How-To: Install Firefox 3.6 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic

Firefox 3.6 was released yesterday, after over six months since the last major release, version 3.5. Firefox 3.6 ships with versions for over 70 languages, support for Personas, an add-on allowing you to change the appearance of the tab bar and choose from thousands of themes, improvements to the open video support (like the fullscreen mode), improved JavaScript performance and start-up time, support for the new DOM and HTML5 specs.

This is a short tutorial which will show how to install Firefox 3.6 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala from the Mozilla Daily PPA.

First, open the terminal and add the necessary repository addresses to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list

Or, for a GUI editor:

gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list

Add the following two lines:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu karmic main

Notice that the second line is only needed if you plan to fetch the source code for Firefox. Make sure to save the file and proceed to the next step.

Now, add the trusted key for this repository:

sudo apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 247510BE

Update your packages list:

sudo apt-get update

Remove the current Firefox installation:

sudo apt-get remove --purge firefox

And now install version 3.6:

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.6

Now you may want to create a new profile for the new 3.6 version. To do this, run Firefox with the -P parameter:

firefox -P

To run two different instances of Firefox and different profiles you can use:

firefox --no-remote -P
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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How-To: Install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala

Adobe Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 was released earlier this year, on December 17 at the Adobe MAX 2009. This release comes with several new features and numerous bug fixes.

To install Flash Player 10.1 Beta 2 in Ubuntu 9.10, just follow the steps below:

First, remove your existing Flash plugin. Do this depending on whether you installed Flash from the repositories or manually. If you installed Flash from the Ubuntu repositories, typing:

sudo apt-get remove --purge flashplugin-installer

should remove your current installation of Flash. If Flash was installed manually, the plugin should be located in the ~/.mozilla/plugins directory, where ~ is the home directory. So, to remove it:

rm -f ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so

Next, download the archive for the new Flash player from here (direct link here), or alternately you can type in a terminal:

wget http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/flashplayer10/flashplayer10_1_p2_linux_121709.tar.gz

Make sure the current working directory is the one where you saved the archive and uncompress it:

tar -xzf flashplayer10_1_p2_linux_121709.tar.gz

Next, create the ~/.mozilla/plugins directory (if it doesn't already exist):

mkdir -p ~/.mozilla/plugins

And copy the plugin inside it:

cp install_flash_player_10_linux/libflashplayer.so ~/.mozilla/plugins

Now restart Firefox and this should be all.Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Flagfox: Firefox Add-on to Show the Country of the Current Server

Flagfox is a small Firefox add-on which will display a flag of the country where the server of the current website is located. Flagfox will show the current server IP, the hostname, country, city, local time, postal code and even latitude and longitude of the location.


Flagfox 3.3.15


Flagfox can be configured to show the flag and additional information in the address bar or the status bar (left or right), open information in a new tab or window, and define a custom action for middle-clicking on the country flag icon.


Preferences


Middle-clicking on the flag icon will perform a whois, copy the IP address or open an additional tab with Wikipedia information about the selected country, depending on how you set this action in the Flagfox preferences window.

Custom actions are also supported, the default action (if enabled) will look for pages indexed by Google of the current website. For example, using the default action for this address will return these search results.

Install Flagfox from the Firefox add-ons page
Flagfox homepage
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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ChatZilla: Powerful IRC Client for Firefox

ChatZilla is an IRC client built as a Firefox add-on and providing enough features to use it just like any other standalone IRC client. ChatZilla will fit best as an IRC client when you don't want to use a separate application for getting on IRC.


ChatZilla 0.9.85


The interface resembles the classic user list and chat window appearance, making it intuitive and using the usual Firefox shortcuts for common tasks like switching tabs or closing the current chat window.

The first time it starts, ChatZilla will offer the basic information to start using it, like the needed commands to get help, links to get started with IRC, a FAQ and links to connect directly to one of the many popular networks like Freenode, QuakeNet, EFNet, IRCNet, Dalnet or Undernet.

