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Mozilla

Journal FortKnox's Journal: Firefox 58

Journal by FortKnox
After having the whole 'virus' debacle, I've decided to bow-down before the might known as STB, and load up firefox.
I'm impressed that its really lightweight (from a GUI perspective), and works pretty nicely. I hate not having ctrl-O... I'll need to see if I can configure that to bring an 'open url' up, cause I hate switching to the mouse.
Not used to tabs AT ALL yet. I'll have to configure it (I'm assuming this is beaucoup configurable, or I'll be seriously disappointed) to automagically make links that 'pop up' stuff into tabs. The third-mouse-button-clicks-links-into-tabs is pretty nifty. Here's hoping I get hooked, otherwise STB will be called my all new fav word (which I only think Em picked up on... after all, he used it first).

Update: another question... that quake-symbol looking bird is pretty lame-o (as is the spinning animation). Anyway I can reconfig that? Is there skins? Anyone have an animation of solemndragon doing a jig?
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  • I'm not that big a fan of tabbed browsing. I prefer to have separate windows that I can resize and reposition. alt-Tab bets me back and forth fairly quickly. I did use MyIE2 for a while (it's basically a different wrapper for the Windows web browser control), but I got frustrated with the tabs. Also, IIRC, I was unhappy with some facet of the toolbar behavior. I really liked the mouse gestures, though. I managed to find a mouse gestures plugin for IE (even better, it's from CodeProject, so I've been a
  • ctrl-T (whilst at work -- command-T at home) is my best friend. Oh man, tabbed browsing is like buttah.

  • Seen it, but the video camera is broken. Sorry about that. :-)
  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • OK, why do you like tabbed browsing? As opposed to separate windows? I tried a tabbed browser (MyIE2), and did not like it as well. At work, I use a multiple-monitor configuration, and multiple windows really seem to work better. Can you undock the different tabs? Is it possible to have more than one instance of Mozilla running at once?
      • You can open multiple windows in Mozilla/Firefox as well as use tabs. I do it on dual monitor setups. Have two windows open and then tabs.

        I like it because I can middle click a link with my scroll wheel and have it open in the background, and it doesn't clutter my taskbar.

        All of the websites I'm viewing can be brought up in a single instance of a program which takes only one focus change to see.

        It's just convienant, efficient and nice imo. Plus it's not NEARLY as prone to crap as IE is. So you can br
        • I've pulled a copy of Mozilla to try at home tonight. I like the idea of "not prone to crap". Plus, it looks like there are some nice extensions. I hope that the "default browser" setting is per-user on WinXP. :-) The family would be weirded out.
          • Don't worry, it is per user.... as far as I have seen where I installed Firefox retroactively. For me it is a pain, because the whole point of putting FireFox on a system is to obsolete IE. I force my family to use Mozilla and by now they are thankful. My sister (who goes to internet cafés to get her internet-shot) tells me how much she hates not having tabs there.
          • Like jawtheshark, I've forced Mozilla upon all the machines here at home, and it's been a very smooth transition. Pop-up blocking alone is a damn good selling point, but the tabs clinch it; I'll never go back.

            Plus, everyone can have their own security preferences satiated. My rigid "accept this cookie too?" settings drive most people up the wall, but hers are a bit more relaxed, so it wasn't a big change, and since Mozilla imports your "favorites" and incorporates them into your bookmarks, you don't eve

      • [disclaimer]
        I'm using full Mozilla (whatever the current name is)
        [/disclaimer]

        If you middle click on a link, it opens it in a new tab. If you middle click a tab, it closes that tab. For example of where I use it:

        - Slashdot: Opening items from the "messages" page. It opens them in their own tab that doesn't take up my entire screen. I can have an Em, FK, SD, StB tab and a front page tab. that way I can go back whenever and see the page and not have to wade through MILES of "back" history. It also
        • You forgot...

          The ability to set your homepage to be a group of tabs. Amazing! Glorious! Many happy little angels singing! Dragons breathing fires of joy!
        • Can't use my on-line classes with it (www.KeystoneUniversity.net). The pop-up window it uses for the lesson is IE compatable only.

