STFU && RTFM

Following monday’s post a colleague of mine sent me the below picture. Although I’ll grant you it is oversimplifying things more than a bit, it still has a vein of truth in it, not to mention the fact that it is more than slightly amusing…
 

(Click the image to see the full size)

It’s been a while since I last wrote of my trying out Opera. Since then, my tech-savvy friend has taken it upon himself to bring me into the light. A calm evening of beer and pizza quickly turned into just that, with the addendum of him prodding me to use Opera in no uncertain terms. Indeed, so much so that he convinced me to download and install Opera to my EeePC so that I could see the marvels of Opera in all their splendour.
 
It all started by him being amazed that I still used Firefox, and wasn’t Opera so much better? After a while, his line of questioning turned towards aren’t you convinced it’s the superior choice etc. Frankly, I wasn’t. My friend said, OK, here’s what we’ll do: Try it exclusively for a week, and then tell me what you think.
 
After using it for a week, not only am I not convinced it’s a superior choice, though it does have some things I’d like to see in Firefox, like syncronisation of bookmarks, and easy customisation of search parameters. The reasons I’m not convinced all have to do with usability. I’ve tried the same version on three different computers and two different OS’s.
 

• Ctrl+click does not open in a new tab
• Shift+click opens in a new tab, and moves focus to the new tab
• Ctrl++shift+click opens in a new tab, leaving focus in the active tab
• Ctrl+tab opens the last active tab (this can be changed)
• Closing a tab moves to the last active tab (this can also be changed, but is still erratic and unpredictable)
• Does not work properly in Google Docs Spreadsheets or Lotus Notes Webmail
• Opera sync does not sync settings, meaning that you need to tweak every install

 
The first six of these examples are counterintuitive, and simply don’t work well. Even though they may be tweaked, changing their behaviour to mimic that of Mozilla Firefox does not seem possible.
 
I stand by my original assessment, all in all, Opera is a good browser, but it will not be the browser that makes me move away from Firefox as my default browser.

Web search and advertising giant Google has gone against what seemed to be a foregone conclusion by not only not buying the norwegian web browser development firm Opera software, but also publishing their own web browser, called Chrome. They’ve built it on Web Kit, the same rendering engine used by Apple’s Safari, and added their own JVM (Java Virtual Machine).
 

 
The first thing I noticed when I’d installed Chrome was how shiny it was, how eyecandy-y it was. The second thing I noticed was its lack of a “stop” button. That was it though. I didn’t notice any obvious usability flaws. There were no illogical keyboard shortcuts.
 
Even so, it does seem somewhat underdeveloped. Chrome is a very early Beta considering other Beta projects of Google’s. To me, it immediately felt a bit like Windows XP’s default skin, that is to say, I think it looks a bit like they’ve teamed up with Fisher Price to create My First Browser.
 
Like my conclusions on Apple’s Safari and Opera, I like it, but I can’t really see it substituting my current default, Mozilla Firefox.

On June 18th, 2008, some eight and a half million people downloaded the latest version of Mozilla Firefox. A powerful browser, built on the Gecko engine its greatest advantage is the fact that it is so easily expandable and customizable through powerful add-ons.
 
There are a few new features that are most decidedly practical. One of them is a “Verified by” function, which simply means that when you are visiting say, a Microsoft site, the addressbar shines up like this:

 
Another nifty function is the “Most Visited” button, which lists your ten most visited websites:

 
The password-saving feature is still there, but comes up as a noticebar, instead of a dialog box:

 
Designwise, the changes are minor, but noticeable. There are new buttons, like so:

 
All in all, Firefox 3 seems to be a decent browser, and it simply works, which is always nice. By the by, everyone who downloaded Firefox 3 in the first 24 hours were part of a world record setting event, and got to download a Download Day certificate like this:
 

In a previous blogpost I wrote about my favorite Firefox extensions. One thing that annoys me though, is that whenever I try to install an extension, Firefox shows a dialog box, and grays out the “install” button for three seconds, like this:

 
Naturally, this is annoying, but easily remedied. To do this, you need to do the following:
1: In the Firefox address bar, type “about:config” and hit enter
2: Click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button
3: In the Filter text box, enter “security.dialog_enable_delay”
4: Change the value to 0
 
Having done this, you’ll find that the delay no longer appears.

A friend of mine whose tech savvy is usually worth listening to waxed religious about Opera the other night. When he does, there’s usually a good reason, so I decided to check it out.
 
