firefox

If you're a Google Docs user you're probably used to keeping a separate window or set of tabs open for your document source list. What if you could kill that extra tab or open window and manage everything from the sidebar of your browser instead?

Interaction designer Sandosh Vasudevan has come up with gDocsBar (download), a solution that rolls up all the functionality you'd find on the home screen of Google Docs and puts it the side bar of your browser, meaning it can be summoned and dismissed in an instant.

The sidebar features a search-as-you-type box … Read more

Mozilla writes and helps foster communities that assist in writing some of the best open-source code on the planet. Where Mozilla fails is as an activist voice, trumpeting to the world just how exceptional the products it builds can be. I'm not sure if this is a fault with the Mozilla Corporation or the Mozilla Foundation, but we need a more vocal Mozilla.

We also need a Mozilla that integrates much better with the existing software world. Read: the proprietary software world.

BusinessWeek notes that Mozilla is making efforts to improve upon its 2% market share in China. It's starting campus programs, among other things, to boost awareness of Firefox. But according to the article, most Chinese simply want their browser pre-bundled and pre-configured with a wide range of options. Microsoft and those companies building browsers based on the IE kernel are doing that. Mozilla? Not so much.

Back in the West, Linux Insider notes that Mozilla's biggest problem is its lack of corporate outreach:… Read more

I've been using Firefox as my primary browser for so long that Internet Explorer looks strange to me on those odd occasions when Windows Update or some other automatic Windows setting opens it. There are lots of reasons Firefox is my browser of choice, not the least of which are the great free add-ons for the program that neither IE nor any other browser can match.

Topping my list of Firefox extensions is NoScript from InformAction and Giorgio Maone. The fact is, I'm so accustomed to NoScript that Firefox wouldn't be Firefox without the little blue "… Read more

There's a directory traversal vulnerability in the chrome protocol scheme within Firefox 2. Proof of concept code for this was first posted to the Internet on January 19, 2008. On Tuesday, Mozilla security chief Window Snyder confirmed that the flaw affects fully patched versions of the Firefox browser.

When a "flat" add-on is present, an extension which stores its information within Javascript files as opposed to .jar files, an attacker exploiting this flaw may be able to retrieve data or profile a compromised system. Extensions such as Greasemonkey and Download Statusbar may be affected.

On the Mozilla … Read more

Better Gmail 2 is a Firefox extension that collects a bunch of Gmail customization scripts from Greasemonkey under one control panel. The latest update, to Version 0.3, brings Better Gmail 2 mostly up to speed with features that were in the original Better Gmail, but had to be abandoned when Google rewrote Gmail's code last November.

The biggest of the latest additions include a revamped insertion of Google Reader into the Gmail user interface. This is not merely a rehash of what came before, but a better-looking, faster-loading UI that makes switching between Gmail and Reader seamless.

… Read more

So I've been meaning to do some write-ups on some browser toolbars and plug-ins that may be useful for SEO purposes...and leave it to Rand at SEOmoz.org to remind me of this with his review of 12 popular browser toolbars.

Link Counter (download) is one that I absolutely love both for what it does and its simplicity. Links play a very important part in SEO, both internal links as well as external links. Are they live or broken, 301 redirected, HTML or JavaScript based? Unfortunately the one thing it doesn't seem to manage is showing "nofollow" links, but there are plenty other tools out there that do that.

The best way to get a feel for Link Counter is to see it in action, and one of the best places to see it in action is on an e-commerce site. E-commerce sites are often rather complex with many links on a page, links out to external sites, to product pages, JavaScript windows, and more. Let's use Onlineshoes.com for our demo.… Read more

Here's a quick way to make sure you never need to open your Google Calendar in a tab again: Open it in your Firefox sidebar instead. Discovered at Firefox Facts, it adapts some code from iGoogle and streamlines it down to just the calendar. This is a great hack if you can't or won't use the Google Desktop Sidebar.

Log in to your Google account first, and then load up this Google Calendar link in a regular tab.

… Read more

It's often said that open-source companies spend a lot less money on sales and marketing. Apparently this translates into not knowing how to spend it well when we do spend money, as Mozilla's recent bout with marketing demonstrates.

Mozilla's "Firefox Users against Boredom" campaign was meant to be funny. Kind of like Apple's Mac vs. PC ads. But it wasn't.

I, personally, wasn't offended by its tongue-in-cheek implications that Internet Explorer causes cancer and such. I just found them dumb and ineffective. It's also surprising to me that with so much … Read more

Continuing our minitheme from last Friday of browser features crossing platforms with plug-ins, Mac users can now avoid ads pain-free and for free with Safari AdBlock.

… Read more