Firefox Plugins I Recommend (…and I use)

Slylish
Allows you to change the CSS of any page on the web. There is a large community already that have made scripts for you to use. Simply use the ‘find scripts for this page’ feature. Great for removeing text ads from Facebook, Google etc.
ADD IT HERE

Adblock Plus
Removes LOADS of ads from the net by subscribing to a list of known ads. Also has the ‘open blockable items’ feature so you can scroll through every thing that is visible on that page and block it or right click and select ‘block this’. It even has tabs for flash and Java so you can block those ads too.
ADD IT HERE

Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper
Similar to that found in the Web Developer toolbar outline function, this allows you to mouse over a webpage and see the outline of the current element and then block it in Adblock Plus.
ADD IT HERE

Adblock Filterset.G Updater
Updates the filterset every 4-7 days.
ADD IT HERE

Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
Allows you to save your Firefox bookmarks to a server and synchronize them up and down. Useful if you have more than one machine or are constantly re-formatting like me.
ADD IT HERE

Web Developer
An invaluable tool for any web developer out there regardless of ability. The tool I use the most is the ‘outline current element’ tool which draws a red line around the element the mouse is over and show the deprecation in the address bar. very helpful for understanding CSS problems.
ADD IT HERE

Google Preview
Shows preiews of pages next to the search result in google. Similar to that already done when YouTube videos appear in the search results. Uses the image taken from google’s webcrawler.
ADD IT HERE

del.icio.us
An integrated system for taging pages in your del.icio.us page. Comes with a menu bar as well as two menu buttons ‘tag this’ and a direct link to your del.icio.us page. Also feature right click integration.
ADD IT HERE

Feel free to list any other plugins that you use and why.

Protect Firefox Passwords & Still Fill Forms?

Today I discovered a previously unknown password facility within Firefox 2 that is simply brilliant.

While discussing password security and allowing Firefox to save username and password combinations so you dont have to with a colleague the other day I became aware that if my laptop got stolen… there was a hell of a lot of stuff people could access as Firefox held the login details.

I was about to delete all passwords from the system to ensure security I chanced upon the ‘Master Password’ button in the ‘Security’ tab in the options menu. Once set I assumed it would just protect the passwords stored which, while a step in the right direction, would still allow people to click my bookmarks and bypass the login screens as Firefox retained the login details.

I was wrong, it is in fact very clever. When a master password is set Firefox does indeed protect the saved passwords from being shown in the options menu but it also provides a pop-up box requiring the master password when you click on a site that has saved login details. So for example if I click on Facebook with the master password enabled, Firefox asks me for the master password before loading the page. Once entered Firefox then pre-fills the login details for me to click ‘login’. If I get the master password wrong or click cancel, the page still loads but the login form is empty!

The form only needs to be filled in once per session then all form fields are filled from then on.

Lightbox 2 vs Lightview Plus?

I am now using Lightview to test it compared to Lightbox 2.

On the plus side it looks a lot prettier (if that were possible) and its transitions are sleeker. It has two key features that Lighbox does not… It has the ability to have a slideshow in the same screen with the click of a button and is very smooth. The other is that it scales the image to fit into the browser window. This was a major problem for me with the last project’s slides as they had to be 1024×768 (for some reason).

There is a downside though, depending on how large the image is the scaling process can cause a lot of artefacts and is completely useless with text (like a slideshow for example). As if you’ve zoomed out in photoshop… the image is very pixelly. I recommed re-scaling all images to a max of 800×600 (which I will be doing with my slide show) to make the most of the progam.

Oh and its also in one handy little package that you upload to the plug-ins folder in Wordpress :D

Here it is on the Wordpress site if you want to test it out for yourself.

A Stylish Firefox Add-on

Whilst searching the interweb last night trying desperately to find a way to block google’s ’sponsored links’ within its gmail system, I came across a brilliant little add-on for firefox that does that plus much more! It’s so simple too.

Its called ’stylish’ and essentially overwrites the existing css of the page by using !important. So to remove ads its as easy as finding out the container’s name and setting it to display:none !important;. Easy right? Well actually it can be quite hard to find the names of what you want to change… thats why there is a dev community that has done it for you at http://userstyles.org/

All you do is install the ’stylish’ add-on for firefox and then search the site for the pages that people have changed. So I searched for gmail and found hundreds of mods for it from simply removing ads to re-colouring the whole site. There are a few nice little applications that are web-wide (like the google ad blocking) and some that are only site wide (I have changed the colour of the Facebook header).