Setting it up
Setting up a webbrowser shouldn’t be a complicated process, and Opera is as simple to install as most other browsers. When you open it, you get what Opera has decided to call “Speed Dial”, basically a page with nine “buttons”, previews of nine websites, to be defined by the user. Here’s what it looks like:

 
Using it
I’ve used earlier incarnations of Opera, but it’s been a while, and they’ve gotten very far since then. Opera has a decent ease of use, but utilizes different hotkeys than comparable browsers Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, which makes crossing over a bit difficult. Nevertheless it presents itself as an intuitive and simple webbrowser.
 
One of the major features of Opera has since its inception back in 2000 been tabbed browsing. As an extension of this, Opera now features a preview-function of open tabs, which is activated by simply hovering the mouse pointer over the tab you wish to see as shown below:

 
All in all, Opera, like Safari presents itself as an impressive, intuitive and helpful addition to the family of webbrowsers. I’d like to have seen a higher degree of standardization when it comes to hotkeys, but mostly it’s a good browser, even though I doubt it will replace Firefox as my standard browser

Like me, you’ve probably been using the internet for a while, and may have noticed that sometimes Internet Explorer has a “provided by”-tag, looking something like this:
 

 
Well, I wondered how they did this, and found out. This is how to brand your Internet Explorer, in three simple steps.:
 
First, open the “run”-dialog box from the start menu, and type “gpedit.msc”. Press OK.
 
Second, in the Group Policy Editor window that opens, find the setting called “User Configuration\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maintenance\Browser User Interface” like so:
 

 
Thirdly, open the setting called “Browser Title”, and edit it in the dialog box that follows, much like this:
 

 
Click “OK”, and Hey Presty!, you’re done.
 
What will it look like you ask? Here’s how:
 

I like trying out new pieces of software, and when Apple released Safari for Windows I had no choice but to try it out. First impression is that it is most definitely an Apple product, and bears great resemblance to e.g. iTunes. It is a sleek piece of software, and it seems to be sturdy enough.
 
Having used Firefox for years, it is great seeing that they’ve implemented the same keyboard shortcuts that seem to have become more or less the norm for such functions as opening tabs, closing tabs etc.
 
The way it renders websites is another point I like; it seems to render much like Firefox, and more to the point, not like Internet Explorer. This is especially noticeable with sites that run a wiki, like my website. For example, in Safari and Firefox the bottom bar is rendered across the browser, unlike in Internet Explorer where it is cropped to “fit” on the right of the sidebar.
 

 
All in all, it strikes me as a decent webbrowser, although I am unsure if I will allow it to replace Firefox. Even so, at times it is good to have a second third-party browser installed, like when I was reinstalling Firefox…

My problems have, as I mentioned, been twofold; first there is the universal problem of not being able to add extensions, and second there is the problem of Firefox crashing on one of my machines.
 
The error data for the crashes look like this:
 
AppName: firefox.exe
AppVer: 1.8.20080.31114
ModName: firefox.exe
ModVer: 1.8.20080.31114
Offset: 0019e219
 
I decided to do a fresh reinstall of Firefox, but wanting to keep my profile, with all my bookmarks etc., I exported the profile folder (as detailed in the Mozilla Knowledgebase). I then uninstalled Firefox, and then reinstalled Firefox. I then imported the profile folder, and I am now able to install extensions, though the problems with the crashes remain. This seems to be caused by the profile, and I created a new profile accordingly.
 
To create a new profile, I ran the command “firefox.exe -ProfileManager”, and created a new profile. I copied files as detailed in the Mozilla Knowledge base article on recovering data from an old profile, and restarted firefox with the new profile, taking care to delete the old one. Some data was lost, but most of my preferences survived.
 
The install of Firefox was an updated and patched one, originally installed as 2.0.0.5 or something like that. Most likely problem was caused by my install of Firefox having been updated and patched instead of reinstalled.
 
To resolve this problem, I relied heavily on the following Mozilla Firefox Knowledgebase articles: 

• Backing up your information
• Managing profiles
• Recovering important data from an old profile

I’ve been using Firefox for a few years now, and love it dearly. After the update to version 2.0.0.13, I have experienced the following problems with it:
 

• On one machine, it crashes *constantly*
• I am unable to add extensions (this happens for *all* of my extensions, and I have tested all of them in the same version on another machine)

 
I have tried the troubleshooting tips found in Mozilla’s Knowledgebase, and have not resolved the problems.
 
Am I the only one having these problems?
 
I’ve posted the problems to the Firefox Support Forum, and will post solutions when I find them.