Tip.It's Firefox Customizing & Tips Thread!

[Sam]

Would it possible for a moderator to sticky this if they think this would help the tech forum?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to the Tip.It Firefox customization thread!

 

 

 

Here you can post different ways to customize and tweak your Firefox browser to make it the best browser it can be Make sure you post the latest versions of the extension/theme/plugin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hide=My Recommended Extensions]Adblock Plus : Add filters to this extension that will block pop-up's and ad's on your pages!

 

 

 

British English Dictionary : Pretty self explanatory :-w It also works in Mozilla's email client, Thunderbird!

 

 

 

CustomizeGoogle : Helps optimize your Google search, and offers links to other search engines.

 

 

 

Fission : Webpage loading progress bar, Apple Safari style!

 

 

 

FoxTab : FoxTab brings innovative and attractive 3D tab management to Firefox.

 

With its 5 fascinating eye candy layouts, FoxTab takes the tabbed-browsing experience to a new level. FoxTab enables grouping, filtering, closing and switching between tabs quickly and easily. FoxTab is configurable, so you can easily tweek and adjust it to fit

 

your personal preferences (see more details below under "Advanced Details").

 

 

 

FoxyTunes : An addon that enables you to control media players from your browser, ranging from last.FM to winamp!

 

 

 

Greasemonkey : Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Hundreds of scripts are available, for a wide variety of popular sites, are already available at http://wiki.greasespot.net/ to get started on developing a script!

 

 

 

Stylish : Stylish allows easy management of user styles. User styles empower your browsing experience by letting you fix ugly sites, customize the look of your browser or mail client, or just have fun. With an online repository at userstyles.org, you don't even need to know how to write styles yourself; just a couple clicks and the chosen style is applied. Stylish is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript, and unlike other methods of using user styles, most styles take effect immediately.

 

 

 

URLFixer : URL Fixer corrects typos in URL's that you enter in the address bar. For example, if you type google.con, it will correct it to google.com (asking first, if you enable confirmation).[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

[hide=My Recommended Themes]Chromifox Basic : A theme that will transform the look of your browser so it looks alike to Google Chrome!

 

 

 

Camifox : Elegant, crisp, and colorful. Camifox is a thoughtful, sophisticated reimagination and realization of a better "default" theme for Firefox, in living color on Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux. This theme is also available in Mozilla 3.1 Beta 3!

 

 

 

Office 2007 Black : A theme based on the Office 2007 Black colours.

 

 

 

Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) : This theme is based on the Noia 2.0 icon set by Carlitus( http://carlitus.deviantart.com ).[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Want to make Firefox faster? Follow these instructions:

 

 

 

1.Type about:config into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

 

 

 

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

 

 

 

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

 

 

 

2. Alter the entries as follows:

 

 

 

Set network.http.pipelining to true

 

 

 

Set network.http.proxy.pipelining to true

 

 

 

Set network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to some number like 8. This means it will make 8 requests at once.

 

 

 

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it nglayout.initialpaint.delay and set its value to 0?. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

 

 

 

If youre using a broadband connection youll load pages MUCH faster now!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I hope this thread will be helpful to anyone currently using Firefox! Make sure you post up things that'll help make everyone's web experience better :thumbup:

[Errdoth]

 

Want to make Firefox faster? Follow these instructions:

 

[...]

 

This means it will make 30 requests at once.

 

 

And hits the poor little webserver with a completely unnecessary amount of requests. Please don't do this. It's really not nice.

 

 

 

Anyway:

 

Addons

 

If you're working with any sort of html/css/js:

 

Colorzilla

 

MeasureIt

 

Console^2

 

Firebug

 

IETab

 

and TamperData are absolute musts.

 

 

 

Other general ones:

 

Download Statusbar

 

Foxmarks

 

Faviconize Tab

 

Tinymenu

 

Screengrab

 

 

 

Theme

 

I really like Nasa Night Launch once you strip away some of the extra stuff

 

 

 

Other Visual Tweaks

 

To conserve screen space (even on my larger screen), I usually use small icons and move everything to the top bar. Bookmarks can be set up with keywords to get rid of search boxes.

 

Keywords are basically like wiki Blah automatically takes you to the wiki for Blah, or g Blah takes you to the google search results for Blah.

 

To set this up in Firefox 3, you would bookmark the page with the results (Google would be http://www.google.com/search?q=blah) and then go into Organize Bookmarks (Ctrl+Shift+B), find the bookmark, and replace the part you want to be dynamic with %s. (So the google query would become http://www.google.com/search?q=%s). Then click More, and under Keyword, set it to what you want the keyword to be (You would type into the address bar [query]).

 

 

 

[hide=My Browser][/hide]

[Furah]

am surprised that these two haven't been mentioned

 

 

 

NoScript: The best security you can get in a web browser! Allow active content to run only from sites you trust, and protect yourself against XSS and Clickjacking attacks.