ChatZilla provides direct support to essential IRC commands for talking with the IRC server and it comes with detailed help for each and every command. Aliases are also supported in ChatZilla so you can define your own shortcut for any command and ease common tasks like a login command or sending a specific message to a channel or a private conversation. DCC is also supported and file transfers are possible in ChatZilla just like in any other IRC client.

Regarding configurability, ChatZilla offers all the friendly-client options, like automatic reconnecting, rejoin when kicked, character encoding, quit message, proxy type, enabled automatically by Firefox, away message, default usermode when connecting, logs. Except for specific IRC settings, ChatZilla also allows to configure appearance settings like fonts or showing a header, add custom aliases, automatically load any custom created Java scripts, text formatting and support for mIRC colours.


ChatZilla preferences


Considering most of the time we're using a web browser, using ChatZilla over some other IRC client should be OK, especially if you don't want to open some additional application. Although not by far as powerful as standalone clients like Irssi or XChat, ChatZilla will make the perfect choice for getting and using IRC, especially when working with Firefox all the time is needed.
ChatZilla homepage
Install ChatZilla from the Firefox add-ons pageSource URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Take Full Screenshots of Web Pages in Firefox with ScreenGrab

Screengrab is a useful Firefox add-on which will take a screenshot of a web page, no matter if the web page is longer than the actual screen area. Screengrab will create an image from the entire web page in either PNG or JPG format.


The latest version is Screengrab 0.96.1, which works on Firefox 3.0.x as well as on the latest stable Firefox, 3.5.x. Screengrab allows you to save screenshots either as PNG or JPG, and include the timestamp in the resulted filename. It offers the possibility to capture the complete web page, visible portion, selection or window and to use it just right-click anywhere on the web page and go to the ScreenGrab! -> Save... menu entry.


Here is how nice a screenshot of TuxArena website looks like after using Screengrab:

Install Screengrab from the Mozilla add-ons page
Screengrab homepage
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Mozilla Releases Firefox 3.6 Alpha, Codenamed 'Namoroka'

Just a couple of months after the successful release of Firefox 3.5, the Mozilla non-profit organisation put up the first alpha of the upcoming Firefox 3.6, which is available for download from the Mozilla FTP website. Firefox 3.6 is scheduled for release as a stable version in November 2009, so this release is just a preview, the starting point for development of Firefox 3.6.


Firefox 3.6 Alpha running in Debian Lenny


Codenamed 'Namoroka' (and also Firefox.next), Firefox 3.6 Alpha uses the Gecko 1.9.2 rendering engine, and gets a score of 94/100 at the Acid3 Test, compared to 93/100 in Firefox 3.5.0 and 72/100 in Firefox 3.0.x.


Firefox 3.6 Alpha: 94/100
Firefox 3.5: 93/100
Firefox 3.0: 72/100


The only web browser that I tested and gets 100/100 is the closed-source browser Opera 9.64 (and the new Opera 10 beta), using their Presto engine.

Two of the major goals of Firefox 3.6 are improved performance, start-up time and user interface responsiveness, and also customisation improvements, including the Awesome bar and integration of the Mozilla Labs Personas project.

To try Firefox 3.6 Alpha, download the latest trunk build from here, uncompress the .tar.bz2 file and run it as ./firefox --no-remote -P and don't forget to create a new, separate profile for 3.6 in order to not mix settings with your existing Firefox. Alternately, check out these two guides for installing the latest Firefox in Ubuntu: here and here. The same guides apply for the upcoming Ubuntu 9.10 Karmic Koala.


Creating a new user profile to test Firefox 3.6


Currently few add-ons are available for this alpha, the other ones are compatible only with 3.5 and older releases (which is normal given that 3.6 is only in alpha and it won't be available until late 2009). The popular extension Adblock Plus can be installed in 3.6 at the time of writing, however popular themes or add-ons like Greasemonkey or Noia 2.0 eXtreme are not available yet.

