Posts Tagged “Firefox”
Posted by: Barry Cleave in Firefox, tags: Backup, Firefox, Free Reviews, Hints & Tips, Impartial Review, Independent Review, Mozilla, Taskbar, Tips, Toolbars, Windows, Windows Crashes, Windows Explorer, WIndows Vista, Windows XP
A Follow up Post to:
Run Multiple Instances of Firefox Portable
to Several Good Reasons for Using Portable Firefox
What is This all About?
The post Run Multiple Instances of Firefox Portable provided some excellent reasons for using different versions of Firefox portable to meet your varying needs. For example you could have versions with lots of add-ons or versions with add-ons that meet particular requirements, or you could set up versions for dealing with mail or RSS feeds or managing sessions for favourite sites.
The main problem was that Firefox Portable can only run a single instance (that is only one version of the portable program) at a time. So you could not have a Firefox Window and multiple tabs for say your email running at the same time as another version dedicated to RSS feed or favourite sites. (Note you can run multiple windows each with its own tabs but these will have the same add-ons, bookmarks and layout)
However a very simple change using a text editor, such as notebook, and moving a file from one folder to another can allow you to run multiple different versions (instances) of Firefox Portable at the same time! i.e. different main Firefox executable files and the associated portable package of profile, bookmarks, add-ons, etc.
Update – N.B Since starting this tip I have found that there is information out on other blogs so this is not original 
What Do You Need to Do?
Firstly you need a version of Firefox Portable- if you don’t have it you can download it here:
portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable
In my main PC I have already downloaded both Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 portable versions.
(I still use Firefox 2 for one particular add-on that has not been upgraded for use with Firefox 3)
(more…)
Popularity: 94% [?]
 57 Comments »
What Is It?
Statusable provides a second statusbar in Firefox that displays the “progress bar” and some standard text
Why Would You Want It?
Numerous add-ons in Firefox use the statusbar to display information. Statusable provides a second statusbar displaying progress and some standard text. This frees up the standard statusbar to display other information. This is very useful, particularly when combined with other add-ons which help with displaying the information that you need or using add-ons options to limit what is displayed in the statusbar. So if you need a bit more room in your statusbars this certainly helps.
ProReviewer has previously reviewed Statusbars by Marius Gunderson which did a great job in helping to organize what is displayed in multiple statusbars for Firefox 2. Unfortunately this has not been updated for Firefox 3.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Provides a second statusbar
- Shows Progress and some standard text
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 81% [?]
12 Comments »
What Is It?
Tab Counter (by Morac) is a very simple Firefox Add-on that simply displays the number of tabs that are currently open in a Firefox Window. You say “Is that all”, I say “Read on”
(Note: Not to be confused with a similar add-on TabCounter by felipc)
Why Would You Want It?
As you open more tabs in Firefox it uses more and more resources. It is very easy to open a lot of tabs, particularly if you have Firefox set to open links in new tabs or, if like me, you use an RSS reader to open interesting posts in Firefox. At some point Firefox will stop displaying pages or grind to a halt due to lack of available memory and the performance of your computer will also suffer. When this happens will depend on many things such as your PC hardware, the number of other programs in use, the Firefox add-ons you have installed and the information on the web pages. My experience with Firefox 2 Portable on my main PC was about 100 open tabs before Firefox started to misbehave. With my Firefox 3 Portable setup (and less add-ons than the old setup) I can open over 130 tabs without to many problems). Each setup may be different and you would need to work your own limits out, but once you know these you can keep an eye on the tabs you have open and take action before problems occur.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Displays the number of Open Tabs
- Options on display and placement
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 42% [?]
18 Comments »
What Is It?
Clear Private Data is a Firefox Add-on that provides a toolbar button, a Tools Menu Option and a Hotkey to clear private data. It uses the standard Firefox Private Data functions which can be accessed through the Tools_Options menu and selecting the privacy tab. However, it gives much quicker access and the ability to clear user set options at the click of a single toolbar button.
Why Would You Want It?
There are many reasons why you may want to clear private data and the ability to do it quickly and easily is a bonus. I won’t go into the reasons some are perfectly legitimate and some not so.
However, a word of warning to anyone who thinks this will completely cover their tracks, it won’t, You will need to take other measures to remove all information from your PC which may be held in all sorts of different places and in files that, although deleted, can be recovered.
But, apart from the obvious privacy aspects there are other things you can do with it that are very useful.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Provides quick access to Firefox Privacy Functions
- Allows Private Data to be cleared by a clicking on a single toolbar button
- Alternatively Private Data can be cleared using a Hotkey
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 36% [?]
7 Comments »
What Is It?
Find in Tabs is a Firefox Add-on that extends the standard find functionality of Firefox to search through the text in all open tabs not just the current tab. Results are displayed in a separate pane and provide one click linking to the appropriate tab/web page
Why Would You Want It?
To allow you to find words or phrases in all the web pages you have open in Firefox at any one time rather than just the current page/tab. I find that I often have multiple pages open relating to the same subject or that I have opened lots of pages, such as when I am using the Brief RSS Reader Firefox Add-on. Quite often I might want to find:
- All the tabs containing information on a certain subject
- A single tab containing a subject which I can’t easily find because I have so many open.
Find in Tabs is a great solution, it works quickly and efficiently with really good integration into the standard Firefox Find tool.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Finds text in all Firefox Tabs (Open web pages)
- Integrates into Standard Firefox Search
- Highlights text found
- Provides instant link to tabs when clicking on Results lines
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 21% [?]
2 Comments »
What Is It?
