Friday, December 28, 2007

Mozilla Firefox is a web-browser with superior keyboard support

1) Browse with caret allows users to select arbitrary content with the keyboard and move through content as if inside a read-only editor. This allows copying arbitrary pieces of text to the clipboard. The F7 key toggles this feature on/off.

2) Tabbed browsing helps keyboard users by putting all of the browsed documents in one Firefox application window rather than cluttering the Alt+Tab order which makes keyboard navigation within the entire Windows OS much simpler.

3) Both history and bookmarks can be searched with a "quick search" field that quickly narrows the list down via a substring search.

4) Bookmarks can have a keyword assigned to them which can be typed into the address bar to bring up the bookmark. A "smart keywords" feature enhances this even further by allowing custom searches from the command line such as "word punditry" to look up the word "punditry" in an online dictionary. These smart keywords can be setup via the context menu for the search field on the desired website.

5) Integrated web search via Ctrl+K is much faster to use than first going to the search tool's web site. Custom searches can be added to this quick search bar and the user can switch between them by choosing from a drop down available via the standard Alt+down arrow key combination.

6) The built-in text zoom feature can be accessed with the Ctrl+plus and Ctrl+minus hotkeys.
The Accessibility Extension may be installed on top of Firefox, allowing keyboard access to document structure.

7) The Find Bar allows for quick navigation to links and text searching without opening a separate dialog -- this allows more convenient use by screen magnification users because there is a single point of regard for the search. It also assists users of input aids because there are far fewer keys to type to get the desired location. For example, it is possible to navigate to the desired link by pressing 2 letter keys rather than tabbing through many links to get there. Caret browsing allows you to move through web content one letter a time. You can even select web content and copy it to the clipboard. -- all with the keyboard

8) Detailed Advanced Javascript control: Mozilla gives you the ability to fine tune what Javascript is allowed to do while you browse. For example, you can disable functions that websites use to move or resize windows, or to remove your status bar, to disable right-click contextual menus, change the status bar text, etc. You can furthermore control javascript capabilities to remove scrollbars, toolbars or system buttons like minimize, close and maximize by editing the about:config related properties or by editing accordingly the user.js file as explained in this "Disable Other JavaScript Window Features" document.

9) Moving back and forward by web page (Alt+Left and Alt+Right) occurs near-instantaneously
The download manager provides keyboard access to all of your recent downloads
Operating System "Look and Feel" Support: Mozilla's default skin will match the colors and sizes currently being used in your desktop. Mozilla can follow the system appearance whether it's high or low contrast, with large or small fonts.

10) Text files used in configuration (techies only): configuration files are easily edited with any text editor. For example, prefs.js gives access to a large number of configuration options not available in the preferences window. Also, userContent.css allows users knowledgeable about cascading style sheets to customize the appearance of all pages that are displayed. Finally, bookmarks.html contains all your bookmarks, and is easy to move around from computer to computer.

11) View selection source (techies only): when you select some text and right click or press Shift+F10, you can "view selection source". This will show the HTML source for only the selected text, which is useful for understanding accessibility problems in some web sites.

Source: http://www.mozilla.org/access/features

Tuesday, December 25, 2007

Dealing with Junk E-mail Mozilla Thunderbird

Dealing with Junk E-mail
Mozilla Thunderbird supports many different methods for dealing with junk email (also known as "spam"). This document will describe the ways Thunderbird can deal with junk mail so you don't have to waste your time doing so.

Thunderbird's Junk Mail Controls
Junk mail controls can be set separately for each email account or, if using the global inbox feature, to all local folders. These are the available options for determining how Thunderbird should recognize and treat junk mail.