According to the Mozilla Wiki page for Firefox Namoroka, Firefox 3.6 will be a small, incremental release for the stable 3.5, and the first beta should be available in late September 2009, while a release candidate should be put out sometime in late October 2009.
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Firefox 3.5.1 Released With Security Fix

Firefox 3.5.1 is the first update to the new 3.5 series of Firefox. According to the users' changelog, this release fixes several issues, including security and stability-related problems.

To download the new Firefox 3.5.1, go to the Mozilla downloads page. I wrote two guides on installing Firefox 3.5 (and later) in Ubuntu, you can find them here and here.

You can watch a video of Firefox 3.5.1 running in Ubuntu below:



Firefox 3.5.1 running in Debian Lenny


Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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How-To: Install Latest Firefox in Ubuntu - Complete Guide

This guide explains several methods on installing the latest Firefox in Ubuntu, including installing it from a PPA repository.

I. Install Firefox from the Firefox PPA repository
1. The CLI (command-line interface) way
This is probably the easiest method. Don't forget to read the Creating a new profile section below after installing Firefox.

A PPA (Personal Package Archives) is a repository for Ubuntu which contains usually newer versions of applications which come in the default Ubuntu repositories. For example there are PPAs for Amarok, for Banshee, for Firefox, for VLC etc.

In order to install the latest Firefox available from a PPA, just follow the steps below:

Add the following two lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

You can do this using your favourite text editor with root privileges (e.g. sudo nano /etc/apt/sources.list or gksudo gedit /etc/apt/sources.list). Don't forget to save the file after you're done. To save it in Nano, use Ctrl+O followed by Enter, then Ctrl+X to exit Nano.

The same can be accomplished by running the following commands:

sudo bash -c "echo 'deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

sudo bash -c "echo 'deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/ubuntu-mozilla-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main' >> /etc/apt/sources.list"

After you're done editing /etc/apt/sources.list, just update the package lists:

sudo apt-get update

Or use Update from Synaptic. To install Firefox, use:

sudo apt-get install firefox-3.5

This will install the latest Firefox available (currently release 3.5).

An alternate way of doing this is graphically, explained below:

Go to System -> Administration -> Synaptic Package Manager and enter your user password. In Synaptic, go to Settings -> Repositories and click on the Third Party Software tab. Click the Add button and enter the two lines I shown above, one at a time. Then click the Reload button to update the package lists.


Next, enter firefox in the Quick search field and select the firefox-3.5 package (or whatever version you want to install) from the list that appears. Mark it for installation, together with all the other dependencies it needs. Then, click the Apply button.


II. Install Firefox directly from their .tar.bz2 archive
1. The CLI way
First, download the Firefox tarball from the official website (replace firefox-3.5.tar.bz2 with the version you want to download):

Next, make sure the current directory is the one where you saved the tarball and uncompress it:

tar -xjf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2

The same, replace the version number with the one you have.

Next, move the firefox directory to a location of your choice, or you can leave it on the desktop or inside your home directory. I use ~/apps/ here, where ~ is my home directory. The following step is to make a shortcut to Firefox:

ln -s "~/firefox/firefox -P --no-remote" Firefox

2. The graphical way
After downloading the Firefox tarball, open Nautilus and uncompress it:


After extracting it, a new directory called firefox will appear. Now, you need to create a shortcut on the desktop (or wherever you want it) to the new Firefox binary. Right-click on the desktop, hit Create Launcher and fill in the fields as in the screenshot below, replacing your username.


Notice that although the --no-remote parameter is optional, you should use the -P parameter in order to open the profile manager window, so you can choose to create a new profile for the newly installed Firefox. Later on, you can edit this launcher and remove the -P argument. Keep in mind that if you don't use the --no-remote parameter, you will have to close first any existing Firefox 3.0.11 instances.

Creating a new profile
This step is very important, since it will allow you to create a new, different profile for your new Firefox installation. Of course, you can use your old profile too if you need to keep bookmarks, add-ons and other stuff. To create a new profile, run firefox with the -P parameter:

~/firefox/firefox -P

This will open the profile manager. I will create a profile called firefox35 for this example.


