All Posts Tagged With: "Firefox"

I know I’ve become notorious for really long posts lately, so I’ll make this one really quick!   I just wanted to let everyone know that you can now download Firefox 3.0.

If you’ve been following this site for awhile (or you dig through the archives), you’ll know that I have a serious man crush on Firefox, so this is a very exciting day for me.  Even though I always try the betas and release candidates, there is nothing like making it official.

If you’ve tried out Firefox 3.0, what are your thoughts?

With the recent release of Flock 0.9, I decided it was time to update my Users Guide to Using Flock 0.7, which with this new release has become somewhat outdated. As a lot of the information from the previous users guide still applies, I have made a copy and updated it wherever it is needed to reflect information from the newly released Flock 0.9.

What is Flock? Flock is a social web browser based off Mozilla technologies. It was designed to have all the functionality of Mozilla’s popular Firefox web browser, while integrating itself with some of the most popular social services. These services include Flickr, Photobucket, YouTube, Ma.gnolia, and Del.icio.us. Because the Flock build is based on the Firefox web browser, this gives web surfers the added advantage of compatibility with anything Firefox is compatible with, which is pretty much everything.

How do I transfer to Flock? First thing you need to do is download the Flock web browser. After the initial download, you are prompted you to import your bookmarks and/or home page from Firefox or Internet Explorer, along with your cookies, passwords, and any other information that is being stored in your current browser. This will help you to make a virtually flawless transition to Flock.

What features does Flock have? Flock now offers all of the features that users of Firefox 2.0 have grown to love. In-line spell check, live searches, and advanced anti-phishing protection are all included, along with the ability to customize Flock to your specifications, including customizing the toolbars. Flock’s default search options include all the ones you expect, plus Technorati and Wikipedia (two I use a lot). On top of all of this goodness, Flock offers several features that are unique to its web browser.

MyWorld - MyWorld is a feature new to version 0.9 that serves as a homepage of sorts where you can access all of your information on one convenient page. It includes your choice of search engines, automatic updates of your favorite web site (via feeds), and convenient access to Flock’s Photo Uploader and Blog Editor. This is set up to work in a similar way to other popular startpages iGoogle, Netvibes, and PageFlakes, while giving you access to your favorite parts of Flock as well. The big problem with MyWorld so far is the lack of customizing options available. As this is a completely new feature to Flock as well as browsers all together, I expect this to continue to improve in future versions of Flock. It is, however, very usable in its current state.

Media Bar - If you’re a photo lover, you can integrate both Photobucket and Flickr into your Flock browser, which will allow you to store your photos online. Along the address bar at the top, you will find a photo icon called “Photos.” When you click it, your account and pictures will appear. You can click them to bring up your account in full view. If you use Photobucket, they allow you to batch upload pictures and will also notify you when one of your Photobucket buddies adds a picture to their Photobucket account. Flock also allows you to drag and drop photo comments on MySpace, eBay, LiveJournal and many other major sites. Photobucket has created a guide to setting up Flock for Photobucket integration. Version 0.9 now supports video streaming as well, allowing users to integrate YouTube into their browser as well.

Bookmarking/Favorites - One of the first things you will notice when you first load Flock is the big blue and white star to the left side of your address bar. This neat feature gives you a one click option to add it to your favorites. If you click and hold the star button, you can actually categorize and tag the site using your integrated Del.icio.us or Ma.gnolia account, saving you the time of ever visiting their website and making your bookmarks accessible from any computer. This is a nice feature for any Del.icio.us user, but particularly useful for bloggers who use the Daily Links feature on their blog or website. You can also go into the options and set the start to always add to your online bookmarking account, avoiding the use of the browsers bookmarking system all together. Version 0.9 now also has a nice search feature and builds local bookmarks into the sidebar, so you can keep them available within your browser, or online.

Accounts and Services - This area is where you can manage your various social accounts. Simply log in once, then they will be linked with your Flock browser going forward.