General Options
Do not mark messages as junk mail if the sender is in my address book prevents messages from being automatically marked as junk mail if the sender is listed in the selected address book. This is effectively a White List of contacts whose messages should never be treated as junk mail, and is often most useful when combined with the Automatically add outgoing email addresses to my Address Book option.
Trust junk mail headers set by will automatically recognize mail that is marked by a separate junk mail filtering program. Very often, your ISP or mail server will install such a filtering program, which adds special headers to your email before it is retrieved by Thunderbird. By setting this option, you do not have to create special filters to recognize these. Currently supports: SpamAssassin and SpamPal.
If SpamAssassin is selected, the filter checks the content of the X-Spam-Status and X-Spam-Flag headers, as well as whether **SPAM** has been inserted in the subject line of the message.
If SpamPal is selected, the filter checks the value of the X-SpamPal header.
Thunderbird reads the settings used to look for junk mail headers from files with a .sfd extension that are in the Thunderbird profile directory.

Handling
Determines what to do with junk mail when it is received
Move incoming messages determined to be junk mail to will automatically place junk mail into the specified folder upon arrival
Automatically delete junk messages older than will automatically empty the chosen junk folder and totally delete the messages
When I manually mark messages as Junk allows the user to determine whether to put manually-marked junk mail into the Junk folder or delete it immediately
When displaying HTML messages marked as junk, sanitize the HTML

Logging
Clicking the Junk Mail Log button brings up another option setting window that allows you to enable and disable logging of junk mail filtering, as well as view the log itself. Normally, it should not be necessary to enable logging.

Adaptive Filtering:
Thunderbird's primary method of dealing with junk mail is an adaptive filter. Thunderbird's adaptive filter actually learns how it should classify e-mail by learning from your habits.
If you consistently mark a certain type of e-mail as junk, Thunderbird will learn that that type of e-mail should be marked as spam in the future. However, e-mail that you wish to receive will not be marked as spam, because Thunderbird's filter is entirely based on your actions.
The filter improves as it watches how you sort your e-mail, and with time the filter will reach nearly 100% classification accuracy. More important, however, is that the filter is intentionally conservative in what it marks as junk mail. If Thunderbird can't quite decide whether an e-mail is junk or not, it will mark it as not spam. It's that simple -- after training, the filter simply doesn't create false positives.

Source:http://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird:Help_Documentation:Dealing_with_Junk_E-mail

An Overview of Mozilla Minimo

An overview of the Minimo Project
Mozilla, the browser, is arguably one of the best desktop browsers. Mozilla is used in many desktop applications: Netscape 7, CompuServe, AOL for Mac, Ximian GNOME, Galeon, and Nautilus. There also have been a few ports to make Mozilla run on various devices such as the Nokia Media Terminal and the AOL/Gateway. With the release of Minimo, a slimmed down version of Mozilla, we offer a minimalist browser that may be the best browser in the embedded space.Minimo has two aims. First and foremost, Minimo is for embedders. The application layer of Minimo is small, and offers only the required pieces that a browser should have. This application layer will most likely be removed and replaced with an embedders application logic and UI. In this sense, Minimo is just a configuration of the Mozilla browser that is targeted at the Linux device space.The second aim is to show off the Minimo. We have been releasing an application for the GPE Palmtop Environment on the Familiar distribution. Minimo does not require any GPE specific libraries or functionality. We chose GPE as a vehicle because it is well supported and quite easy to install on many of the IPAQ devices.

Minimo requires about 25 MBs of RSS (see sidebar) on ARM. Before you think that this is too high, you must remember that this is a modern web standards complaint browser. Alternative browsers do not offer you the same level of web standards support.Figure 1 shows memory usage of Minimo against an automated page loader test. The page loader loads forty popular websites during a cycle and we run this test for five cycles. There are no shortcuts -- during each load, we download the page and render the complete content. (Some tests shortcut the drawing cycle to produces impressive page load times.)