Tab Scope is a Firefox Add-on that displays a reduced size version of the webpage under a tab when the mouse cursor is hovered over that tab. This provides a very quick and easy way to see what the webpage contents are in an instantly available popup window
Why Would You Want It?
If you have many tabs opened at one time (as I often do) then the page title (or part that is displayed) in the tab may not be enough to quickly determine what is on the webpage. Tab Scope shows a popup of the webpage just about instantly when you hover the mouse on the tab.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Displays a popup version of the webpage
- Allows 2 switchable different user set sizes for the popup
- Allows navigation of the page within the popup window
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 20% [?]
1 Comment »
What Is It?
A Firefox Add-on that automatically copies text in a Firefox window to the windows clipboard with many useful options.
Why Would You Want It?
Essentially Autocopy will save you having to click on selected text with your mouse and then choose Copy or using Ctl-C if you prefer to use the keyboard for copying and pasting. In a single instance this is a small saving of time, probably less than a second, but if you use copy and paste a lot then the small savings all add up. A really big advantage is if you use a clipboard extender to store multiple clipboard copies of text and images, such as Cipboard Magic, Clip Diary, Ditto or one of the several other freeware clipboard extenders available. When you use a clipboard extender you can copy multiple selections of text to use in another document without having to keep switching back and forth on each copy/paste cycle. I find this very useful when I am researching for ProReviewer or work and want to collect multiple pieces of information and then use them as background information rather than a straight copy and paste into a document.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Automatically copies selected text
- Provides Search options for selected text
- Provides other useful options
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 20% [?]
2 Comments »
What Is It?
A Firefox Add-on that allows you to save and view web pages in a handy single file often known as web archive or “mht” files (from the .mht extension which is for MIME HTML)).
Why Would You Want It?
Firefox doesn’t natively handle the web archive single file format. The advantage is that using this format saves all the elements of the web page as a single file containing graphics, text, etc. This is particularly useful if you want to save web pages to archive, send by email or transport on removable media, flashdrives, etc. As the screenshots below show , where I saved the ProReviewer Homepage, it is a far more simple and tidy solution:
(Click on screenshots to enlarge where necessary)
as the statusbar shows there are a total of 74 files saved in the folder with a standard page save.
This is now all contained in a single file using UnMHT
See below for more details about the mht/web archive file
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Saves web pages as web archive files
- Views mht files in Firefox
- Allows all current tabs to be saved to mht files
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 38% [?]
21 Comments »
or Several Good Reasons for Using Portable Firefox
What is This all About?
Making it easy to use Firefox with different settings for different users and/or different purposes as well as being able to quickly and easily create Firefox backups.
A standard installation of Firefox keeps the programs and data (your profile with all the settings, cookies, cache, etc) in separate areas of your hard drive. Normally (unless you have specified a different location at installation or in your OS Setup) Firefox programs will be installed under C:/Program Files/Mozilla Firefox/ and the data will be stored under your Microsoft “Documents and Settings” area with a path like – C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\.
With a Firefox Portable installation you can have all your Firefox programs and data under a set of folders such as:
- C:\Firefox_Main
- C:\Firefox_Small
- C:\Firefox_Blogging
Or you could have:
containing
-
- Firefox_Main
- Firefox_Small
- Firefox_Blogging
and C; can be substituted for any other drive including memory sticks/flash drive and network drives.
Not only is this easy to quickly backup everything using standard backup software or by simply copying the folder structure using standard copy and paste, but it is completely portable using a portable hard drive or USB flash memory.
Update: Following a comment from Ray (see comments below) I should make it clear that the idea is to use multiple copies of Portable Firefox each with it’s own settings instead of creating multiple individual profiles within Portable Firefox.
This is how have Firefox set up on my main PC and I transfer this complete or in part to other PC’s at home and work on a removable hard drive or flash memory.
(Click on Screenshots to enlarge where necessary)
You could even run Firefox over an Internet connection using remote connection software like Logmein or even Windows Home Server, although unless you have a fast broadband connection this could be very slow and you would be better pulling (downloading) the installation to the local machine.
What Do I Do?
Well, I have already said some of the things that can be done based on what I am already doing. The next screenshot shows the files and folders under my Firefox Portable folder:
(more…)
Popularity: 30% [?]
11 Comments »
What Is It?
A Firefox add-on (extension – I use the words interchangeably) that provides a list of installed Firefox add-ons with user definable level of detail. Most importantly one option is to see what Firefox versions the extensions are compatible with.
Why Would You Want It?
Provides a quick and easy way to list all the extensions you have installed and their details. I have used this add-on in the past to list extensions when installing a clean version of Firefox to make sure I have added back in all my add-ons. Recently I decided to try Firefox Beta 3 Portable and downloaded it, then transferred my current Firefox 2 Portable profile complete with all extensions over. On starting it up Firefox duly sorted the compatible extensions and checked for updates so behave perfectly well. At this point I found that many of the add-ons I consider to be essential for my day to day use were not yet compatible. OK, so you can use the nightly tester tools on a hit and miss basis to see whether the non-compatible extensions will work. This is slow and painful plus some incompatible extensions will completely crash FF on startup meaning you have to delete or move the extension folder. I tried it and gave up in the end as I could not justify the time. Later I looked at Extension List Dumper and realised this was a quick way to keep an eye on the compatibility of my important extensions so I could gauge the time when a changeover to Firefox 3 was going to be acceptable.
What Does It Do – The Essentials?
Summary:
- Lists all the currently installed extensions in your Firefox setup
Pros: What’s Good?
(more…)
Popularity: 21% [?]
3 Comments »
|
Entries (RSS)
Powered by FireStats