Tuesday, February 12, 2008

A deep look to Firefox 3 Beta 3 by Mozilla Links

Source: mozillalinks.org


Tomorrow, Mozilla will release Firefox 3 Beta 3, the eleventh milestone in the longest development time for a Firefox revision since the initial Firefox 1.0 on 2004. The eight alphas and trio of betas (so far), if anything, are a reflection of the long list of enhancements it (Firefox) and the underlying Gecko rendering engine, are bringing along.


Visual Refresh


Without a doubt the most visible change introduced in this beta are the theme updates in all platforms. On Windows XP and Vista, a large part of the planned new XP icons has been added to the main toolbar, the Options window, the Download Manager, here and there.


Reception hasn’t been warm precisely as was to be expected: just the same happened when Firefox dropped the Qute theme for Winstripe around version 0.9, again with the updates just before 1.0 and yet again when Radiant Core updated Firefox 2.0 icons to its current washed out aspect.


I haven’t been a big fan of any Firefox default theme so far and it doesn’t seem Firefox 3’s will be an exception. But we’ll see. There are still theme updates pending, as well as small icons, and Vista icons.


Firefox on Windows XP


The Options window on Windows XP with the new icons.


Firefox 3 Beta 3 Options


On the other hand, Mac OS X users seem to be more satisfied with the landing of Proto, a Safari-like theme introduced along with  Beta 2. Linux users also get a very well integrated theme that uses native icons.


Firefox 3 Beta 3 on Ubuntu


Firefox keyhole on MacOS XThe back and forward buttons have been combined in a single keyhole-shaped widget featuring a single history menu. So far just Windows XP and Vista feature it but Mac OS X and Linux versions are ready and waiting to get in. An option to split the combined icons in the customize toolbar dialog is being considered.


We can also expect a revised throbber (the connection activity indicator) coming soon.


Toolbar splitterThe Home button has been moved to the Bookmarks toolbar by default (but can be easily moved back) and the splitter that allows to resize the search and location bars when placed next to each other has become invisible.


Developers are aiming to deliver better operating system integration in Firefox 3. This will be most notorious for Mac OS X and Linux users who will now get native widgets like text boxes, menus, check boxes, icons, button order and orientation following each OS guidelines.


On Linux, Beta 3 adds native file open and print dialogs that provide image thumbnails and more printing options.


Firefox 3 Beta 3 print dialog on Ubuntu


Mac OS X users get integration with Growl, a popular centralized notification system, while Windows Vista gets native looking menus and new icons that should be added for the next beta.


Firefox 3 with native menus


The Page Information dialog has been reviewed to become more organized and informative and allows to set all site specific preference from a single location.


Page Information dialog


Places


A much announced and expected feature is Places, the integrated history and bookmarks manager interface powered by SQLite, a small open source database engine that provides much more robust querying capabilities.


With Places you are able to search your history, tags and bookmarks with a fully fledged search interface. You can select where to search (History, Bookmarks Menu, Bookmarks Toolbar, All Bookmarks or the selected folder), what to search (visited date, web address or title), combine criteria and then save the search as a Smart Bookmark that updates as your personal web grows and changes.


Places Library


The Library, Places manager, also adds backup and restore UI so it is easier to recover a damaged file or incorrectly deleted bookmark.


Tagging is a new Firefox feature tightly related with Places and some of the changes to the location bar: click on an empty star icon in the location bar to save the current page as a bookmark. Click it again and you can specify a certain folder to save the bookmark to and you can add tags which you can later use to perform searches.


Tagging


You may also notice that the Go button is gone. It only appears when you are entering some text in the location bar and you may actually need to press it.


The Location Bar


The autocomplete list that appears when you start entering letters in the location bar is no longer restricted to web addresses but also looks into bookmark and history page titles and tags which make it more comprehensive.


