Web Talk

One of the most exciting new features in Firefox 3 is, without any doubt, the new Location Bar also known as Smart Location Bar (address bar), used to type and display the complete URL of  websites. As a matter of fact, this new bar not only shows in its drop-down list the URL of the page you are visiting, but it also displays recently visited sites, typed URL, your bookmarks, page titles and tags. By default, the Smart location Bar gives you a maximum of 12 entries. If you want to change this figure to display as many results as you like, here is a simple trick to apply.

1. Type about:config in the Address Bar.
2. Click I’ll be careful, I promise! button to gain access to Firefox configuration page.
3. Look for browser.urlbar.maxRichResults in the list.
4. When you get it, double click on the browser.urlbar.maxRichResults.
5. Now change the number (the default number should be 12) to whatever number you like.
6. Click OK.

If you don’t want to leave any fingerprint while browsing in the Internet and you want to be invisible to the Big Brother, then this browser is for you. In fact with xB  you can surf anonymously thanks to its technology which takes advantage of the free anonymous network called Tor or through its distributor XeroBank’s networks (which comes with a price). Furthermore, once you close it, an automated feature will clear surfing history and  cookies so that you won’t leave any trace to the people after you. xB is not a new software at all, but it is just a modified version of Firefox, so you can stay assured that you will be able to surf websites with the latest html technology available. xB can be installed on a PC or an USB dongle, it is open-source and it doesn’t require any technical knowledge to set it up. Just install it and start surfing right away.  To download it or know more about it, click here.

Some time ago I spoke about a nice Easter egg which can be found in Firefox Beta 5 and Firefox 3. Today I want to speak about another one which is in Fireofox 3 and tells you a lot about what the Mozilla team thinks about its new browser version. Just type about:Mozilla into the Address Location Bar and let me know what you think about it!

There are a lot of add-ons for Firefox which can change the way you approach and use the Internet. Some of the are useful, other ones are nice, some are pure junk. Anyway there is one of it which I personally consider essential for your surfing experience because it does change the time Firefox takes to display a website. Of course I am not speaking of minutes or hour less in downloading a website. If you have a regular dial-up Internet connection you will continue to surf slow. What you will notice instead after installing this add-on is that your Firefox will take 5-10 seconds less to get you to the website you want to read. The name of this small add-on is Firetune and “according to your specific computer speed and internet connection speed, it will optimize several internal settings of Firefox for better performance.”…”FireTune does NOT modify the Firefox executable, or any other Firefox binary file. Everything can be undone easily at a single mouseclick only.” Firetune is fully compatible with Firefox v1.x / 2.x / 3.x and with the following operating systems: Windows 98, Me, 2000, Windows 2003, Windows XP SP1 (or higher), Windows Vista. iI you want to download it, or if you wish to know more, click here.

Yesterday I wrote about how to set the maximum number of suggestions in the Smart Location Bar in Firefox 3. Today I want to write about a nice add-on which lets you revert this bar (a.k.a AwesomeBar)  to the old, good, classic address bar used in the previous Firefox version. The add-on I am talking about is called Oldbar and makes the location (URL) bar look like Firefox 2. No nagging suggestions anymore for those of you guys who just want bare-bone features!

Google Talk client is a very nice feature in your Gmail account because it lets you chat with your friends while writing emails. But its biggest limit is just this, namely it is impossible to use it outside Gmail…till now. As a matter of fact,  you can chat with your friends directly from the Firefox’s sidebar thanks to a simple add-on called gTalk sidebar. Once you install the extension the only thing you will have to do is to add a button to Firefox toolbar. To do that just right-click where all the Firefox buttons are (refresh, home, print, bookmark, go back, go forwards etc), click Customize and add the gTalk Sidebar icon by dragging it wherever you want.  Once you click on it, a sidebar will appear, on it you will be able to open multiple conversations in separate tabs. You can also open the sidebar by pressing Alt+G.

If you to want export and save all of your Firefox passwords here is a nice free add-on quite easy to use. Its name is Password Exporter and does exactly what it says. As a matter of fact, it exports (or import) all the passwords available in Firefox. You can export by using either XML or CSV format. In this way, next time your computer crashes, you will have all of your passwords with you! If instead you want to use something more complete meaning that you want to save your entire Firefox profile including passwords, cookies, bookmarks then MozBackup is the right add-on. In fact, it lets you backup or restore your profiles in a couple of steps. Reading from the website: “It allows you to backup and restore bookmarks, mail, contacts, history, extensions, cache etc. It’s an easy way to do Firefox backup, Thunderbird backup …” If you want to download it for free or you want to know more, click here.

If you want to take the new Firefox 3 everywhere you go, here is an interesting application which can be useful to you. As a matter of fact the guys at Portableapps.com, right after a few days from the release of the new Firefox 3, have managed to release their own portable version of this famous browser. I want to point out that this version is the same as the original one. The only difference is that it doesn’t require to be installed. This makes it a good companion of those people who like having everything in their USB pens. The technology behind it is very sophisticated and assures that no data will be left on the computer you will stick your USB dongle into. As a matter of fact all the data concerned your surfing, passwords, sensitive information and such will be written in the pen drive itself leaving the host computer completely clean. The size of Fireofx 3 portable Edition is 8.0MB (download), 27-77Mb (installed, depending on features like anti-phishing). To Run, it requires 2000/XP/Vista, Wine on Linux/UNIX. The software is completely freeware and open-source. Download it now.