As a longtime Firefox user, I didn't pay too much attention when Microsoft announced the impending release of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2. Still, after using the first beta and not running into the kind of horrible issues some of our readers reported, it warranted a download.
After a brief test drive, I'm pleasantly surprised by it. Installation was almost totally painless, though I wish Microsoft would figure out how to pull off a reboot-free install. Pages rendered quickly and accurately, the Firefox import worked very well, and my LastPass toolbar worked without asking for an upgrade. The Google toolbar, however, failed to work.
I also appreciate that IE prompted me to disable an addon - the Acrobat toolbar - when I closed it's toolbar. It's a small but useful feature. Slices and accelerators are showing a lot of promise, and the two I tried - Stumbleupon Buzz and send to GMail - worked nicely. You can see the Stumble slice at work in my screenshot.
I'm not sold on SmartScreen yet. I expected Web of Trust-like funcionality, but it's just not there. I ran around several keygen sites that make WOT cringe and didn't get a single alert from IE. That needs adressing. I like the idea of InPrivate as well, but would like to be able to mix tabs instead of running two separate instances of the browser.
If you do install the new version, be sure to check out the IE 8 Gallery, a new website that provides one-stop access to accelerators, slices, search addons, and toolbars. It's much, much less annoying than the IE7 addon site.
Let us know your thoughts if you've demoed the new beta!
You've probably heard of Dead Pixel Buddy, a free app that helps you locate dead or stuck pixels on your LCD monitor. One of our devoted readers has sent us an interesting alternative that runs in your browser. Willy Ci has coded it as part of his portfolio, and it's elegantly simple. Pick a color with the palette tool, click go full screen, and your monitor is instantly awash in glorious pixel-hunting color.
Since it's browser-based, it'll run on any platform (as long as Adobe Flash is supported).
Both machines I used for testing had a slight issue escaping from full screen - the chooser didn't reappear, and my mouse pointer vanished. Simply mousing up to the tab bar and right-click reloading the tab solved the problem.
Once you've pinpointed the trouble spots, head over to killdeadpixel.com and see if you can't revive them with their trippy animated gif. Switching to one of the fullscreen modes makes stuck pixels easy to spot by giving you a black background to work with. No guarantees it'll wake them up, but it's worth a shot since most manufacturers won't warranty a screen with fewer than three problematic pixels.
Tabs changed the way we browse the web. No longer do you have to open new browser windows to view additional content. You can just create a new tab and enter a URL or search term. Most browsers even let you right-click on any link you find on a web page and open it in a new tab.
But when you open a new tab the old fashioned way by clicking the "new tab" or Ctrl+T keys, you're presented with a blank screen that honestly doesn't do you much good. So the folks at Mozilla are thinking about ways to make new tabs instantly useful. One idea, which you can see detailed above is to throw a search box onto every blank tab, since there's a good chance you're opening a fresh tab to search for something.
It doesn't stop there though. The conceptual search box would be linked to the Firefox 3 Awesome Bar, which means it has access to your web browsing history and can offer recommendations for sites you've recently visited as you search. And if you highlighted and copied some text on another web site before opening your fresh tab, this concept design would try to detect what kind of text you copied and offer even more useful suggestions. For example, if you copied a date, you might see a box with the option of adding the date to a calendar. If you copy an address, you might be able to map it with the click of a button.
After the jump, check out another concept from another Firefox developer. Either one of these ideas could find their way into future versions of the web browser.
You've no doubt learned to take the various claims software developers make about their products with a grain of salt, but the gang at Lastpass may be right on with theirs. Lastpass may just be the last password you'll ever have to remember.
Other DS bloggers have looked at plenty of other options, like Passpack and good ol' Keepass. Lastpass has put together an extremely worthy competitor, and I was impressed with how it performed in my test runs.
Lastpass installs as two parts: the core application and as plugins for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. All data is encrypted on your PC, and only your encrypted file is stored on the Lastpass servers. It's also cross-platform, so you can sync your password data to Windows, Mac, and Linux PCs.
During install, the manager effortlessly captures and imports local passwords from both browsers (which shows you just how much you need an encrypted password store) then gives the option to clear them. It also does imports from RoboForm, Keepass, Password Safe, and MyPasswordSafe.
Ready or not, here it comes. And it is Firefox 3.0.1. Mozilla has been issuing automatic updates for Firefox for ages. If you're running Firefox 3, you were probably prompted to install version 3.0.1 a few weeks ago. But if you've been running an older version of Firefox, you might still be at version 2.0.0.16. Now Mozilla plans to push out an update to all Firefox 2 users that will prompt them to update to version 3.0.1.
The update could come as soon as next week. Firefox 3 offers a number of advantages over Firefox 2. First, and probably most importantly, it's the most up to date version of the browser when it comes to security features. But it also has improved JavaScript support, faster page load speeds, and improved performance with web applications like Gmail, Google Docs, and Zoho Office. Firefox 3 also has a completely redesigned location bar that makes it much easier to find pages you've recently or frequently visited.