Notice that you can run two different instances of Firefox at the same time (e.g. the default Firefox 3.0.11 and Firefox 3.5). Just run it as:

~/firefox/firefox --no-remote -P

The --no-remote switch tells Firefox not to connect to any existing instances, so you won't get the 'Firefox is already running' message.

Finally, if you decided to create a new profile but still need bookmarks and other stuff from the old profile, copy the following files in Nautilus into the new profile directory:

places.sqlite (bookmarks)
key3.db (stored passwords information)
signon.sqlite (stored passwords information - copy this and key3.db file if you want to have the stored passwords in your new profile)

Notice that your default Firefox profile is stored inside a directory with a name which goes like RANDOM_CHARS.default.

Additional resources
I can warmly recommend this thread on UbuntuForums.org, and also installing Firefox at psychocats.net. This entry in the Ubuntu Wiki can prove useful too, and don't forget my other entry about installing Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu 9.04.
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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2 Great Firefox Tips: Make Use of Tags and Drag Text Into the Search Bar

Directly drag text into the search bar
The search bar is located at the upper right corner of Firefox and can be focused using Ctrl+K. By default, the search engine used is Google. Instead of hitting Ctrl+K then entering a piece of text there and pressing Enter, you can select the text on the currently loaded web page and drag it into the text box. Firefox will automatically search on the default engine for the phrase you dragged there. The only drawback to this is that the results page is loaded in the same, current tab.

Add tags to bookmarks to fasten searches in the awesome bar
One of the new features in Firefox 3.0 was the improved location bar, called Awesome Bar in Firefox, which allows you to search for a website in your bookmarks or browsing history just by entering word(s), in any order, which are included in the web address or title of the web page. The search also occurs for bookmark tags, so one way to fasten your searches in the awesome bar is to add tags to your bookmarks.

To do that, just go to the Bookmarks menu, right click on the bookmark of choice, go to Properties and fill in the Keyword field with tags separated by commas. Another way is to go to Bookmarks -> Organize Bookmarks and add tags there.
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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5 Useful Add-Ons for Firefox 3.5

A while ago I put up this article, reviewing 5 so-called 'essential' add-ons for Firefox. To continue in the same manner in this second part, here are 5 add-ons updated for Firefox 3.5 which can prove useful. Maybe not the most popular, but they definitely deserve a try.

StumbleUpon
I think there is no social community user who didn't hear about StumbleUpon.com, or at least came across a mention of it on the web. StumbleUpon allows you to share cool links, make friends, drive traffic to your website, rate website and write reviews. It is a huge, growing community for exchanging whatever is cool and hot on the web. This add-on is a powerful extension for Firefox which will bring the entire StumbleUpon experience integrated in your browser. It provides a navigation bar just below the location bar, it allows to log in and like/dislike website. For StumbleUpon users, this is a must-have.
Install StumbleUpon from the Mozilla add-ons page
StumbleUpon homepage


StumbleUpon toolbar



StumbleUpon options


DownThemAll!
DownThemAll! (or dTa for short) is a popular download manager for Firefox. dTa also allows to download all the links, video, audio and images embedded in a web page. DownThemAll! comes with plenty of configuration options, like notifications (visual and audio), filter which kind of files should be downloaded, enable/disable context and Tools menu entries, filters. A very powerful extension.
Install DownThemAll! from the Mozilla add-ons page
DownThemAll! homepage


Selecting and filtering files to download



DownThemAll! preferences


User Agent Switcher
You know those websites which force you use Internet Explorer in order to access their functionality at full potential, or games etc.? This add-on is a good helper when it comes to those. It allows you to change the way Firefox sends its version name, so you can browse a website with the user agent set to IE6, or IE7 or Opera and so on.
Install User Agent Switcher from the Mozilla add-ons page


Easily switching the Firefox user agent


TwitterFox
This add-on will only be useful for Twitter users: it enhances the Twitter experience in Firefox by notifying you of your friends' activity. TwitterFox also provides a small icon in the lower right corner of the Firefox window.
Install TwitterFox from the Mozilla add-ons page
TwitterFox homepage