Suggestions are are shown in two different lines and colors for page titles and addresses, which according to studies on human cognition, makes it easier for us to focus on what we are looking for. So, if the user knows she is entering part of a web address or a page title it will be easier for her to find what she’s looking for. Highlighting the match result also helps to direct the user’s attention.


Firefox 3 location bar


I believe this feature alone is the best Firefox 3 has to offer, justifies Places large resources investment and will become a landmark in Firefox and web browsers in general development. Once you get used to it, there is no turning back.


Tabbed Browsing


On tabbed browsing, Firefox will not only warn you when closing several tabs and windows at once but will prompt if you want to save the currently open tab set: a good catch and a good way to introduce this helpful feature to new users.


Tabs now scroll smoothly, and, new in Beta 3, you can sort of duplicate tabs when you press Ctrl while dragging a tab. A similar feature allows to drag a tab to another window. It’s not actual duplication or moving though, since in both cases a new navigation occurs and the original tab history is not preserved, but still a helpful addition I hope to see perfected in the next version.


Web experience


Firefox can save site specific preferences. For example you could allow just some pages to use AJAX, set a specific spell checker language, images, etc. Firefox 3 will remember the zoom level you have applied for a certain site and will zoom automatically the next time you visit it.


Net protocols (like irc, news, webcal and mailto) and certain documents handling can be passed to web services. For example, Yahoo Mail or Gmail may become your default application for mailto: links. For this, the previous web feeds page has been extended to the Options window for all content and protocols. Beta 3 distinguishes podcasts and video podcast feeds from regular ones so you can specify a different application for each.


Options Application window


 Media feeds are displayed with a link to the media file in feed preview mode.


Media feed preview


By default, web sites can’t move or resize Firefox via JavaScript. A list of authorized web sites can be maintained through Advanced JavaScript Settings in the Content page in Options.


JavaScript move, resize exceptions


Search engines


The search engine manager lets you set and change keywords for search engines. With keywords, if you associate the w keyword with Wikipedia (now a default search engine), you could enter w hawaii in the locationbar and search Wikipedia for Hawaii.


Search plugins with Wikipedia and keywords


Downloads


One of the most requested features: downloads can be paused and resumed across sessions, limited only by the server capabilities. Also, on Windows, downloaded files are automatically passed to the installed anti-virus if present and honor Windows Vista parental controls.


As seen in previous betas, the Download Manager has received a serious face lift as an easier to track download list.


Download manager


Beta 3 adds a cool new status bar notification that provides summarized status of current downloads. You can click it to open the Download Manager.


Download status


Add-ons


The Add-ons Manager has been integrated with Mozilla Add-ons, Mozilla’s official extensions and themes repository, providing recommendations, search, rating and add-ons install without  leaving Firefox.


Together with previously added Plugins page, which allows easy plugin enabling and disabling, it makes it a powerful control panel for Firefox enhancements.


Add-ons manager integrated with Mozilla Add-on


When installing, updating, disabling or enabling back an add-on, an information bar is displayed to remind a restart is needed for changes to apply, and a restart button. Plus, just installed themes are automatically selected so Firefox uses it after the next restart.


Restart Add-ons


Among other minor tweaks: FTP and gopher listings get a better styled and functional page where the list can be sorted by name, size and date by clicking the appropriate header, and a warning is displayed when accessing advanced preferences (about:config).


about:config warning


Security


In the security front, Firefox will check visited sites with a list of known malware sites provided by stopbadware.org and served by Google for sites as a way to prevent spyware, rootkits, viruses, dialers and other kinds of malware from even being offered to you.


A rewritten password manager now unobtrusively prompts to store an entered password in the information bar and after trying a logon so you know if it is the correct one or not and avoid cluttering autocomplete lists.


Remember password infobar


Identifying  authentic sites and avoiding fake ones is now easier with the addition of the site button which provides details about the identity of the current web site. While the largest part of the web has no verified identity, financial institutions and similar usually do and it makes the site button in the location bar to change color and size so you can know with a glimpse.


