Firefox Add-ons | Technology Blog

Custom Firefox Startpage

October 11th, 2008

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Users can practically set one or multiple websites as their start pages in Firefox (and any other web browser as well). Another option are Speed Dial extensions which copy a feature from Opera to Firefox that provide access to a handful of links on one page. Autohome puts that concept to the next level by providing a way to create a startpage that is filled with links that have been added by the user.

This concept is not truly that different from creating a simple html file with links and use that as the startpage except that it does not require technical knowledge to create the page. The Firefox extension adds an icon to the Firefox status bar which provides access to the extension’s functions and options to add the current page to the startpage.

The extension will automatically grab the url, page title and a folder suggestion of which the latter two can be customized. Folders are basically headings under which the titles are shown on the startpage.

Firefox URLBar Extension

October 3rd, 2008

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UrlbarExt is an experimental Firefox add-on that adds a few interesting functions to the Firefox location bar. Experimental meaning that users have to log into an account at the Mozilla website to download and install the add-on. It is usually not an indicator of a “not yet ready” add-on. Users who do not have an account but would like to install the add-on could use one of the available logins from Bugmenot instead.

Back to the Firefox extension. It adds six new icons to the right side of the Firefox location bar which look a lot like the icons that the Tagmarks extension is adding in that place. Users with the Tagmarks extension enabled might run into troubles. This has not been tested and is just an assumption.

The icons provide easy access to the following functions:

Copy URL
Create Tiny URL
Search Site
Up One Directory Level, Double-click for Root
Tags
Anonymous Surfing

3 Tagging Add-ons For Firefox

September 16th, 2008

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Firefox 3 introduced a new way of keeping an overview over the bookmarks of Firefox by adding tags. Tags are descriptions of an item and can be used to load the site in the address bar which is probably easier than having to type part of the url of the website. They also come in quite handy if several bookmarks of a website exist in Firefox that all point to another part of the website, say different articles here at Ghacks.

Writing down part of the url in the address bar would display all hits while tags only show the websites that have been tagged with that name which means that a unique tag will only show one result.

Adding tags to bookmarks is completely optional and a cumbersome process especially for users who imported bookmarks from Firefox 2 and decided to tag them all, or at least part of them to use the tagging feature for all bookmarks.

24 Firefox Search Plugins You Need

August 23rd, 2008

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Searching is probably the one activity that every Internet user is doing on a daily basis. It does not truly matter if it is a student doing research for his next essay, a housewife looking for new recipes, youngsters looking for the latest music videos on Youtube or the couple looking for a new health insurance.

Everyone is constantly searching for information and Firefox users are in the great position to be aided by hundreds of search extensions that make searching easier, comfortable and faster.

To much choice on the other hand puts some pressure back on the user who now has to pick the useful extensions and cast the other that are not helping him aside. That’s where this article comes into play. It lists the Firefox Search Extensions that you need to search the Internet professionally. They help you find the information you are looking for faster and efficiently.

YesScript is NoScript

August 12th, 2008

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NoScript is a highly acclaimed Firefox security add-on that protects the user from scripts that are executed on websites. The approach is to block all scripts on a website unless the website gets whitelisted by the user. While that is certainly the best security approach it does require lots of manual whitelisting in the beginning and when visiting new websites.

Most users on the other hand prefer simplicity and no user interaction and that’s where YesScript comes into play. Its approach is the complete opposite of NoScript. YesScript allows all scripts on all websites unless they are blacklisted by the user.

The advantage of this method is that less user interaction is required. It does however undermine the security aspect because scripts will be executed normally as long as the website is not in the blacklist.

Whitelist Bookmarks In Adblock Plus

August 5th, 2008

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Adblock Plus is a Firefox add-on that blocks advertisement, and sometimes other elements, on websites. It supports black- and whitelists and is very flexible. One thing that is missing is an option to generally whitelist all bookmarks.

Some users might prefer do whitelist websites on a per-site basis and that is perfectly reasonable. Others prefer to whitelist all bookmarks at once which is not doable in the options of the add-on. The author of the add-on however has created a script (discovered at Firefox Mastery) that takes the contents of a bookmarks file and creates a whitelist file out of it.

The process itself is pretty simple, users do need to have access to their bookmarks in html format though. Firefox 2 users can simply access the bookmarks.html file in the Firefox profile folder while Firefox 3 users need to export the bookmarks into html format first which can be done in the Bookmarks Manager.