Under the hood, the Mozilla functionality is isolated in a GTKWidget. This makes it quite easy for any developer familiar with GTK to use Minimo. Other toolkits are a possibility. Many commercial deployments are using QT. There has been work to make Mozilla work with QT, but currently there is no one exclusively working this.Problems on small devicesOne of the problems that all devices that display web pages have is a very small screen. There have been many proposed solutions to this problem. We believe that the two most promising are CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) manipulation and direct magnification.Minimo provides what is known as Small Screen Rendering (SSR) that uses CSS to massage web pages into a format that looks better on small displays. On most web pages this works great. The page is reduced so that there is no horizontal scrollbar, allowing the content to be scrolled in one direction. Main content is usually moved to the top to allow you to see what is most important without having to scroll all over the page.The second promising solution is the ability to scale a web page. Currently, most browsers (even on the desktop), only have a way to increase the font size of a page. So, when you “zoom” in a page, you are merely increasing the size of the text. An alternative to this is to do the actual scaling of all elements on a page. This will allow you to zoom out of a page and see the entire content, then with a click of the pointer, zoom in on the most interesting part of the page.CompetitionOur target for Minimo is a Linux device with around 64 MB of physical memory. As we mentioned above, Minimo runs at around 25MB of RSS. Above this, you will need a Linux distribution, GTK, and X Windows. We have been using Familiar and GPE with much success in this configuration.We have run the same tests using Opera and Pocket IE on 32MB device form factors, and neither can make it though the page load test based on their lack of browser content and standards support, or they just simply run out of memory trying to display the pages.64MB is really the form factor that is needed to create any useful browser for handheld devices; and in that space we look very good next to the competition. From discussions we have had with device makers it appears that most of the next generation cell phones and PDA devices will provide the kind of spec's you see in the current devices like the iPAQ with 64 MBs, so we are encouraged that the future is bright for Minimo being used in a variety of different handheld products.

What’s nextWe have just completed the first three milestones of the project where the focus has been:
1) Iron out build configuration to strip Mozilla down to barebones requirements and focus on stamping out memory leaks and footprint use during browsing sessions.
2) Get the Minimo configuration ported and running on the iPAQ device and handhelds.org's familiar linux distribution.
3) Do a bunch of testing and evaluation to check out the feasibility of minimo to be used on current handhelds and devices we see being used in the future.


After finishing up milestone three, things are looking very good. We have received some great feedback from individuals and companies that are following the project, with a lot of good ideas on the next round of things to work on. We are in the middle of evaluating those ideas and building a plan for the next stages of the project. We have some partners that sound very interested in funding continued development, porting, distribution, and integration of Minimo into products, so we are very encouraged about things on the horizon.

Source:http://www.linuxdevices.com/articles/AT7396996719.html

Thursday, December 20, 2007

Mozilla Minimo

A small, simple, powerful, innovative, web browser for mobile devices

Minimo ScreenShot images

Features

Minimo uses Mozilla Technologies to produce a highly usable web browser for advanced mobile devices. Features include:

* Fast access to your mobile content via Homebase start page

* Best support for modern web standards (Javascript and AJAX).

* Social Bookmarking

* Tab browsing

* RSS Support

* Proven security (TLS, SSL3)

* International support

* Cross platform capability

* Widget and Extension support

Download Minimo

Source:http://www.mozilla.org/projects/minimo/

Mozilla Thunderbird

Main purpose of Mozilla’s Thunderbird 2 is to organize, secure and customize your mail. Thunderbird has made email application more powerful than ever.

Keep Your Vital Information Organized

Thunderbird 2 features many new enhancements to help you better manage your unruly inbox, and stay informed. Thunderbird 2 scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need.

Advanced Folder Views

Advanced Folder View screenshot

Thunderbird 2 offers a variety of ways for you to organize and display your folders, whether by favorites, recently viewed or folders containing unread messages. As always, you can also set up RSS and newsgroup folders to stay on top of news and your interests. Thunderbird 2 also allows you to maximize your message view pane by opting for a folder drop down menu instead of the traditional sidebar.


Message Tagging

Message Tagging screenshot

Thunderbird 2 allows you to “tag” messages with descriptors such as “To Do” or “Done” or even create your own tags that are specific to your needs. Tags can be combined with saved searches and mail views to make it easier to organize email.

Message History Navigation

Message History screenshot

Thunderbird 2 offers message history navigation that allows you to click “forward” and “back” much like in your Web browser. You can now quickly toggle between messages and folder views.