          Have you tried looking at the HTML source? Sometimes you'll find the complete link in there somewhere and if you try it just works. I had a similar problem with my bank for ebanking. On its homepage it has a "Login" link. When I clicked on that (back in Moz 1.0 days) nothing happened. I started looking around in the HTML and I finally understood what this "Login" link ex

        • - Wish it had a Flash blocker like it does for the image and pop-ups

          Oh, someone else who agrees with me... stupid flash ads. Grrr. Bad flash! Bad! Bad! Especially when I've got 6 tabs open, 4 of which are playing flash. :(

          The 'workaround' is to move your flash executable in and out of its folder. That's too much work!

        • The spinny birdie thing when pages are loading is annoying as well. Need an easy way to skin that. (There may be, I haven't really looked. I hadn't really noticed till FK pointed it out, now it's bugging the shit outa me.)

          Try this theme [texturizer.net]. I like it and it has a cool transparent world globe as the animation.
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • I don't know that I can explain it any better than multiple windows have always, ALways, ALWAYS bugged me.

          Allow me... I have a CRT iMac at home. Have you seen the size of the monitor on those? Do I really need to further explain my love of tabs?

          I've had open as many as 11 tabs, but right now I have 7.

          Amateur. I've had so many tabs open at once that you could no longer see more than the /. logo. Imagine what windows would be like.

          For what it's worth, I hated tabbed browsing when I first tried it,
          • I've been known to have several Opera windows of ~40 tabs each open when power-pr0ning.:D
          • Bah, when I browse journals on slashdot on my iBook the only thing you see on the tabs are three little dots.
          • Amateur. I've had so many tabs open at once that you could no longer see more than the /. logo. Imagine what windows would be like.

            Itty bitty tabs are just the beginning. When you get scroll bars for the tabs, then you have a lot of tabs open.

            In earlier releases of Phoenix/FireBird I found that there was a limit to the number of tabs you could have open (99 IIRC) - got bit by that a couple of times. Just did a short test and was able to open 260 tabs without too many problems with FireFox now...
      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Open in Tabs has to be the single most awesome feature in Firefox, possibly one of the best reasons to have tabs in the first place, and probably my favorite browser innovation in recent years.

          I tend to read a bunch of comics on the web, and having a bookmark folder full of them is great. Hit open in tabs and the whole thing opens up. They all download simultaneously, which is a good thing since so many comics on the web have seemingly poor bandwidth. Then it's just click from one to the next. You can do th

      • Depending on what I'm doing, I may have 4 windows, each with several tabs. I have one window on each of my virtual desktops (Linux/Gnome). I tend to use each desktop to segregate my tasks. I'll use one for admin work on the clusters, and I'll have a window of cluster-related tabs there, and I'll have another desktop for building a new version of Gnome from source (tons o' fun), with a window loaded with tabs related to why the fuck I'm running into so many dependency problems. I'll have another desktop
    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • On Windows the Mozilla equivalent of MSIE's " CTRL+O " is " CTLR+SHFT+L " (for location. CTRL+L alone just bounces you up to the location bar of the current window. But the effect is the same because the default is to open it in the current window/tab - unless you tab around the open URL pop-up dialog and choose to open the url in a new tab or window.

      Update: another question... that quake-symbol looking bird is pretty lame-o (as is the spinning animation). Anyway I can reconfig that? Is there skin
    • This is true.

      FK, I've been reading about your virus problems and everything, but I've been keeping my mouth shut. BUT, all I can think of is that you need to start using some sort of Mozilla (looks like Hubby upgraded me to Firefox) and STOP USING OUTLOOK!!!! (Try Pegasus instead -- I really enjoy it.)

      I do like using tabs instead of Windows, like I used to. Ctrl-W closes your tab when you're done with it, which is nice.

      Oh, and BTW, FK, I begged Hubby long enough to install SpamBayes (and sent him the
      • Forget what everyone else says -- you'll find your own reasons!

        That's the best comment I saw on this whole page (even though everyone has excellent points)

      • I don't have outlook on the computer with (err... that had) the virus. Its on the computer that's been virus free for about 8 years now.

        I have it setup to the point where its near impossible to get a virus, and AVG checks mail as its incoming, before I can even preview it. Its even caught a few viruses that way.