 

Web of Trust: WOT, Web of Trust, warns you about risky websites that try to scam visitors, deliver malware or send spam. Protect your computer against online threats by using WOT as your front-line layer of protection when browsing or searching in unfamiliar territory. WOT's color-coded icons show you ratings for 21 million websites - green to go, yellow for caution and red to stop helping you avoid the dangerous sites. Surf safer and add WOT to your Firefox now.

 

 

 

You can personalise WoT to also warn you if you go to a yellow site, in the same way it does for red, which is what I do as I am very cautious about dangerous sites.

 

 

 

----------------

 

Listening to: Demon Hunter - Through the Black

[OldJoe]

Please, no sticky. There's enough already.

 

WOT, as Mage pointed out, is great. It's great when searching for something and you don't know what sites you're visiting.

[dsavi]

Greasemonkey - Use JavaScript to customize webpages. My favorite scripts for it are phpBB3 quick edit and ( :-$ ) phpBB3 quick reply.

 

Hide menubar - Takes away the Firefox menubar (Until you press the ALT key), which most people hardly ever use.

 

Flashgot - Download manager for Firefox. Which sounds really boring until you realize that if you have, for example, aria2c, you can get segmented downloads. :twisted: (Segmented: Makes two or more connections to the server, splits the download in two and puts it back together when it's done on your side. If a server is limiting your download speed you can double it this way.)

[JustPokemon]

This is a great thread :

 

 

 

A couple of my favourite themes, which are basically the same, are:

 

Bloody Red

 

Dark Orange Fox

 

 

 

These are the same ones, but in different colours:

 

Blue Fox

 

Dark Green Fox

 

Dark Pink Fox

[Laura]

A general question, do add-ons cause Firefox to open slower?

[Jimmyw3000]

And for those people who cant let go of IE7/8:

 

 

 

myFireFox

 

Ie8fox

[Sam]

bumpety bump:

 

 

 

Personas:

 

Personas are free, easy-to-install skins for Firefox that make changing the look of the browser as easy as changing your shirt. With Personas, you can individualize your browser with hundreds of artist-created designs or create your own design to share with a worldwide audience of millions.

 

 

 

PDF Download:

 

Use PDF Download to do whatever you like with PDF files on the Web. Regain control of them and eliminate browser problems, view PDFs directly in Firefox as HTML, and use the all-new Web-to-PDF toolbar to save and share Web pages as high-quality PDF files.

 

 

 

Cooliris:

 

Cooliris transforms your browser into a lightning fast, cinematic way to browse online photos and videos.

 

 

 

Anycolour:

 

Change Firefox to Any Color and create your own personalized theme.

 

 

 

ColourfulTabs:

 

The most beautiful yet the simplest add-on that makes a strong colorful appeal. Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface.

[LordOfWar]

Well, NoScript is incredibly helpful and Cooliris is just plain awesome. \

 

 

 

Another good addon is the Cool Previews addon, it allows you to prieview links, pictures, just about anything really, without leaving the current page.

 

 

 

Also, if you use IE frequently as well as Firefox, then the "Plain old favourites" addon is quite good, as it automatically updates a new "Favourites" menu that appears in the menu bar whenever you add favourites to Internet Explorer.

 

 

 

In terms of themes, I like the "Aquatint Black Gloss" theme.

 

 

 

[hide=Links]CoolIris

 

NoScript

 

Cool Previews

 

Plain Old favourites

 

Aquatint Black Gloss theme[/hide]

[Jernlov]

Why must you all rice out your web browser with add-ons and crap?

 

 

 

Is it really that hard to just leave it default?

[Dracion1]

It's anything but crap, especially things like NoScript and Adblock+. With these two addons firefox is the safest browser available. Anyway it's better having these as optional extras as it makes for much more customizability, you tweak things so they're just how you want them.

[Jernlov]

It's anything but crap, especially things like NoScript and Adblock+. With these two addons firefox is the safest browser available. Anyway it's better having these as optional extras as it makes for much more customizability, you tweak things so they're just how you want them.

But come on, custom themes? Who actually needs those? All this stuff (apart from the two you mentioned and a few other developer addons) just makes your browser even more bloated than it already is.

[Sbrideau]

I never have more than 5 add-ons. I usually have the securiy ones, and sometimes those that I find useful at the time.

[Salad]

It's anything but crap, especially things like NoScript and Adblock+. With these two addons firefox is the safest browser available. Anyway it's better having these as optional extras as it makes for much more customizability, you tweak things so they're just how you want them.

But come on, custom themes? Who actually needs those? All this stuff (apart from the two you mentioned and a few other developer addons) just makes your browser even more bloated than it already is.

 

+1 to Silver, Opera is probably the safest browser out there and it got loads of useful stuff already built-in like a torrent manager, mouse gestures, speed dial, and loads of stuff. Also you can go download themes to make your browsing less boring. Even if I try my best, I don't understand why people prefer Firefox so much compared to Opera, I just can't.