Improved Search

Improved Search screenshot

Thunderbird 2 features a find as you type pane that speeds up searches within displayed messages. Thunderbird also offers quick search, which starts showing search results as soon as you start typing in search terms.

Saved Searches

Saved Search screenshot

Do you find yourself searching for the same subject or message content over and over? Thunderbird 2 saves you time by allowing you to store this search as a folder. Rerunning the search is just a matter of clicking on the saved search folder in the folder pane.

Stay Informed

Stay Informed screenshot

Thunderbird 2 has been updated to provide more informative and relevant message alerts containing sender, subject and message text for newly arrived messages. Folders provide a pop up summarizing new messages in that folder.

Easy Access to Popular Web Mail Services

Easy Access screenshot

Thunderbird 2 makes it even easier to integrate and use various Web mail accounts from one inbox. Gmail and .Mac users can access their accounts in Thunderbird by simply providing their user names and passwords.

Secure and Protect Your Mail

Mozilla has bolstered Thunderbird’s acclaimed security and privacy measures to ensure that your communications and identity remain safe. It’s like having your own security guard online.

Phishing Protection

Phishing Protection screenshot

Thunderbird protects you from email scams which try to trick users into handing over personal and confidential information by indicating when a message is a potential phishing attempt. As a second line of defense, Thunderbird warns you when you click on a link which appears to be taking you to a different Web site than the one indicated by the URL in the message.

Robust Privacy

Thunderbird 2 offers improved support for user privacy and remote image protection. To ensure a user’s privacy, Thunderbird 2 automatically blocks remote images in email messages.

Cutting Out the Junk

Mozilla has updated Thunderbird’s popular junk mail folders to stay ahead of spam. Each email you receive passes through Thunderbird's leading-edge junk mail filters. Each time you mark messages as spam, Thunderbird “learns” and improves its filtering so you can spend more time reading the mail that matters. Thunderbird can also use your mail provider's spam filters to keep junk mail out of your inbox.

Open Source, More Secure

At the heart of Thunderbird is an open source development process driven by thousands of passionate, experienced developers and security experts spread all over the world. Our openness and active community of experts helps to ensure our products are more secure and updated quickly, while also enabling us to take advantage of the best third party security scanning and evaluation tools to further bolster overall security.

Automated Update

Automated Update screenshot

Thunderbird’s update system checks to see if you’re running the latest version, and notifies you when a security update is available. These security updates are small (usually 200KB - 700KB), giving you only what you need and making the security update quick to download and install. The automated update system provides updates for Thunderbird on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux in over 30 different languages.

Get Your Mail, Your Way

Thunderbird allows you to customize your email to suit your specific needs whether it’s how you search and find messages or listening to music right out of your inbox.

Outfit Your Inbox

Thunderbird users can increase Thunderbird’s functionality and appearance using hundreds of add-ons. A Thunderbird add-on can let you manage contacts, place voice over IP calls, listen to music, and keep track of birthdates all from your inbox. You can even change the appearance of Thunderbird to suit your tastes.

Message Templates

Thunderbird 2 allows you to easily set up message templates to save you time – especially if you have to send the same mail message repeatedly.

Add-ons Manager for Extensions and Themes

Add-ons Manager screenshot

The new Add-ons Manager improves the user interface for managing extensions and themes, making it even easier for you to customize Thunderbird 2. Install, uninstall, enable and disable your add-ons in a single place.

Download Thunderbird
Source: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/features.html

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Firefox Shortcuts!!!

Close Tab ctrl+f4
complete .com address ctrl+enter
complete.net address ctrl+enter
complete .org address ctrl+shift+enter
open the url in a new tab alt+enter
increase or decrease text size ctrl +/- or ctrl+scrollupordown
ctrl+tab scroll thru tabs
Ctrl+n (where n is a number) Go to the nth tab
ctrl+shift+r refresh the page and clear the cache try
open any link on a page in new tab jus press ur scroll wheel..