        Spambayes actually gave me 10 'unknowns' last night... biggest unknowns I've had to go through. 3 were good, 7 were spam. Oh, you do realize you can share spambayes spam dbs right? So I coul

  • ALT-D (Score:2)

    by Patik ( 584959 ) *
    This sends your cursor to the address bar and hilights the text in Firefox, Explorer, etc...
  • You can get a whole slew of extensions to extend configuration options, add new features, etc.
    http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/ [texturizer.net]

    And you can get themes to change the buttons/animations/whatever in the UI.
    http://texturizer.net/firefox/themes/ [texturizer.net]

    I use Firefox daily and it's great. Good luck!
  • Firefox help [texturizer.net] is the place to be.

    Firefox themes [texturizer.net]

    Keyboard shortcuts [texturizer.net]
    Notables:
    Ctrl-T - Open new tab
    Ctrl-W - Close current tab
    Ctrl-L - Open Location (took me a while to get used to as well)
    Ctrl-[number] - jump to tab #[number]

    Tips & Tricks [texturizer.net], especially extra ad blocking [texturizer.net].
  • My 3 1/2 year old likes going to playhousedisney.com and pbskids.org.

    I picked up an old PII 300MHz from work and set up Mozilla as the default browser. She likes the word "Yes" so she would tend to click on any scumware that comes up.

    With Mozilla that's not an issue.
  • Most of the features that Firefox has (or which you can bolt onto it) were first found in Opera. When it comes to cutting edge, Opera is where it's at.

    If you're evaluating a new browser then you owe it to yourself to check out Opera too. I did the same and I'm glad that I did.
    • Yes, you are 100% correct. Especially for Mozilla haters. I have a coworker who hates Mozilla with a passion. He has been meddling with IE for years. Last week it seems he decided that it was time for a change and he installed Opera. He has been extatic about since that ever since. He showed me some features in the current version that Moz even doesn't have.

      Yes, I was amazed too... but I'm to cheap to buy Opera. (My dad got a license though, but he doesn't use it anymore)

      • Why not use your Dad's license yourself then?
        • Because I don't run Windows and my dad bought a Windows only license.. I'm on Mac OS X. I only have 1 Mac and 5 Windows machines under my responsibility at home, but I rarely use the Windows machines for surfing.

          I used to run Opera 5 on a very old laptop running Linux (P120/32Meg, extending its lifetime... it was five years old when it died) where it absolutely rocked. There was no other browser on Linux that worked reasonably well on that machine. I used the ad-version though.

  • Use ALT+D. This brings focus to the Addressbar and highlights all text there so you can automatically start typing. This also works in IE.

    The usual thing I do when I open it up is ALT+D, slashdot.org, CTRL+T, www.cnn.com, CTRL+T, www.barelylegalfilthyteenagegoddesses.com.

    Then tap CTRL+TAB to move around as they all load up. CTRL+W to close tabs when the boss wrangles by.

    Yes, I am the master of keyboard navigation. There should be no reason to ever move your hands off of the homekeys. Well, I guess y
  • I hate not having ctrl-0

    What?

    (looks up at FILE menu, hits ctrl+o... opens a web-friendly file)

    And there's even a text markup, FK. Man, you must be slippin'.

    • ctrl-O = open URL in IE. Same as ctrl-shift-L in firefox. I just need to remap it for comfort purposes.
      • no, you don't. It should already be done for you.

        I'm using Firefox right now. Ctrl+O is right there, and opens up a "open file" window, just as it does in IE.

        What version of Firefox are you using, and one what system?
        • hit ctrl-o in IE. Type in slashdot.org and hit enter.

          now hit ctrl-o in firefox, type in slashdot.org and hit enter.

          IE's ctrl-O is open file/url, firefox's ctrl-o is open file.
  • ya damned ass torpedo! ;)

    For the record, I tab browse as well. Mozilla is the R0xxorz. IE is teh 5uck
  • Ctrl-L, Alt-D or F6 will get you to the address bar.

    I strongly suggets you download the Tabbrowser Extensions [texturizer.net] - they make tabs a bit more user-friendly and customisable.

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