My News - My News is a feed sidebar that allows you to subscribe to feeds with one click (the same way you add a Live Bookmark in Firefox), drag and drop items into custom folders, and get notifications in one location. This feed reader is built right into the browser and is based on the Firefox Extension Sage - Feed Aggregator. Simply click the My News button next to your address bar and your feeds will appear in a sidebar on your left. Like any good feed reader, you can customize it to your preferences, seeing full, excerpts, and headlines only. You can also edit out previously viewed documents, and view in a single or double column (similar to newspaper view).

Blog Editor - Flock’s built-in blog editor works with most of the popular blogging services, including Typepad, Blogger, LiveJournal, Wordpress.com, Movable Type, MetaWeblog, and BlogSome. It now supports tags for posts, previews, image insertion, and allows you to add sites to “ping” into the settings anytime you post.

Flock Extensions - If you’ve ever been a Firefox user, you are already familiar with Extensions and Themes. As of the day of this post, there currently are not any themes available, and there is a reason for this. Where as Firefox goes for a simplistic approach, the first thing you will notice about Flock is the absolutely stunning appearance of the web browser. I can’t imagine any wanting a custom theme.

Flock also lets you use just about any Firefox extension you are looking for. Flock used to host the extensions on their site, but I noticed they have since been moved. I’ve managed to get most of my favorite Firefox extensions easily installed by simply going to the Firefox extension and installing it like you would in Firefox.

For a convenient list of Firefox extensions, you can check out my Best of: Firefox Extensions post, which breaks them into categories and includes direct links to downloading the extensions. I would recommend avoiding the bookmarks section, as the Flock team has completely redone how this browser handles bookmarks. Most of these extensions will not work with Flock. Also, some of the people that have created these extensions have not yet made them compatible with Flock 0.9.

Flock has made these developers tips available to anyone that is interested in making their own Flock extensions.

Are you a Flockstar? If you enjoy Flock as much as I do, and you run a website, you can help spread the word by putting a Flock promotional button on your website. You can also help Flock get to know their community a little better with Flock’s Roll Call. For those without a website, you can further the Flock project by easily referring-a-friend.

In conclusion, I have to say that my favorite part of Flock is the Flock community hands down. The Flock staff is second to none when it comes to participation with its users, and they have Forums setup for questions and discussions. This also do a great job communicating with the masses via their official blog.

In looking at the Flock project as a whole, it’s hard to believe Flock isn’t even to version 1.0 yet and it has already come this far. The one thing I’m truly waiting for is Digg integration, but for now I’m very happy with the browser as it stands. I can definitely see why it took almost a full year after Firefox 2.0 for this release to be available, because it was definitely worth the wait.

[Last Updated: June 2, 2008]

There are many advantages to using the Firefox web browser for your daily browsing needs, but my favorite has to be the add-ons (extensions and themes) available to customize your browsing experience.

Within those add-ons are a few core extensions and themes that everyone should use. The Greasemonkey extension fits into that category in my opinion. Simply download the extension, then grab your favorite scripts and watch your internet browsing experience improve drastically!

Note: If you use Internet Explorer, you can use the IE7 Pro Compatibility add-in to permit some Greasemonkey scripts. If you use Safari, you may be able to run some scripts using Greasekit (previously known as the Creammonkey plugin). Opera is also known for being able to run a few scripts on their own.

How does Greasemonkey work? Greasemonkey assigns user-created scripts to run on the pre-determined web pages automatically, without you having to do anything. There are literally 100’s of them out their that improve the appearance and functionality of all sorts of websites out there. This post is a compliation of the best and most popular Greasemonkey scripts available to its users, broken down into category for easier reference.

- Blogger -

• Enlarge Blogger - Enlarges Blogger’s template editor.

- Bloglines -

• Bloglines HAI - Hide Archived Items script within Bloglines.

- Del.icio.us -

• Del.icio.us Prettifier - Drastically improves the look of Del.icio.us.
• Dejalicious - Tells you if the site you are looking at is already in your Del.icio.us bookmarks (adds + or -)
• Fav.icio.us - Adds the websites favicon next to its bookmark.

