STFU && RTFM » Firefox

Firefox does not save tabs on close on Mac OSX

razumny — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 07:00:42 +0000

My girlfriend recently got herself a shiny new MacBook Pro, and installed Firefox, as that’s her browser of preference. She kept having a problem that her tabs would not be saved when she closed Firefox, and asked me to look into it.

All the settings under Preferences were OK, so the problem was not with the settings. Likewise, the relevant settings under about:config were set correctly. We tried deleting prefs.js, but that didn’t help either.

Then, as a last-ditch attempt, I tried closing Firefox using the option on the menu bar. I then got the beloved question “Do you want Firefox to save your tabs”. I clicked yes, then restarted Firefox. All the tabs were reloaded. I then used the red X in the upper right-hand corner, the opened Firefox, and the tabs were not reloaded.

I registered the bug with Mozilla (bug #544880), and it seems like this is not so much a bug, as the way Firefox is handled in Mac OS X; when you use the red “x”-button, it does not shut down Firefox, but rather closes the window in question.

Microsoft Internet Ballot screen candidates

razumny — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 07:00:05 +0000

After a long run of anti-trust suits, Microsoft has finally come to an agreement with the EU about how to solve the internet browser problem. The problem is that Microsoft delivers Windows bundled with Internet Explorer, which competing software developers claim is a breach of anti-trust laws.

The solution? When a fresh install of Microsoft Windows is made, the user gets a ballot screen, in which twelve candidates are displayed. The candidates are:

Chrome (Google)
Firefox (Mozilla)
Internet Explorer (Microsoft)
Opera (Opera Software)
Safari (Apple)
AOL (AOL)
Maxthon (Maxthon)
K-Meleon (K-Meleon)
Flock (Flock)
Avant Browser (Avant Force)
Sleipnir (Fenrir)
Slim Browser (FlashPeak)

The ballot screen will first display this page:

When you click “OK”, you will then be taken to this page:

From here, all you need to do is simply to choose the browser you want, and that is what you’ll get. If you want more, you can of course download and install them on your own.

My only issue here is the sheer number of browsers, and I’ve got to admit, while I had tried a few of these browsers, I had never even heard of half of them. Still, the fact that the five dominant browsers are listed first, is a good thing, the other seven will only be shown if you actually scroll right. If you’re interested, you’ll do just that. If not, you won’t – simple as that.

Firefox: Get more add-on search results

razumny — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:00:00 +0000

When searching for new Add-ons, you are by default shown five results. You might find it more efficient to increase this number.

In the address field, go to about:config
Accept the warning
Search for getAddons
Change extension.getAddons.maxResults to 10 (or higher if you want to see even more

Firefox: View code in an external editor

razumny — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 06:00:00 +0000

When you want to view the source of a page, it opens up in browser popup. However, if you want, you can make it open in your favorite editor, instead of having to cut and paste. To achieve this: do the following:

In the address field, go to about:config
Accept the warning
Search for view_source.editor
Change view_source.editor.external to true
Change view_source.editor.path to the exact path to your editor of choice

Firefox: Auto export bookmarks

razumny — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 06:00:00 +0000

In Firefox 3, bookmarks are automatically saved. The only problem is the way they are stored, as they are stored as places.sqlite, as opposed to saving them in HTML. You can change this easily however, by doing the following:

In the address field, go to about:config
Accept the warning
Search for autoExportHTML, which should present you with browser.bookmarks.autoExportHTML
Change this to true

Firefox – Displaying saved passwords

razumny — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 07:00:00 +0000

One of the pracctical functions in Firefox is the option to save passwords. This also has a backward function, in that you can find out what your saved password is. To do so, simply go to the login-page in question. Then right-click the site and select View Page Info. Go to the Security-tab and find the button View saved passwords. Then click the button View passwords to see all saved passwords.

Now, as I’m sure I’m not the only paranoid browser around, here’s how to set a master password to protect your saved passwords:

Go to Tools -> Options
Go to the Security-tab
From here you can set a master password by checking the checkbox Use a master password

Firefox – Use keywords for specialized search

razumny — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 07:00:00 +0000

You’re sitting in front of your computer, surfing the web, and you find a website, let’s say this one, that has a nifty search function which you want to use. However, you don’t want to open the website every time you want to use the search. This is where keyword browsing comes in handy.

To set it up, simply right-click the search-box you want to create a keyword for, then select Add a keyword for this search like so:

Then enter the information and the keyword you want like so:

To use it, simply go to the address bar, and write out what you want to search for after the keyword, much like this:

Firefox – Tweaking the Awesome-bar

razumny — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 07:00:00 +0000

The “Awesome”-bar, otherwise known as the address bar, has a few nifty little things you can tweak. First off, you can turn it back into a boring old address-bar. To do this you go to the (for now) awesome-bar, then direct your browser to about:config. In the filter enter browser.urlbar.maxRichResults, and change its value to -1.

If you only want it to show you websites whose URL you’ve actually entered the address for, go to about:config and find the entry browser.urlbar.matchonlytyped. Change its value to true.

To remove addresses from the Awesome-bar that you haven’t visited, you once more go to about:config. Find the entry places.frecency.unvisitedBookmarkBonus, and set its value to 0.

Lastly, to remove all addresses from the Awesome-bar, you go to about:config, find the entry places.frecency.bookmarkVisitBonus, and set its value to 0.

Firefox – Change the close-button for tabs

razumny — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 07:00:00 +0000

There has been so many discussions about where to place the close-buttons for tabs that Mozilla has created a config key for this specific option.

To access the key, open a new tab, enter about:config then press enter. In the filter search for browser.tabs.closeButtons. Change this value according to your choice and the following table:

Value	Button state
0	Close-button only on the active tab
1	Close-button on all tabs
2	No close-buttons
3	A closebutton at the end of the toolbar, not on the tabs

Firefox – Open mailto:-links in GMail

razumny — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 07:00:00 +0000

I use GMail a lot. I also send a lot of emails, many of those originating from mailto:-links. Hence, it is practical to have mailto:-links open in GMail.

This is quickly and simply achieved by going to Tools, Options, Applications. In the search-field, simply enter mailto, then use the Action-field to select GMail, Yahoo Mail or something else, like so:

Some installations of Firefox do not have the GMail-alternative. This is simply fixed. Open a new tab, then enter about:config in the address-bar. Into the filter enter
gecko.handlerService.AllowRegisterFromDifferentHost, then doubleclick the value so that it is set to true. Then copy/paste the following piece of Javascript to your Addressbar: javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler("mailto", "https://mail.google.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s","Gmail"). When asked whether you want to add GMail as an application, answer “yes”.