Site button


As great as add-ons are they are also a liability and have proved they can become a security vector. Firefox 3 requires add-ons updates to happen over an encrypted connection (to block malicious sites purporting the update site) or the add-on developer to sign it with a digital signature so updates can be verified to be from the same source. This will prevent so called middle-man attacks where bad guys could fake the update site address to server malicious software.


Under the hood


Powered by Mozilla logoThe list of changes for Gecko is not short either and benefit not only Firefox but all “powered by Mozilla” products including Thunderbird, Flock, SeaMonkey, Joost, Miro, Songbird and more.


Since Alpha 1, Firefox 3 passes the Acid2 test, a popular test of a browser styling standard compatibility. Firefox can use color profiles embedded on pictures and images to better replicate the original environment conditions as light and focus, thanks to new color management.


Discontinuous selections of text and images are now possible for better control on what you copy or print from a web page.


A biggie: page zoom magnifies the complete page and not only text. This is a much requested feature and a must for Mozilla Mobile Firefox plans.


Web developers can mark certain web page components such as images and scripts to be available while offline. In practice you could be able to compose emails or write documents though a web service while disconnected from the Internet.


Some interesting tricks that will please JavaScript developers: the ability to load local files for local use, cross site AJAX (XMLHttpRequest), native JSON support and most notably, FUEL, a library of Firefox programming interfaces that will ease the development of new extensions and ensure better practices (such as memory management) for common Firefox tasks.


A much needed memory cycle collector is now in place and it should take care of freeing memory no longer used by modules that requested it but failed to release it properly. This will improve to optimize Firefox’s memory footprint.


Support for editable content, so a user can change portions of a web page marked by the author.


The MySpell spell-checking engine has been replaced with Hunspell which does a better job handling complex languages including Asians, Hungarian, Basque, etc.


For Gecko 1.9, Mozilla switched to open source Cairo rendering engine for better rendering performance. The change also enables easy PDF printing capabilities but it is only possible through an extension right now though.


More beautiful animated images are possible with animated PNGs (APNG): a full 16 million color palette and partial transparency will hopefully sweep GIF images in the future. While APNG was rejected as a standard PNG extension last year, Opera has announced it will support the format in future versions.


Proprietary TalkBack, the tool for reporting crashes to Mozilla included with Firefox and Thunderbird, has been replaced with open source Breakpad (formerly Airbag).


Breakpad submit dialog


Socorro, is a server crash reporting tool that will help developers track the most recurring crashes and identify stability and performance bugs. Users can see their submitted crashes entering about:crashes in the location bar.


about:crash


Beta 4


There will be a fourth beta and it is expected quite soon. Probably by Febrary’s end. Release candidates could start by mid-March and hopefully on schedule for a first quarter final release.


Not much is left for the next beta: more theme retouches in all platforms, Vista icons, plus more retouches to Places and several other areas, some of them already available in the latest nightlies that followed Beta 3 freeze.


According to the latest meeting minutes, the revamped location bar’s autocomplete font size and colors could be reviewed to address some common complaints about it being too obtrusive. Support for multi-word searches is also planned, so for example entering star and then wii, will filter out starbucks while keeping that cool Super Mario Galaxy guide in the results.


Add-ons-wise, Firefox 3 support is moving fast and as much as 40% of the top extensions are keeping up with the betas and most likely to be ready by final release. This is at least in part thanks to a very early documentation process and a continuous call for developers. We could see an easy transition for the large number of users that rely on extensions and themes for their best web experience.

Saturday, February 9, 2008

Firefox tips and triks 12. How to make Firefox start faster by cybernetnews.com

Source: cybernetnews.com

Works with Windows only.

One thing that has always left me puzzled is why Firefox takes so long to startup. Both Opera and Internet Explorer take just seconds to get up and running, but on all four of my computers Firefox takes between 10 and 20 seconds to start (even with no extensions installed).

