Tag: Firefox

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Tips

Prepare to update to Firefox 3.6 next week.

On Friday, 16th October, you should be able to upgrade to Firefox 3.6 beta version. Firefox 4.0 will be released next year and 3.6 will be a step in that direction. A lot of add-ons which currently in Mozilla Labs might be integrated with Firefox 4.0 and the upgrades with 3.6 seem to be moving in that direction of integration.

firefox

Some of the things you can expect with the upgrade.

  • Themes: Some tweaks which will allow users to have themes being applied to browsers and not make the browser too slow. Often its been the case with themes that browsers become slow or crash often. So Firefox 3.6 plans to make them lightweight so as to not compromise the working of the browser.
  • JavaScript:One of the worries for Firefox could be how it compares with Chrome when it comes to performance based of running Java Script. So expect faster Java Script handling.
  • Session Restore: I have not seen my Firefox 3.5 crash too often except a couple of times. Session Restore does not really help. Its not smooth but looks like that will be address with Firefox 3.6.
  • Miscellaneous: Some other things are being tweaked like better synchronized bookmarks and a smoother page loading. Also make its browser more friendly with CSS technology.

Link: PC World

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Tips

View websites in different languages with Google toolbar.

Google recently announced that it has added a new feature to Google toolbar with Firefox browser. You can now read just about any website in different languages. This is quite different from having a translate widget or button on websites. This allows you to read any web-page in a different language. Below is the image of Devilsworkshop translated in Hindi. 🙂

Screen-shot of Devilsworkshop in Hindi.

translate_firefox_googlebar1

Google has released a plethora of applications and options for translating web pages and documents from one language to another recently.

Translate from Toolbar

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  • Google has allowed the Translate button with Google toolbar only with Firefox 3.5 users and above. I guess it will soon be introduced with IE browser in the near future.
  • Just about any web-page can be viewed in many different languages.
  • The Translate feature is synchronized with Private browser feature of Firefox. This mean when you are looking at a website in different languages it turns off features like page history, page rank and side-wiki. The obvious reason for this is that developers might not like their page being ranked or commented on depending on how good the translation of the page is.
  • I have not carried out a extensive study on this but its obvious that some websites will have issues of certain words being translated differently. For instance “Devils-workshop” was translated as “D”, “Evil” and “workshop” as different words. So two words were split into three and that can be undesirable.
  • All said and done it is quite a cool feature and very good for people to read websites in different languages. For instance I read a German website by translating it. The English had its faults but I could get the gist of it very well.

Link: Google Blog

Categories
News

Browser Wars: Internet Explorer’s pie shrinks.

With the release of Chrome 3.0 and the  Chrome Frame controversy I was waiting quite eagerly to see its impact on the browser market share of Chrome and Internet Explorer in September.

  • Internet Explorer has a market share of 65.71% but it had 66.97% share when the month began. That means Internet Explorer has lost 1.26% in just one month.
  • For the August survey what Internet Explorer lost was almost entirely gained by Firefox and Chrome. This month is not different. Firefox  has gained 0.77% and Chrome has gained 0.33%.
  • Chrome has now broken the 3% barrier by cornering 3.17% of the pie.
  • One worrying factor for Internet Explorer is that over the last 3 months they have lost 3% of its share which means that it if continues its downward slide it will end up being below 50.0% in the next 15 months.

browser_wars

Credits: Marketshare Hitslink

  • Safari has stayed on at 4.24% for over 2 months and Opera has shown marginal growth with 2.19% by probably taking away numbers from Internet Explorer.

One major factor that has gone against Internet Explorer is that IE8 has not really gone down as well as expected. I find IE 8 a much better browser than IE7 but it does seem to be have problems crashing on older machines running Windows XP.

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Tips

How To Set Yahoo Mail/Gmail As Default Email Client In Firefox

It happens a lot of times when we click on mailto: link and Outlook Express opens automatically. So below is a simple tutorial that will help you in changing the default Email Client from Outlook Express to your desired email client like Yahoo or Gmail. Lets start

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and at the top click on Tools >> Options

2. Now go to Applications tab and search for mailto

3. On the right hand side of Mailto you will see a drop down list that contains Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook Express. Select you desired option and click Ok.

