this [mozdev.org] then?
Re:My two cents (Score:2, Insightful)
I hate sorting through a pile of crap to find the pdf howto I downloaded a month ago. And I hate software that makes me act like it's filing clerk.
It's a simple modification, mozilla boys.. Hop to it!
Re:My two cents (Score:4, Informative)
Hope that helps.
Re:And this is why I still have to use Opera (Score:3, Informative)
Not quite. It has "tab browsing" out of the box, but not the "Tabbrowser Extensions" plugin. Tabbrowser Extensions is MUCH more powerful and feature-rich.. something like 40 different options to set rather than the 3 found in 0.9.
I was disappointed enough that I reverted back to 0.8 so I could have my tabs the way I like them.
Re:Why no adblock? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Automatic password plugin? (Score:3, Interesting)
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=230
http://tinyurl.com/2doea
Re:useragent spoofing bad? (Score:3, Interesting)
Now if we could just do something about javascript based