- Digg -

• Comment Box Sidebar - Makes the comment box appear where you are currently at rather than at the top of the page.
• Diggmenu - Adds a Digg menu to your browser.
• DuggMirror - Changes all Digg links to their DiggMirror links automatically so you never have to worry about broken links again.
• Digg.licio.us - Adds a “Save It” button just below the “Digg It” button allowing you to click to add to Del.icio.us.
• Digg Comment Helper - Highlights the most popular comments.
• Google Search - Replaces Digg’s search engine with Google search.
• Hide Buried Comments - Hides all buried comments (and their offspring).
• Reddit on Digg - Adds Reddit comments for the same article to the equivalent Digg article.

- eBay -

• Currency Conversion - Converts all currency to your currency of choice. Great for finding out how much you will have to pay for auctions and such that are listed under another currency.

- Facebook -

• Facebook Auto-login - Automatically logs you in to Facebook.
• Facebook Fixer - Makes profile pictures larger, shows additional menu items, adds people’s age to their profiles, and changes redirected links to direct links.
• Facebook Remove Feed Advertisements - Removes the feed advertisements on your Facebook feed.
• Facebook Auto-Colorizer - Changes the pages colors to match the dominant colors in the picture on each profile page.
• Make Facebook Green - Allows you to change Facebook to green (or any color if you add a hexadecimal number to the javascript).
• No Facebook Apps -Makes it so you don’t have to see facebook apps when you view Facebook profiles.

- Flickr -

• FlickrBox - Enhances browsing on Flickr.
• Flickr Shades - Changes Flickr to white letters on a black background. You can customize the script to colors of your choice.
• Flickr Image Blocker - Blocks annoying hovering images over the picture (to prevent you from saving the images).
• Flickr Photo Magnifier - Adds a small rectangular magnifier allowing you to see greater detail on Flickr images.
• Multi Group Sender - Overrides the Send to Group button allowing you to send to multiple groups.

- GMail -

• GMail Super Clean - Gives your GMail an amazing new look.
• GMail Air Skin - Gives GMail a slightly different look (more transparency).
• Folder4GMail - Adds sub-labels to your Gmail folder.
• GMail Full Width - Removes any advertisements and maximizes screen real estate by expanding your e-mails to fit your screen. Really useful for widescreen monitors.
• GMail and Reader Integrated - Integrates Google Reader into your GMail account.
• GMail Allow HTML - Allows you to add HTML to your E-mails.
• GMail Insert HTML Signature - Allows 1 or more HTML Signatures to be used within GMail.
• GMail Attachment Icons - Adds attachment icons to GMail.
• GMail Conversation Preview - Adds preview bubbles to GMail conversations.
• GMail Multiple Signatures - Allows you to have multiple signatures depending on which From: address you select.
• GMail Contact List - Gives GMail a contact list.
• GMail Spam Count Hide - Hides your GMail spam count.

- Google AdSense -

• AdSense EPC/CPC - Shows the cost-per-click (aka earnings-per-click) you’re getting on the AdSense reports page.
• Prevent Accidental Clicks - Makes it so you can’t accidentally click on your own advertisements on your website.
• Google Ads Remover - Blocks every Google Ad including SERP’s.

- Google Docs and Spreadsheets -

• Google Doc Download - Adds a drop-down box to download to MS Office, Open Office, PDF, etc.

- iGoogle (Personalized Homepage) -

• BeautyBlue - Nice blue theme for your iGoogle page.
• Google IG Max - Maximizes the removal of extra space to save room. Removes headers, footers, along with reducing the size of many elements on this page.
• More Rounded Corners - Allows you to round the corners of your modules.
• Remove Extra Space - Removes all the extra space on your iGoogle homepage.
• Remove the Header - Allows you to remove all module headers. You can also remove the footer with this script.
• Remove the Plus - Removes the + symbol next to each link within the modules.
• Replacing the Google Logo - Allows you to put any image where the iGoogle logo is (requires some hard coding).
• Resizeable Columns - Allows you to resize your homepage’s columns to look how you want.
• Transparencies - Makes the header image transparent to improve the look of your homepage.

- Google Maps -

• GZoom - Allows you to zoom beyond the normal limits.