TwitterFox preferences


Greasemonkey
Grasemonkey is a very powerful add-on which allows you to modify the way web pages are displayed and their functionality by using JavaScript. Hundreds of scripts can be found on http://userscripts.org/.
Install Greasemonkey from the Mozilla add-ons page
Greasemonkey homepage
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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How-To: Install Firefox 3.5 in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty Jackalope

Firefox 3.5 comes with several great new features, like the private browsing mode or the support for open video integration (full review here). Since Ubuntu Jaunty comes with version 3.0.11, if you want to try the new Firefox 3.5 release all you have to do is follow the few steps below:

First, download the tarball from the official website, then uncompress it using:

tar -xjf firefox-3.5.tar.bz2

Then, place the firefox directory somewhere inside your home directory, say, ~/apps/, where ~ is your home directory. Next, make a shortcut to the firefox executable - right click on the desktop, click on Create Launcher, and at the Command field enter the command below:

/home/USER/path/to/firefox/firefox -P

Replace /path/to/firefox/ and USER. For example, if your username is ubuntu and you copied the firefox directory inside ~/apps/ (where ~ is your home directory), this command should look like:

/home/ubuntu/apps/firefox/firefox -P

The -P switch will start Firefox 3.5 using the profile manager, so from here all you need to do is to create a new profile for your Firefox 3.5:


Click on Create Profile...



Choose the name of the profile


Additionally, you can specify the --no-remote switch (firefox --no-remote -P) so you can run both your currently 3.0.11 and 3.5 instances at the same time. The --no-remote switch doesn't connect Firefox to a currently running instance.


Firefox 3.5 running in Ubuntu 9.04 Jaunty


Updated: July 1, 2009
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Firefox 3.5 - A Really Impressive Release

Firefox 3.5 was released just a couple of hours ago and it comes with great new features and a new version of Gecko, the rendering engine. Firefox is currently the most popular browser on the Linux platform and the top choice on Windows after Internet Explorer (although there are statistics showing it beats IE in terms of popularity in some countries).


Firefox 3.5 running in Ubuntu 9.04


Maybe the most important new feature in this release, at least for the open-source community, is the support for the video and audio tags, which make possible to view movies in the open video format Ogg Theora. These can be embedded in web pages just like YouTube videos are, but without the need of Flash. Besides, you can also directly download the video by right clicking on it. Mozilla has put up on their homepage an example of how this works.


Firefox 3.5 comes with support for open video formats - notice that you can save the videos to your computer



Another new feature is the presence of a plus sign next to the tab to the left, just like Google Chrome and Opera 10 have, this button allowing you to open a new, empty tab.


New tab button


According to the official website, 3.5 is twice as fast compared to 3.0.x, and that is due to the new version of Gecko, the rendering engine used by Firefox, which reached now version 1.9.1.

Another new feature introduced in Firefox 3.5 is the private browsing mode (accessible via the Tools -> Start Private Browsing menu entry), which allows you to browse the web safely, without leaving any browsing history behind after exiting this mode.


Private browsing - another new feature of 3.5


Another new feature is the ability to clear just the browsing history of the last couple of hours, which is very useful when you want to get rid of this history, but keep things like the number you accessed a web page for faster access in the awesome bar.

Firefox gets more powerful with each new release, and this one made no exception. To mention some other cool features, there is the RSS reader, over 60,000 available add-ons on the Mozilla add-ons site, the awesome bar which makes accessing web pages very fast, the integrated search engines (available via Ctrl+K), support for themes, session restore, spell-checker, not to mention a huge community and available documentation.

I liked Firefox 3.5 very much, especially the open video format support, and the fact that it didn't get more bloated with this new release.
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Fire.fm - Firefox Add-on for Last.fm Radio and More

I've recently started to make a post every two or three days (well, except for the period the blog was inactive) in which I review a potential useful Firefox add-on. Today I decided upon Fire.fm, an add-on which will integrate Last.fm in Firefox and will allow you to play music directly from within your browser.