4. If you want to set any other client, click on Use Other.. and browse the application and click Ok.

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News

First Microsoft and now Mozilla does not like Chrome Frame.

When I first came across Chrome Frame I knew that other browsers will not like it. First Microsoft called Chrome Frame a security risk and now Mozilla has dismissed Chrome Frame as ‘dangerous’ not for security reasons but for confusing internet users.

Mozilla’s Vice President Engineering, Mike Shaver in his blog observes that Chrome Frame will end up confusing people.

mozilla_cf

What exactly are Mozilla’s concerns?

  • Mozilla fears that Chrome Frame running inside Internet Explorer can open a Pandora’s box for web users. They prefer that users were educated about using Chrome browser rather being prompted to download Chrome Frame.
  • Mozilla does not really follow the Microsoft line of argument on security but makes a good point on where this might lead. Their argument is what if there is a Facebook Frame for Facebook connect? A lot of very popular websites might have their own engines run inside other browsers for that extra compatibility for their web applications in the future.
  • Mozilla does not like the idea because this can some time down the line lead people to have 5-6 engines working within one browser and lead to confusion as to who is controlling the internet experience on the browser.
  • Some users with IE6 may not be able to download Chrome Frame because of an old operating system or lack of authority on networks. But then it is debatable if the same users can download another browser anyway.
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My take on the argument

  • One key reason Google came up with Chrome Frame is so that when Google Wave is released people can use Google Wave without the need to change their browser.
  • Educating customers on changing over to a new browser is not really easy. Most people agree that Internet Explorer is notoriously slow but it still does have almost 70% of the market.
  • The way Google has planned the roll out of Wave, they will probably look to impact more than half of the internet users in the first year with features and web apps based on Google Wave. Google had no choice but to come up with Chrome Frame rather than ask people to move to another browser. It is highly unrealistic to expect Chrome browser’s market share to go up from 3% to 50% in a span of 12 months. Hence  Chrome Frame was their best way forward.

Links: Computer World | Shaver Blog | Image

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News

Become a Test Pilot for Firefox.

testpilot_firefoxThis is a new add-on feature with Firefox browser which will allows users to test the Firefox Browser and help Firefox build a better browser. This add-on for the Firefox browser automatically lets you know of what test to carry out and helps you collect data on your browser usage.

For people interested in testing this can be quite an insight into how browsers are tested. And for enthusiasts like me, its quite entertaining to know how I exactly use my browser. 🙂

Test Pilot

testpilot_firefox2

As you can see in the image above, Test Pilot allows you to fill in a survey and also lets you see what are the Upcoming Tests in the future. Tab Open/Close Study is the current test and simply clicking on it and then carrying on doing your work on the browser will see data being collected.

I took part in the the study and it showed various results. For instance how many tabs I have open at a time and for how much time in a graphical format. Another graph showed me how much time I spent on default Tab after I closed one of the tabs.

For me about 50% of the times I ended up on the default tab after I closed a tab of the page I was working on. This is interesting information, as it means every time I close a tab, half the time I am done with work and should be closing the browser instead. 😉

Link: Test Pilot

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Reviews

Weave information together with Firefox’s Weave

Mozilla Labs has another beauty in the works. It is a service that will allow your Firefox browser through an add-on to sync with other Firefox browsers across desktops and mobile phones.

Basically you can now access your Firefox browser’s  history, bookmarks, tabs, forms,  preferences and passwords from anywhere.

weave_firefox_sync

How does Weave work?

  • What Weave does is stores information from your Firefox browser to a cloud or a server and it can be downloaded or be in sync with your Firefox browser on another computer or mobile phone.
  • Bookmarks saved at a computer at home can be accessed from the computer at work by syncing the browsers with the Weave server.
  • Continuation of work on a browser will be much easier. You have a tab open at one computer then it will be open on the other location because the Weave server keeps them both synchronized.
  • A cool part of this is add-on is that it allows you to save passwords and then sync it with your mobile phone’s browser. That is very handy as sometimes it is difficult for mobile users to enter complex passwords. 🙂

Firefox’s Weave is available on Firefox 3.5 and upwards. It is still a beta project and being developed further with an eye to being a stable feature for Firefox 4 which will be released next year.