If you find yourself in a similar situation then what you might need is the open source Firefox Preloader. It can be set to startup when you turn your computer on, and with it Firefox will always be at your beck and call. If there are multiple versions of Firefox installed on your computer you can decide which one you would like it to work with.

This feature does come at a cost though. When the preloader first started up on my computer it used about 4MB of memory itself, and Firefox was using about 10MB. Those aren’t drastic numbers, but for those of you conscious about the memory usage you might want to think twice before using the preloader. Also, when you close Firefox it doesn’t actually close all the way, instead it’s just tucked away so that it will still start quickly the next time you go to use it.

Firefox tips and triks 11. How to convert Greasemonkey scripts into Firefox extensions by Download Squad.

Source: Download Squad

User Script Compiler is a tool that creates a Firefox extension from a Greasemonkey script. So why would you want to do that? The answer is simple: for the mass majority of Firefox users that fear associating anything called "Greasemonkey" with their computers, and who panic at the mention of "scripts."

Intrepid techies such as Gina Tripani of Lifehacker have worked to make Greasemonkey scripts more digestible (her Better Gmail is a selection of scripts wrapped in a simple Firefox extension). Now, with the User Script Compiler, there is a way for all users to easily convert Greasemonkey scripts into the one-click simplicity of a Firefox extension, with no programming experience required.

Converting a Greasemonkey script into a Firefox extension does take a bit of legwork--but we're confident all you Download Squad readers could do this in your sleep.

First, you'll need to track down your installed scripts. They're in your Firefox profile, under the "gm_scripts" sub-folder. Or, if you'd prefer, you can skip the search and download any script from the online script repository.

Next, you need to change the file extension from .js (Javascript) to .txt (plain text). After you've changed the extension, double-click the file to view the code. Copy and paste the code into the User Script Compiler and hit "Generate."

Voila! Your new Firefox extension (.xpi) is complete. To install in Firefox, simply drag the new extension onto the Firefox interface and follow the prompts.

Saturday, February 2, 2008

Cybernetnews about Firefox 3 Beta 3

Source: cybernetnews.com

Mozilla just announced that they are planning on having the first Release Candidate build of Firefox 3 Beta 3 coming this Monday, and although no word on a release date was announced it can probably be expected about a week after that.

The new Beta will be the first release to start showing off the new Windows themes that they’ve been working on, but as it stands right now the Vista-specific theme is not available. Vista users will see the same theme as XP users, which I’ve captured in the screenshot above. I definitely don’t like how that theme looks on Vista, and I don’t think it would look all that much better on XP. As other people have iterated before the theme has a plastic-like look to it that makes it feel like a toy.

And no, the theme is not the “big new feature.” Just the other night Mozilla rolled out a new section to the Add-ons manager for finding extensions without ever going to the add-ons site:

It only shows a handful of results, and then provides a link to the add-ons site to view the remaining extensions. I’m guessing that Mozilla is doing this in hopes of getting the add-ons to gain traction with new Firefox users.

That’s about all the new stuff that users will see in Firefox 3 Beta 3 since the last Beta was released, plus a bunch of bug fixes. After Beta 3 there will be another “quick” release of Beta 4, and then they will be moving on to the Release Candidate stage. You know what that means don’t you? Mozilla might be able to pull off a release in the first quarter of 2008 like they have been anticipating.


Firefox Tools for Webmasters by web-hosting-newsletter.com

Source: web-hosting-newsletter.com

When it comes to browsers that give the webmasters a lot of control and tools to use, you can look no further than Firefox. With the right extensions and toolbars - Firefox can in fact become the web developer’s best friend.

Firebug - you can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page!

Web Developer Toolbar -A Toolbar with every web dev tool you could ever need or want.

FireFTP - A FTP program built right into your Firefox browser, two birds - one stone.

FireShot - FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screen shots of web pages.

FoxyProxy - An advanced proxy management tool that completely replaces Firefox’s proxy configuration.

IE View - Make short work out of checking your web site in both Firefox and Internet Explorer.