How to recover Mozilla passwords backup. ..

Close Firefox, Then in your backed up profile folders, copy the signons.txt file to the location of your current profile folder. You should get a warning : Do you want to overwrite this file, click Yes, then start Firefox and see if your passwords are restored.

You can check by : Tools -> Options -> Security -> click "Show Passwords" and then click "Show Passwords" again and confirm the action.


Otherwise copy the whole contents of the previous folder and replace the current profile folder contents with it.

Firefox hanging problem..

Problem:
Firefox gets stuck for 5 seconds and then works normally..

Solution:
Check with a new profile.

Right click on the firefox shortcut, Properties -> target, add the -p switch. Now start firefox with that shortcut. You'll get the profile selection window, click on New Profile, and start browsing in it. See if you still get the freezes.

Note : A new profile means no extensions + themes installed (you have to install all your extensions + themes again) and also 0 cache

Saturday, December 15, 2007

Download Firefox Ebay Editon..

An eBay customized version of Firefox browser is also available for eBay users in U.K, France and Germany.This eBay-edition is launched for the ease of bidders and sellers as by using this edition traders can easily keep an eye on their eBay trades.

Other features of eBay browser:

a) Quick access sidebar that shows real-time notification on items being watched

b) eBay’s Account Guard which ensures users that they’re viewing the legitimate eBay site.

c) Auction alerts.

Click here to download Mozilla Firefox eBay Edition.


How to make an extension or theme which was originally made for Firefox 1.5 compatible with Firefox 2.0?

First download this file : http://www12.asphost4free.com/bakuryu/extension/nightly.xpi.txt
(right click on link and click Save Link As)

then remove the .txt extension from the file.

Now start Firefox -> Tools -> Addons, and drag the nightly.xpi file onto it. Install that extension. Restart Firefox.

Now Tools -> Nightly Tester Tools -> Install Extension or Theme
browse and select your extensions or themes you want to install.
OR
If you have already installed the extensions, then Tools->Addons and click the Make All Compatible button. Now restart firefox, and the extensions will be usable.

Installing Jinitiator for Mozilla Firefox..

Install Notes

If you need the older Jinitiator 1.3.1.26, download it here

If you use Internet Explorer you need not install the JInitiator. When accessing Banner for the first time IE will automatically prompt you through the process of downloading the JInitiator.

If you are using Firefox and JInitiator is not installed you will be asked to install a Plug In in order for Banner to work properly. The JInitiator must be installed from within Firefox. This will placed the necessary files in the correct location so that Banner will work from Firefox.

To download JInitiator for Firefox, please do the following:

1. Open Firefox.
2. Click on the below link of the version of JInitiator you need to install.
3. You will be prompted to download the file to a disk. Click OK.
4. Wait until you get a little popup screen in the lower right corner indicating the download is complete (will take a few minutes).
* You may click on the notification and it will open another popup which will show the jinit.exe file.
* Click on Open
o (If you were not able to click on the download complete notification, you may alternately go to Tools -> Downloads).
5. Click OK if prompted with an Open Executable File message.
6. Choose default Destination Location by clicking Next.
7. After installation is complete you should follow the instructions by logging out of Firefox and then re-opening Firefox.
8. Open Banner by going to www.wm.edu/it/banner!

Source:
http://www.wm.edu/it/index.php?id=4259

How to block certain websites in mozilla....

1)Make an ACL for the subnet/range you want to block the URL from...

2)Make an ACL for the URLs you wish to block...

3)Create an "http_access deny" rule using those two ACLs...

see more here : http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/showthread.php?p=2498766#post2498766

Make Firefox faster....

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
and browser.turbo.enabled

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once. (Max can only be 8, but people report 30. The 30 open connections is incorrect)

Set "browser.turbo.enabled" to "true"

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

Can we change ip address in Mozilla ???

1) You can use this extension "https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2817" to easily change proxy server.

2) What you are supposed to do is just go to any proxy sites...Copy any working ip with port no....then follow the path of your browser....