Links: Mozilla Labs | Download Weave

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Reviews

Firefox Prism: Make your webpage into a application

Prism_firefox1A very neat add-on is available at Firefox Labs.

It is called Prism and it can convert webpages into Windows Application by using Firefox Browser.

How to use Prism?

The Prism Add-on can be installed on Firefox by visiting the Mozilla Labs page. You can either download it as a Firefox Add-on or a standalone application.

Once the installation of the add-on is complete visit the website you want to convert into an application with Firefox. Then click on ‘Tools’ and select ‘Convert Website to Application’ as shown in the image below.

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The application can have shortcuts on the Desktop, Start Menu and Quick Launch Bar.

Features of Firefox Prism

  • Prism is very handy if you want to check your mail or updates on a website but have too many tabs open in the browser. This way you can access your email directly from the system taskbar or dock.
  • It is possible for associating browser links with this application. Usually on clicking a ‘mailto:’ link, the browser looks for Outlook Express or any other Email Client by default. This way you can choose to have a web based Gmail application running on the desktop to open every time you click on a ‘mailto:’ link.
  • You can customize the application to give pop-up alerts. For instance when you get a new mail, you can set it to notify you with a pop-up alert.
  • You can also set the application to run every time you start your computer.
  • Finally the best feature which I like is that you can just minimize the application back into the tray. A single click and you are back on the website. 🙂

Link: Firefox Prism

Categories
Analysis

What will change with Firefox 4?

firefox4

Considering how competition in the browser market is heating up, I was trying to look around what Mozilla Firefox 4 was going to offer even if there is almost a year for it to be released. I came across some information on the Mozzila Wiki site and was quite impressed with the peek into the future.

Changes with Firefox 4 that you can expect.

  • The search bar and the address will be merged. This is a great idea and will make the browser very uncluttered.
  • Stop/ Go/ Refresh all will be merged into one button. I have always wondered on the need for a ‘Go’ button but making the same button switch from ‘Go’, ‘Stop’ and ‘Refresh’ seems very handy. They are being merged together on the right side of the browser where the address bar will end.
  • Bookmarks Tab will be hidden by default. There will be an option to make it appear if needed.
  • There will be a new Apps Tab. This tab will allow a person to create Apps of the website they are visiting. This will be useful for anyone who wants to keep a particular website open. You can simply drag and pin the website to the left and it will be saved in an App Tab.
  • Profile functionality will allow many profiles with their individual passwords and bookmarks to be used. I think this will remove the need for having different profiles with the OS on the same computer especially if it is being used only for browsing.
  • Home Tab will now give access to Favourite Bookmarks, Stats and History time line.
  • There will me no Status Bar. 🙂

Firefox4 is not going to be available any time this year. Some reports are that it will release in Oct 2010!

That’s a long time from now but looking at all the changes I think it might be worth the wait.

Link: Firefox Wiki

Categories
Tips

Checking Adsense Revenue without Logging into Adsense Site [How-to]

There are chances that you log-in to your adsense dashboard each morning to check your revenue reports, etc. So, here in this post I am going to mention various ways using which you can check your Adsense revenue reports without logging into the adsense dashboard periodically.

Firefox Add-on for Checking Adsense Revenue

why do work adsense addon You can either install a Firefox add-on –Why do work adsense Monitor that will continuously keep updating (refer the image) you about your adsense earnings on the Firefox status bar or you can even get adsense reports directly from Adsense team periodically which we will be discussing later on this post.

If you want to continuously keep tracking your adsense revenue and other reports such as CTR and eCPM then this Firefox add-on is the best way, as it will keeps syncing the data in your Adsense dashboard. Once you download the plugin you will have to provide your adsense login credentials for this plugin to work.

Email reports for Adsense Earnings

Recently I came to know that, you can even subscribe for daily reports from Adsense team containing the reports for the previous day. Pavan has explained in detail on how to get adsense earning report on your mail box daily or over a given time period. You can head over to this page to know step by step procedure for subscribing to adsense email reports.

Links: Adsense revenue monitoring Firefox plugin | Step by step instructions to start getting adsense email reports