Firefox 2 users don't have to update. If you're happy with your existing browser experience, you can either postpone the update or decline it.
I've never been particularly put out by needing to click the "Next" button on a blog. Sure, there are always exceptions, like when I find sites that archive oddly or only have a few posts per page. And don't get me started on the "Next" buttons and surprise ads (do I want two free iPod Nanos? Only if I can beat the advertiser about the head and neck with them).
LifeHacker introduced me to the AutoPager add-on for Firefox. The idea behind AutoPager is a good one. It takes a web page with continuous content (such as a blog) and allows you to scroll through it all as if it were one page . So that you're not waiting for years for your page to appear, AutoPager allows you to choose the number of pages displayed at a time. It also has a few pre-configured web pages in its clutches, like Digg and Twitter.
The good news is that AutoPager can be set to scroll through just about any site with a next button. The bad news is, it's not really apparent how to do this. I was pointed to the Site Wizard, which worked just as well as many wizards I've encountered -- not at all. I couldn't select the "Next" link, and it kept aborting (and it's too early in the morning where I am to be doing that).
I know little about XPath (the underlying AutoPager mechanism) or how it works, but I did still get AutoPager to give me several pages of Download Squad at once. Truth be told, I'm still not sure what it was I did. I clicked the AutoPager icon on my toolbar, and got a sidebar that popped up in the browser and seemed to autodetect both the "Next" link and the content I wanted to see. I clicked the green checkmark on the sidebar (did I need to? no clue), and we were finally in business.
AutoPager is great for getting your eyes on a lot of information quickly. Once it's configured to the sites you want to see in this manner, it's really handy. But for the first few sites you configure, make sure to take frequent breaks for deep, cleansing breaths.
Thinking about switching from Firefox or Internet Explorer to the Opera web browser, but can't imagine life without the StumbleUpon toolbar? StumbleUpon has yet to release an official toolbar or plugin for Opera. And while there is certainly a way to rank web pages and discover new pages without a toolbar, it's rather inelegant.
Opera Stumbler is a third party plugin that gives you all the same features you'd expect from the toolbar, sans the toolbar. There are several different ways to use Opera Stumbler. You can install the menu button, which adds a StumbleUpon menu to Opera.
If you'd rather have toolbar buttons, you can install a series of buttons for common tasks like giving a page a thumbs up or thumbs down. These buttons can be dragged and dropped onto any Opera toolbar. You can also add a Stumble option to your Opera Speed Dial bookmarks.
If you didn't notice from reading my last massive time waster, I love classic gaming. I'm also a Firefox user, and always on the hunt for good addons like the rest of you. Thank god for FireNES, an awesome addon for Firefox that gives you ready access to a massive repository of NES games.
After you install it, customize your toolbar and add the FireNES button to give yourself one-click access to the sidebar. The full ROMs list is massive, The toplist contains the 100-or-so most played titles, and you can add any game to your list of favorites with a simple right click.
Best of all, you don't have to hunt down ROMs on horibly cluttered, scam-laden websites. Awesome.
The only possible downside to all this: habla usted español? The developer's page is Spanish only - not a big deal, the install link is easy to find and you can always run it through your favorite translation app.
Since switching to Firefox, there's one Internet Explorer function I've been wanting to duplicate: copying my browsing history when opening a new tab or window. Developer Twanno has created an extension that adds that missing functionality, and another that I find particularly useful.
The Duplicate Tab extension does exactly that, creating a second instance of your selected tab in a new one (or in its own window). It can also perform two other useful functions. First, it will "detach," a tab - close it in your current window and open a new window with the same URL and your browsing history.
Second, you can use it to merge different windows - combining their tabs and history in a single window.
Tab Clicking Options gives you the ability to control your tabs through different mouse click actions. It's compatible with other tab extensions, so I've set mine up to duplicate a tab when I double-click on it. A host of action are supported, including reloading, bookmarking, closing, and even switching to IE view (if you have the extension installed).
These are two great, small extensions for Firefox users looking for more control over their tabs and windows.
Ever wish you could remove an annoying logo, ad, or other element from a web page. Not just hide it up for now, but never ever have to look at it again? Then you might want to check out the Remove it Permanently extension for Firefox. It lets you remove any element from any web page. Well, sort of.
First thing you need to do is install the extension. That's a bit trickier than you'd think, because the latest version isn't yet compatible with Firefox 3.01. Fortunately, you can force it to work by preventing your browser from checking for extension compatibility.
Once the plugin is up and running, you can right click on any portion of any web page and either remove that section permanently, or click the RIP advanced button for additional options. Keep in mind that if you remove an element, it will only be gone from a single URL. For example, if you remove the Download Squad logo from our main page, it will still show up on article pages, search pages, and so on.
It's also worth nothing that your browser still downloads the files. You just won't see them. So Remove it Permanently won't reduce your bandwidth use, it will just make obnoxious web sites like MySpace slightly more bearable to read.