For those of you who are not familiar with Last.fm, it is a music service which allows you to listen to custom radio stations, submit the music you listen to, make friends, talk on forums, create and join groups of listeners and discuss various music topics, and much more. I think its the greatest music service available today, and it's free (well, except for the radio subscription which was recently introduced).


Fire.fm toolbar and integration into Firefox


Fire.fm is a free, BSD-licensed add-on for Firefox . You can download and install it from the Mozilla add-ons page, restart Firefox and grant permission to login into your Last.fm account.

Fire.fm allows you to select which radio station you want to play, it controls the volume, and it also creates a Last.fm toolbar which you can enable or disable, just like the one for StumbleUpon. Fire.fm is customisable and will also create a Tools menu entry, for quick access the all the functions it provides.


Preferences


I warmly recommend Fire.fm to those who listen to Last.fm radio and don't need an audio player (or their client), preferring instead to use the web browser.


The menu entry


Download and Install Fire.fm from the Mozilla add-ons page
Official website
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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FlashGot: Yet Another Extension for Downloading Media Files in Firefox

It's been a while since my last post. This article is about FlashGot, another Firefox extension which is similar to DownloadHelper, and allows to download all the links, video and audio files from a web page.

The great thing about FlashGot is that it correctly detects and uses various download managers installed on the system. For example, it detected the KDE3 download manager on my machine, KGet. However, I think it's better to use the browser built-in downloader.
FlashGot can be configured to download only certain types of files, or fetch only media files, the menu entries are configurable so you can add or remove specific options. Below are several screenshots:


Downloading media files from YouTube



Choosing default download manager




About FlashGot


Install FlashGot from the Mozilla Add-ons page
Official homepage
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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Firefox Tip: Browse the Web Only With the Keyboard Using MLB

Mouseless Browsing (or MLB for short) is a Firefox 3 add-on which will allow you to browse the web using only your keyboard, by adding an ID box for each link on the web page. If you used the access keys feature in Konqueror (by pressing Ctrl while in a web page) you will probably find MLB useful too. See a screenshot below for Konqueror's access keys:


Access keys in Konqueror


As you can see, by pressing the key corresponding to its link you can go directly to that link, just like if you pressed it with your mouse cursor.


MLB


You will then be able to open links with Ctrl+ID_NUMBER and open links in a new tab with Alt+ID_NUMBER.

Notice that this add-on is useful only if you really need to use the keyboard for opening links, because it can turn a web page to look rather ugly with all those numbers lying all over the place. Here's how it looks by default:


The good thing is that you can enable and disable it without the need to restart Firefox, directly from within the add-on preferences window.


Install Mouseless Browsing from the Mozilla Add-ons page
Homepage
Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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3 Tweaks to Speed Up Firefox 3 and Free Memory

Sometimes Firefox can become a real memory hog, especially if you keep it running for hours and have many tabs opened. In order to make Firefox a little more responsive and save some RAM memory, here are three tweaks I bumped into over time. Notice that most of these tips only free up some memory at the expense of (usually) loading speed for web pages. You won't make Firefox 10 times faster, but you will surely make it use less RAM.

Tweak the browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers variable
In Firefox, open a new tab (Ctrl+T) and type about:config in the address bar. Click on the I'll be careful, I promise! button and start typing the variable name browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers in the Filter text box.


This variable specifies Firefox how many pages it should keep in the memory, so when you hit Back and Forward buttons it loads pages faster. The default value is -1, which means that it sets a certain number of pages depending on the total RAM memory the system has. You can change this value to 0 (just double-click the variable), which means it won't hold into memory any pages.