ColorZilla - You can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust and paste it into another program.

Screengrab! - Screengrab saves entire web pages as an image.

HTML Validator - Use this to validate your HTML and CSS to work as the standards say they should.

YSlow -YSlow analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on Yahoo’s rules for high performance web sites.

MeasureIt - Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any element.

SeoQuake - Helps web masters who deal with search engine optimization and internet promotion of web sites.

View Source Chart - Draw a colored chart of the web page’s source code to make it easier to understand.

Save As Image - Adds the ability to save a page, frame, or part of either as an image.

CSSViewer - A simple CSS property viewer.


Tuesday, January 22, 2008

SEO tips with Firefox by World Auto Parts Data Center

Source:World Auto Parts Data Center

One example of code whatever optimizer should fuck is Firefox. Now whatever haw feature “Why Firefox, it’s exclusive a browser?” Yes, it’s a browser, but digit that supports a bounteous difference of plugins, whatever of them rattling multipurpose for wager engine optimization. So let’s wager what those plugins are:

1. SEOpen ( https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/570/ ): this is digit of the prizewinning and most utilised Firefox seo plugins, and has some tools that attain it a selection of mine. So let’s wager what it crapper do:

* in Google it crapper analyse for: backlinks, indexed pages, attendant pages, store and PageRank.
* in character and MSN: backlinks and indexed pages.
* for Alexa: overview, reciprocation details, backlinks and attendant sites.
* keyword spacing of the most utilised book on the page.
* DMOZ checker: wager if the place is included in the directory.
* analyse for robots.txt.
* validator to analyse your tender for errors (it uses the validator from www.w3.org).

There are added things, but these are the most important.

2. SEO Links
( http://www.webmasterbrain.com/seo-tools/firefox-extensions/seo-links/ ) is added spreading I ingest everyday. When the spreading si astir and you waver over a unification a tooltip module materialize that module exhibit you Yahoo, MSN, and Google unification popularity and senior accumulation for the address and fix book pair. When you’re only feeding this crapper be annoying, but you crapper only modify it with a right-click!

This could be rattling easily utilised to analyse your wager engine rankings for a destined page, and here is how: indite up a itemize with every the keywords and keyphrases that you poverty to surpass for, and then unification those book or phrases to the scheme pages related with them!

Now every instance you poverty to analyse your ranks alter the SEO Links spreading and waver over the course — you module wager where your pages are in Google, character and MSN.

3. Don’t squander anymore of your wanted concealment actual realty meet to encounter discover what your PageRank and AlexaRank is! SearchStatus (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/321/ ) crapper set anywhere you poverty (I ready it in the position bar) and you’ll obtain the wanted content at a glance. But this lowercase agency crapper do a aggregation more than that:
* it shows what metatags a place has
* checks for backlinks and indexed pages in Google, character and MSN
* it shows the robots.txt file
* keyword spacing inform function
* and prizewinning of all: the particular “nofollow” course module exhibit you what course module be followed by wager engine spiders — rattling multipurpose when you poverty to accede your place to a directory and don’t undergo if it module concern from a seo perspective.

So in housing you’re not using Firefox, go intend it! It could be your prizewinning someone when it comes to wager engine optimization!

Firefox tips and triks 10. How to Download from Megaupload using Firefox?

Source: blogdeny.blogspot.com

Anyone can download from megaupload ..just follow these steps:

You must have mozila firefox browser to use this trick so

Step 1. Download and install mozila firefox
Step 2. Go to address bar and type: about:config
Step3. Search for general.useragent.extra.firefox
-Double click on it
-Change the default text with this: Firefox/2.0 MEGAUPLOAD 1.0

If you are using another version of firefox then replace 2.0 with your version.
You can find the versin from Help->About..
-Start Downloading witout any Toolbar

Now you have to wait just for 45 second and free download will be available.
This is so easy and within seconds u can resume ur download from Megaupload.