- Google Reader -

• Auto Add Google Reader - Bypasses the confirmation page allowing you to quickly add feeds to your Google feed reader.
• Google Reader Facebook - Allows you to add posts to your Facebook page.
• Google Reader Optimized - Adjusts the appearance of Google Reader.
• Google Reader for Wider Screens - Maximizes screen real estate used for wide screen monitors.
• Google Reader Preview - Shows a preview of the webpage within Google Reader.
• Google Reader Print Button - Allows you to print stuff in your feeds.
• Google Reader Search - Adds search to Google Reader.
• Google Reader Twitter - Adds posts to Twitter with a single click.

- Google Search -

• GoogleEnlarge - Hover over a Google image to see an enlarged version of the image in a pop up.
• Google AutoPager - Eliminates the “Next Page” button and automatically loads the next pages results at the bottom of your page. (Works with the Google Preview extension for Firefox)
• Google Two Column - Displays search results in two columns (Ideal for people with wide screen monitors)
• Google 100 - Shows the first 100 search results instead of the default 10. You can also show a different number of results by doing the following 4 steps:
  1. Visit Google.com.
  2. Go to Tools -> Greasemonkey -> User Script Commands.
  3. Choose “Set Google Results Per Page”.
  4. Enter a number between 1 and 100.

- Miscellaneous -

• Disable Text Ads - Removes inline contextual text ads from the following 3 services: VibrantMedia(IntelliTXT), Kontera and Linkworth.
• Pre-Fill Comments - Will pre-fill in comment forms for you.
• Profanity Filter - Censors all profanity.

- StumbleUpon -

• Best Friends - Create an area for your top StumbleUpon friends, just like on other popular social networks. There’s no limit to the number of best friends you can add, but no one else will see them. Your friends are arranged in alphabetical order.
• Count Likes - Adds the number of “Likes” to the Preference and About sections of StumbleUpon.
• Del.icio.us Stumbles - Allows users to add links to Del.icio.us, then click a link to Stumble all bookmarks.
• Quick Tag - Suggests popular tags and personal tags to help you tag your links faster.
• Preview Posts - Adds a preview button to the StumbleUpon forums and your personal Inbox.
• Tag Toplist - Displays a top list of the most-used tags, and allows you to sort sort alphabetically or by tag count.
• WYSIWYG - Formats your reviews and comments in a WYSIWG editor.

- Wikipedia -

• Wikipedia Animate - Powerful script that animates the history of changes on the Wikipedia article. It highlights recent changes and provides a timeline slider.

- WordPress -

• Akismet Auntie Spam (by Engtech)- Shows 16-18 spam comments within Akismet instead of the default 3-5 comments.

- YouTube -

• YouTube Better Titles - Adjusts titles to help differentiate from multiple videos with the same titles.
• YouTube Better Embed - Adjusts embed code to be XHTML 1.0 compliant, which helps with embedding into sites.
• YouTube Cleaner - Elimates the extra junk from the YouTube page that you never use.
• YouTube Video Only - Removes everything from the page but the YouTube video itself. You can also move the commens next to the video.
• YouTube Googler - Makes the YouTube page look like Google Video (much larger video screen).
• YouTube Embed Video Downloader - Displays a link to download FLV movies.
• YouTube Prevent Autoplay - Stops videos from automatically playing. You can then click on it when you are ready to view it.
• YouTube Resizer - Allows you to resize YouTube videos. Great for making videos bigger and easier to view.
• Remove YouTube Comments - Removes all YouTube comments.
• Coralized YouTube - Uses coral’s cache servers to allow videos to load faster.

If you can’t find the one you’re looking for here, you can find over 5,000 user scripts (according to their site) at Userscripts or you can simply make your own. Lifehacker has also posted a way to sync your Greasemonkey scripts between computers.

If I’m missing some of your favorites, please leave a comment below with a link to the script and I’ll review it for inclusion in the post above. My hope is to keep this post limited to the best Greasmonkey scripts available, as it can often by frustrating digging through 100’s of scripts to find the ones you are looking for. This list will be updated regularly in hopes of keeping it as a valid reference.