Variable: browser.sessionhistory.max_total_viewers
Value: 0

Use the Flashblock extension to load Flash only on demand
Flash support on Linux seems pretty poor, at least to me, even with the latest Flash plugin available - 10.0.22.87. I noticed Firefox scrolls very slow on Flash-rich pages and after several hours Flash videos stop working or producing any sound. Anyway, Flashblock is a very useful extension which will allow you to only show Flash videos on demand, replacing them with a button on which you can click in order to start the video. Get the latest Flashblock release from the Mozilla add-ons page and install it. Notice that JavaScript must be enabled in order to use it (Edit -> Preferences -> Content and tick the Enable JavaScript option).

Tweak the browser.cache.memory.capacity variable
Create the variable browser.cache.memory.capacity in the about:config dialogue and set it to 0. To create a new variable, right click anywhere, go to New -> Integer, insert the variable name where it says to enter the preference name, then set the integer value to 0. This will disable memory cache completely and free up some RAM. The default value is -1, which will set the values automatically. Alternately, you can set here a custom memory size, like 16 (which is default if you have 256 MB RAM and the variable is set to -1) or 32 (default for a system with 512 MB RAM). The same thing can be accomplished by setting the variable browser.cache.memory.enable to false.

Variable: browser.cache.memory.capacity
Value: 0


This how-to is part of a series of Firefox-related articles I'm putting up. If you want to read them, here they are:

5 Essential Add-ons for Firefox 3
5 Useful Tips to Customise Firefox 3

Updated: May 3, 2009Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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5 Essential Add-ons for Firefox 3

1. Video DownloadHelper - download media files (including YouTube Flash videos)

Video DownloadHelper is maybe the most popular and powerful Firefox add-on for downloading Flash videos from various websites. Along with that, Video DownloadHelper also supports a wide range of video and audio files, including RAM, WMV, ASF, AVI and MP3, and you can add custom extensions too. Late versions also include video conversion on-the-fly using ffmpeg or mencoder, so after your download is finished the video will be automatically converted to whatever format you choose, after you set a new conversion rule in the configuration. DownloadHelper provides a button which will list all the available media files on the current website, located to the right of the Home button in the Firefox's taskbar.
Install from the Firefox add-ons page
Homepage


2. AdBlock Plus - stop displaying annoying ads on websites

AdBlock Plus is, as its name suggests, an add-on which will strip all the ads from a website, very useful for those who don't like ads put in unwanted places which can distract from reading and accessing a website properly. The first time it starts, AdBlock will prompt the user to select a country-specific list of advertising sites to block. These lists are huge and the end-result is very satisfactory.
Install from the Firefox add-ons page
Homepage

3. PDF Download - convert web pages to PDF

PDF Download is a nice, feature-rich add-on which will convert a web page to PDF on demand and it will save it on your hard drive. When you will select this action it will also open a new tab (or window, depending on the settings) with the homepage of PDF Download. This add-on also offers the possibility to specify the format of the PDF (portrait or landscape) and how to handle margins.
Install from the Firefox add-ons page
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4. Speed Dial - add-on similar to Opera's speed dial

Speed Dial is similar with one good features the Opera browser ships by default. Speed Dial will display in a single tab several previews of web pages of your choice, which will make accessing your favourite websites faster and easier. The add-on allows you to set the number of rows and columns to be displayed. It is highly configurable via the Tools -> Add-ons menu option. The only drawback Speed Dial has is that for some sites the preview is not very accurate.
Install from the Firefox add-ons page
Homepage


5. Google Preview - insert previews in Google and Yahoo! searches

Yet another useful extension, Google Preview will insert previews in Google and Yahoo! search results, helping you to make an idea about what a specific site is about and if it is worth accessing it. You can set the number of maximum previews per page and and make it show the site rank in a small bar below the site's description. Of course, it comes at bandwidth cost and a little slowness, but many find this add-on very useful.
Install from the Firefox add-ons page
Homepage

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Firefox 3 - The Beast Among Web Browsers

Firefox became in a relatively short period of time the most popular web browser on Linux. It is also the most powerful competitor to Internet Explorer on Windows, proving itself faster, more stable, more flexible and secure. Some would say Firefox is one of the most important proofs that open-source software can and is actually better than closed, proprietary software. Firefox is heavily advertised by the Mozilla corporation, many Linux fans put a link to the official Firefox website on their blog or personal homepages, initiatives like SpreadFirefox.com or the Firefox Download Day, they all contribute to making Firefox so popular.