No, let me try that again. Firefox is one of those applications that's so hard to write about, because there may be little tricks and shortcuts I've been using for some time, and someone will discover one and say, "Hey, that rocks! Why didn't anyone tell me?" Then light dawns over my marblehead that it is a useful trick, and I should have pointed it out.
So Sean Privitera kindly reminded me that searching Google on Firefox is easier than it appears. Ever been reading something on the web and you have no freakin' idea what the word or phrase means? Select the word in question (if you really want to try it out, select this word: geoduck. It's not a Pokemon), right click, and wonder of wonders, there is an option there to search Google for the selected word.
See a nifty bit of formatting on a website, and you're wondering how it was done? Select that formatting, images and all, and right click. Then click "View Selected Source" and a window will pop up in Firefox showing you (brace yourselves!) the HTML formatting of the parts in question.
I've learned to love my right mouse button. Seriously, developers hide all the interesting stuff there. Of course, the right mouse button in Firefox will allow you to open a link in a new tab or window. But it can also calm some fears about what you might be opening (and how it behaves). Right clicking while hovering over a link can tell you if it opens in a new tab, what the URL is, and allow you to send or copy link location.
It is the little tricks like these that make a browser really useful, and more than just a vehicle for surfing the web. But like geoducks, sometimes you need to do a little digging to find them.
Design inspiration can come from a lot of different places. If you find yours from digital sources on the web, Palette Grabber for Firefox might be incredibly useful to you.
Install it, and Palette Grabber sits in the left corner of your status bar waiting to leap into action. A single click (right or left) exports a selective palette based on your current page in Firefox. Palette selection is very intelligent, producing accurate swatch sets for each of the websites I sampled.
Palette Grabber supports several file formats, including Photoshop, Flash, Fireworks, PaintShop Pro, the GIMP, and Mac OS X Color Picker. Minimalists and power users can elect to save a tabbed text listing of RGB values.
For a 25k download, Palette Grabber is definitely worth adding to your Firefox install if you do any digital design work.
A few months back, Download Squad's Danny Mendez wrote about Yahoo!'s acquisition of popular Safari InputManager Inquisitor. At the time, Danny was worried that Yahoo's purchase would make the tool unusable with other search engines, but those fears were unfounded, and Inquisitor continues to work well with either Google OR Yahoo.
Inquisitor is cool because it adds Spotlight-like functionality to the default Safari search box (it's kind of like the Awesome Bar for Firefox 3), along with easy access to other search results from places like Flickr or IMDB or Wikipedia. The design is also utterly kick-ass.
In the new release, users who choose to use Yahoo! search engine will see much, much faster results, thanks to integration with Yahoo's new BOSS platform. Like, instantaneously fast. Like, fast enough to make me consider changing my default search engine fast.
Inquisitor now supports eight languages in addition to English: Japanese, Korean, Traditional Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, and German.
The interface has also become more streamlined and looks really, really great.
Inquisitor is free and available for Mac's running OS X 10.4 and up.
Sure, Firefox 3.01 is still fresh off the presses, but some if you've been looking forward to getting your hands on the even newer and more improved Firefox 3.1, it looks like you have to wait a little longer. Mozilla had planned to release Firefox 3.1 on August 19th, but has pushed that date back to September 9th.
Firefox 3.1 will feature a handful of updates including Javascript enhancements and bulk tagging features. And those updates just weren't going to be ready by the 19th.
But if you're itching to try out something new from Mozilla, you might want to check out Fennec Milestone 6. Fennec is the codename for the upcoming mobile version of Firefox. It's designed for mobile phones similar devices. Right now, it runs on the Nokia N810 internet tablet, but Windows Mobile support is coming soon. Milestone 6 adds support for tabs, tel: and mailto:. This is still pre-alpha software, but if you've got a Nokia internet tablet lying around, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you're comfortable with running bleeding edge software.
If bookmark menus aren't enough for you, All Customized Links offers yet another tweak to speed your Firefox browsing.
A word of warning to privacy fanatics: you must register an account to use this, and your links are remotely hosted (there is no TOS that I could find). While not posting privacy terms isn't cool, your links following you wherever you install this addon is.
Adding new links is a breeze through the preferences menu. Enter a name, url, and choose where you want to open it: current tab, new background or foreground tab or window,
An interesting preview option is included, though it's not so much a preview as it is loading the whole page with it's opacity turned down. I was expecting maybe a pop-out thumbnail of a site, not the exact same thing I'd see if I clicked it's entry. You may want to turn previews off in your preferences, it's just not that useful.
All Customized Links' menu also features a quick option to add the current URL, which will save you a bit of typing over just entering everything from scratch by yourself.
This isn't the kind of addon that's going to revolutionize your browsing experience, but it's a nice option for those looking for additional bookmarking options.
Firefox is like a box of chocolates--
A few months back, Download Squad's 
