Firefox-extension | Technology Blog

Firefox Password Revealer

January 1st, 2009

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Use long secure passwords. That’s what they say. Did you ever try to type in a secure password with a length of 25+ characters several times because the web form would not accept it? Since you do not see what you type you cannot easily identify what went wrong. Even more so because the password will obviously be removed when the form pops up again. It could be related to several things. A typing error, numlock, shift-lock, a wireless keyboard with problems or site problems. Most tech savvy users try to enter the password again thinking that they made a typing error before they start investigating why it is not accepted.

One of the easiest ways to do that would be to compare the entered password with the correct password. To do that the entered password has to be revealed and that is what the Firefox password Revealer Show Passwords does. (another way to make sure the right password is entered is to type it the address bar in Firefox and copy paste it into the password field).

Youtube Video Download

December 26th, 2008

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Youtube is slowly starting to provide access to high definition videos on the video portal. If you perform a search for it you find many websites that explain how to view the videos on Youtube in high definition. High definition Youtube video downloads on the other hand are not explained that often. One of the best ways to download the Youtube videos in high definition is with the help of the Firefox add-on Download Youtube Videos in HD and MP4 [link]. The add-on provides an easy way to download Youtube videos by adding download links directly on the Youtube video pages.

Youtube video download adds two links to one of the right panels that contain the url and embed links. The Download as MP4 and Download as 720p HD MP4 are displayed. They can be saved by right-clicking on one of the two links and selecting Save Link As from the context menu. One should note however that this is obviously only working if a HD video is available on Youtube. If there is no HD video the download will display the file as get_video or videoplayback which will not save the video at all. It is possible that one of the two Youtube video download links is working but there have been cases where none was working.

Url Revealer

December 24th, 2008

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Url shortening services like Tinyurl have seen an influx since the release of web services like Twitter. Twitter is a prime example as the services limits the amount of characters per message to 160 much like SMS on cell phones. Yes, you can write / send multiple messages but that’s not really the same, is it?

If you head over to Twitter and log into your account you most likely will see links of shortening services. While they make links shorter so that you can save chars they also hide the real address of the link which in its extreme could be used to lure users to a website they do not want to visit. This can have serious consequences depending on the location or place the links are accessed: Think of following a link leading to an adult site at work.

Long URL Please is a experimental Firefox extension that turns urls of shortening services to their original one. It currently supports about 30 different services with more being added regularly.

Firefox Text To Speech

December 21st, 2008

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Making the computer read out text aloud can be useful in several situations. The most obvious is as a aid for blind people but it can also be helpful if you cannot look at the computer screen at that moment.

Speak It was a very popular Firefox add-on. It is listed to be compatible with Firefox 2 only at the official Mozilla homepage but a user changed the compatibility of the add-on and made it compatible with Firefox 3 as well.

It utilizes text to speech capabilities of the operating system to provide the means to read out text aloud to the user. It integrates itself nicely in the right-click context menu and can be used to read out all of the text on a website or only the selected text.

Automatically Discover New Greasemonkey Scripts

December 17th, 2008

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If you like to test and install Greasemonkey scripts on a regular basis you might be regularly hanging out at the Userscripts website which contains the largest collection of Greasemonkey scripts on the Internet. It is not that practical as you have to always head over to the site to search for Greasemonkey scripts for a particular website but it was the only way to discover new scripts. The checks would have to be performed regularly as scripts are added and updated regularly.

The Firefox add-on Greasefire changes this to the better. It integrates itself nicely with the Greasemonkey extension and becomes active on every website for which Greasemonkey scripts are available. The extension maintains a list that gets regularly updated so that new and updated Greasemonkey scripts will be listed when the user takes a look at them

All available Greasemonkey scripts for that specific website will be displayed in a new window that opens when the user right-clicks on the icon in the Firefox status bar and selects the line telling him how many Greasemonkey scripts are available for it.

Page Bookmarks

December 15th, 2008

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Bookmarks are references to websites that are stored on a computer system. They are usually stored in a web browser to make it easier to open a website at a later time again. They also aid the user by storing the relevant information like the url so that those do not have to be remembered by the user.

A page is usually displayed from the top on which is problematic on very long pages. Maybe the relevant information are stored somewhere in the middle instead of the beginning. It could also be that you were not able to work yourself through all of the page and bookmarked the page to continue reading at a later time. You would need to scroll and search for the place where you stopped in both scenarios.

Page Bookmarks aid Firefox users by providing the means to save a bookmark that does not only remember the url of the page but also the position of the scroll bar on the page. All functions are available through the right-click context menu. Whenever you want to save the position simply right-click that page and select the Page Bookmarks entry from the menu. The extension does not only save the position of the website but also the zoom level which is great for users who regularly zoom in and out of websites.