Firefox 3.0.1 running on Kubuntu 8.04 Live CD


Firefox uses the Gecko layout engine (also called a rendering engine) for displaying web pages and its user interface too, by rendering XUL, an XML user interface language providing widget definitions. Gecko 1.9 is used in the last stable Firefox release. An unofficial port of Firefox using Qt instead of XUL is in the works too, and I'm very curious how development will evolve.

Compared to browsers which use different engines, like Konqueror 3.5.9 or Opera 9.52, Firefox performs better than the first when submitting or filling up certain forms, but it seems slower loading web pages than Opera. Konqueror 3.5.9 (which uses KHTML) fails miserably for example allowing you to send mails using certain forms or even writing a Blogspot post, while Firefox has no problems regarding this matter. On the other hand, despite the fact that it was praised and announced to have a lot of speed improvements, Firefox still eats more CPU and memory resources than either Konqueror or Opera, making it the slowest of them three. Although it has slow loading times and a slow interface, once loaded and in action, Firefox will prove the best tool for finishing any web-related task, also having the big advantage over Opera for being open-source.

The interface hasn't changed much compared to previous versions, like the 2.x series. It's clean, simple and intuitive, providing only the necessary toolbar buttons and most useful options via the Preferences window. A good improvement version 3 has is the address bar, which now offers clever ways of accessing the desired location, depending on how many times you accessed it and how relevant the content is compared to what you type.

It has a bookmark toolbar for fast access to your most used addresses, and provides the classic Back, Forward, Reload, Stop and Home buttons. To the right of the address bar is located the Search Engines feature, which can be accessed using CTRL+K and allows you to search by default on Google, or select another search engine, like Amazon.com or Wikipedia. Many other engines can also be installed, but I think user-defined keyword shortcuts are more useful and handy. It's a matter of preferences after all.

The Preferences window allows configuration of the most usual settings, like the default address to start with, download location, tabs configuration, appearance or security (including privacy settings, cookies, and passwords). The interface fonts can be changed using the userChrome.css file inside the Firefox directory (e.g. ~/.mozilla/firefox/RANDOM.default/chrome/userChrome.css).


Preferences - you can change the most usual settings here

The about:config dialogue allows you to truly configure Firefox in any way possible, and you can find here all the necessary entries for tweaking Firefox the way you like it. For example, if you want to disable the finished downloads notification, all you have to do is search for the browser.download.manager.showAlertOnComplete variable and set its value to false by double clicking on it. A very comprehensive guide for each entry can be found here.


The about:config entries - tweak anything related to Firefox from here


One of the great features Firefox comes with is the ability to install various add-ons and themes, and the official website contains hundreds of them, like the StumbleUpon add-on, the DownloadHelper add-on for downloading all media content from within a web page (useful especially for YouTube videos), or the Adblock Plus extension which blocks ads on pages including them. Some of the nicest themes already ported to Firefox 3 are Noia eXtreme and Phoenity Modern.


Managing bookmarks


Regarding interface speed, response and loading times, I think Firefox still remains one of the slowest browsers compared to Konqueror, Opera or Epiphany. I didn't yet have the occasion to compare it to Chrome, but since currently it's only natively available for Windows, running it through Wine shouldn't be fair.


About Firefox 3


In the end, Firefox 3 looks to be the most powerful and useful browser available for the Linux platform. Opera is a very good competitor regarding features and usability, but unfortunately it's still closed-source. All the themes, all the powerful entries in about:config, the add-ons, the bookmarks easy to manage, all these features make out of Firefox the best and the most popular web application for the Linux OS.

Related articles
5 Useful Tips to Customise Firefox 3

Updated: Sep 16, 2008Source URL: https://ashesgarrett.blogspot.com/search/label/firefox
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