[dsavi]

It's anything but crap, especially things like NoScript and Adblock+. With these two addons firefox is the safest browser available. Anyway it's better having these as optional extras as it makes for much more customizability, you tweak things so they're just how you want them.

But come on, custom themes? Who actually needs those? All this stuff (apart from the two you mentioned and a few other developer addons) just makes your browser even more bloated than it already is.

 

I need custom themes. Otherwise my browser stands out too much from the rest of my programs.

[Laura]

It's anything but crap, especially things like NoScript and Adblock+. With these two addons firefox is the safest browser available. Anyway it's better having these as optional extras as it makes for much more customizability, you tweak things so they're just how you want them.

But come on, custom themes? Who actually needs those? All this stuff (apart from the two you mentioned and a few other developer addons) just makes your browser even more bloated than it already is.

 

+1 to Silver, Opera is probably the safest browser out there and it got loads of useful stuff already built-in like a torrent manager, mouse gestures, speed dial, and loads of stuff. Also you can go download themes to make your browsing less boring. Even if I try my best, I don't understand why people prefer Firefox so much compared to Opera, I just can't.

Customization is important to people. Granted, I don't use it currently as I have to use the 3.1beta to get three finger support. But it seems like Opera falls behind a little on Javascript.[1]

 

[Dracion1]

+1 to Silver, Opera is probably the safest browser out there

 

 

 

Most of the nasty stuff that is out there nearly always has to be activated by the user accepting a download or a script. I think you'll find that most people agree that NoScript is the safest way to browse. It's been reccomended by various big names; PCWorld (a leading PC store in the UK), CNET, Forbes, even the New York Times.

 

 

 

it got loads of useful stuff already built-in like a torrent manager, mouse gestures, speed dial, and loads of stuff. Also you can go download themes to make your browsing less boring. Even if I try my best, I don't understand why people prefer Firefox so much compared to Opera, I just can't.

 

 

 

Personal preference. Sure Opera comes with more features as standard, but some people may feel the need to have a lot of addons, while perhaps others just want a barebones browser. For example, I find a mouse gestures a pain to use, I'd rather use a keyboard shortcut or even click the buttons at the top but to each his own.

[OldJoe]

You don't like mouse gestures? I love them on Opera, the mouse gestures on Firefox and IE are annoying lol.

 

And a strange thing, IE and Opera opens up quick as hell for me, but Firefox takes several seconds (only got 3 add-ons+custom theme).

[Sbrideau]

Even with Opera, I don't use the mouse gestures, only the keyboard shortcuts. I have to say, though that I find Opera both safer and faster than Firefox on my computers. I do use both, only, I will probably never use a browser such as Chrome or IE.

[AndyPandy]

I use:

 

 

 

Twitterfox: Smooth, discreet twitter client.

 

 

 

Smart Bookmarks bar: takes out the text for any bookmark on the bookmarks bar, leaving you with just the icons, text is revealed when hovering over it. Allows for many more bookmarks in less space :thumbup:

 

 

 

Yet Another Smooth Scrolling: Makes scrolling a lot more natural, and more customisable.

[ElkNight]

I use:

 

 

 

Twitterfox: Smooth, discreet twitter client.

 

 

 

Smart Bookmarks bar: takes out the text for any bookmark on the bookmarks bar, leaving you with just the icons, text is revealed when hovering over it. Allows for many more bookmarks in less space :thumbup:

 

 

 

Yet Another Smooth Scrolling: Makes scrolling a lot more natural, and more customisable.

 

The last two url's are the same thing.

[Severation]

Opera is ftw. I think the only reason people use Firefox is because everyone and their mother is saying how good it is, and I agree with them. I just don't think that stuffing Firefox with add-ons makes it the best browser?

 

 

 

And how can you not like mouse gestures? They're just so conveniant.

[dsavi]

Opera is ftw. I think the only reason people use Firefox is because everyone and their mother is saying how good it is, and I agree with them. I just don't think that stuffing Firefox with add-ons makes it the best browser?

 

The trick is to test and try until you find your personal optimal combination, then only use those that you need. Your browser will still be fast.

[JustPokemon]

Opera is ftw. I think the only reason people use Firefox is because everyone and their mother is saying how good it is, and I agree with them. I just don't think that stuffing Firefox with add-ons makes it the best browser?

 

The trick is to test and try until you find your personal optimal combination, then only use those that you need. Your browser will still be fast.

 

 

 

I recently switched to Firefox from IE7, around the time when IE8 came out. I definitely prefer Firefox. One major thing I noticed is the speed. Its very fast, much faster than the other browsers Ive tried.

 

 

 

If you use a browser just for the looks, then switching to Firefox wouldnt be problem for you! Theres so many themes Im sure theres at least one that makes Firefox look almost exactly like your preferred browser.