The great thing is, you can write your own or edit existing ones and preview all of them before saving them. Even then its a simple toggle-on, toggle-off system.

I recommend this for every web developer.

It Must Be Bad If This Guy Says So!

If the creator of the web itself, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, says he will change his ISP if they start to monitor his web activity then we are in a sorry state of affairs. In interview with the BBC he said “consumers need to be protected against systems which can track their activity on the internet”

Seriously, is nobody listening? Although it wouldn’t be the first time the creator of something has watched it turn into something terrible. Anyone remember the Atom Bomb?

The article from the BBC cites a company called Phorm to monitors user information etc but their site itself clearly states “Phorm technology dispels the argument that in order to make online advertising relevant for consumers you must use and keep consumer surfing behaviour or their personally identifiable information“

They also state they are “setting a new, higher standard on privacy and anonymity“.

So I fail to see what the company will do, and if it does will it violate it’s own set of guidelines?

I STILL feel this is a breach of our rights to have unmonitored communications. This is exactly what my contextual studies essay was about.

This would make me FURIOUS if this actually comes to fruition!

Shared Simplicity

There is a new application about to become a public beta that could change the way people sync data between machines but also the way people share data with each other.

Its called Dropbox and its a revolutionary system for syncing across multiple platforms and requires no sophisticated setup, in fact very little setup at all.

The way it works is by integrating itself into the system your using. So for example you have a folder called ‘Dropbox’ and everything within there can be synced across the web as long as you install Dropbox on the target computer and sign in. Rather than having to click ‘update’ or ’sync’ or whatever and have to wait while all the files are uploaded or checked etc. Dropbox simply uploads the changes in the file only, therefore saving on bandwidth and increasing the speed of the service.

Obviously there are limitations with this and only certain applications will supported (I presume) but the implications are wide reaching. A long with this, you don’t have to click ‘update’ or ’sync’ on the destination computer as it is reflected as soon as it detects changes to the online folder.

There are loads more features and I’ve already signed up for the public beta and I suggest you do the same. This could be THE way of sharing and syncing information.

Check out the video here.

Speed Up Firefox

For those of you who I have not told about this. Here is what to do to speed up browsing in Firefox. This will only work on broadband connections.

1. Open a new tab in firefox and type in about:config

2. In filter type pipe and you should have 3 results. Double click the top and the bottom to turn them to ‘true’ set the middle one to 20.

3. Right click anywhere on the list and select new > integer. Name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and give it a value of 0. This sets the initial delay for showing web pages to zero.

4. Right click again anywhere on the list and select new > integer. Name it browser.cache.memory.capacity and give it a value of anything above 8,192. This is the memory that firefox will use in kb so I’ve set mine to 15000 but you can set it as high as you like.

Close and restart firefox and there you go! FASTERFOX!

Imagine The Download Limit On This!

An article from Tech Radar says French technology company Bell Labs have revealed they have managed to break the record for data transfer. They managed to optically transfer 16.4TB/s over a distance of 2550km. That’s 100 HD movies EVERY SECOND!

What would the download limit be on this… kinda puts test to the ‘fair usage policy’ doesn’t it?

Long Live Open-Source

An article reports that today Firefox announced that it had reached a milestone of 500 million downloads of the open-source browser. I think that’s great. I love the whole open-source ethos but I am in a quandary, can you make any money from open-source software? Not that I’m a money hungry tycoon, but Microsoft are about to release IE8 beta and undoubtedly they will have copied the very useful features from Firefox. Tabbed browsing for example? A separate search box with customisable engines? Good ideas, but I can’t help but feel Firefox are getting ripped off.

Facebook ‘Prank’ Taken Too Seriously?

I know how tempting it is to set up a fake Facebook page and then message your friends with all kinds of abuse or stalker-like behaviour, but have you ever stopped to think what the ramifications could be?

Well a Moroccan computer engineer certainly didn’t, although he did sign up to Facebook as Prince Moulay Rachid, younger brother of King Mohammed VI. I don’t think the guy was ever expecting to get caught and if he did I suppose he thought he would just get a slap on the wrist from Facebook and not be allowed to play with the other kids.

Far from it, this guy has been sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay $1,300. I think that’s a little extreme myself but hey, now I’m not going to sign up to Facebook pretending to be the queen as originally planned!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/7258950.stm