Tools-->Options-->Advanced-->Network-->Manual proxy configuration

paste your IP address here with port no.....save it and proceed.....your browser will run with a new IP.....

Cache Files Stored In Mozilla??

In your profile folder there's a cache folder.

Locate your folder location here : http://www.mozilla.org/support/firefox/profile#locate

How to keep a back up of bookmarks in Firefox..??

Firefox itself take care of this . If you look into your firefox profile folder , you will find a folder named 'bookmarkbackups' folder. Firefox continue to backup bookmarks.html file upto 5 consecutive dates.

If you still want to backup your bookmarks , backup bookmarks.html file resides in your firefox profile folder.

Firefox profile folder location "http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_folder_-_Firefox"

Mouse over popUp that is working fine in Mozilla but not working in IE.

Mouse over popUp that is working fine in Mozilla but not working in IE.
In IE its position is not coming proper unable to shift it.
Code:

var offX= -180; // how far from mouse to show tip
var offY= 12;

var mouseX, mouseY;
function trackMouse(evt) {
standardbody=(document.compatMode=="CSS1Compat")? document.documentElement : document.body //create reference to common "body" across doctypes
mouseX = (ns5)? evt.pageX: window.event.clientX + standardbody.scrollLeft;
mouseY = (ns5)? evt.pageY: window.event.clientY + standardbody.scrollTop;
if (tipOn) positionTip(evt);
}

function positionTip(evt) {
if (!tipFollowMouse) {
mouseX = (ns5)? evt.pageX: window.event.clientX + standardbody.scrollLeft;
mouseY = (ns5)? evt.pageY: window.event.clientY + standardbody.scrollTop;
}
// tooltip width and height
var tpWd = (ie4||ie5)? tooltip.clientWidth: tooltip.offsetWidth;
var tpHt = (ie4||ie5)? tooltip.clientHeight: tooltip.offsetHeight;
// document area in view (subtract scrollbar width for ns)
var winWd = (ns5)? window.innerWidth-20+window.pageXOffset: standardbody.clientWidth+standardbody.scrollLeft;
var winHt = (ns5)? window.innerHeight-20+window.pageYOffset: standardbody.clientHeight+standardbody.scrollTop;
// check mouse position against tip and window dimensions
// and position the tooltip
if ((mouseX+offX+tpWd)>winWd)
tipcss.left = mouseX-(tpWd+offX)+"px";
else tipcss.left = mouseX+offX+"px";
if ((mouseY+offY+tpHt)>winHt)
tipcss.top = winHt-(tpHt+offY)+"px";
else tipcss.top = mouseY+offY+"px";
if (!tipFollowMouse) t1=setTimeout("tipcss.visibility='visible'",100);
}

In popUp there is an init method which is loaded on body using tag.

Solution:

This is an area where there is much incompatibility.

The values pageX and pageY are part of the Mozilla set of properties, not the W3C standard DOM properties. IE doesn't know them.
The W3C standard DOM reports the mouse locations with clientX and clientY. The problem is that these do not take document scrolling into account, but just use the browser window location.

Reference:http://www.daniweb.com/forums/thread93585.html

100 Advantages of Mozilla over IE

  1. Popup blocking

    Block all those popup ads. To disable popup windows, select Advanced and then Scripts & Plugins from the Preferences window. Then uncheck the box that reads "Open unrequested windows".

  2. Prevent scripts from doing various things

    You can prevent scripts from moving windows, closing them, changing the status bar and setting cookies. To change these settings, select Advanced and then Scripts & Plugins from the Preferences window. Then uncheck the desired boxes.

  3. Site Navigation toolbar

    Displays content from the tags provided by a document, allowing one to navigate to various parts of a site.

  4. Sidebar

    The sidebar provides a number of tabs by default, and others can be added by the user.

  5. Can add custom panels to sidebar

    Custom sidebars can be implemented in HTML or XUL and can be installed from a remote site without much hassle. Sites can add sidebars using the window.sidebar.addPanel() function.

  6. More control over text zooming

    Can zoom text to any size. IE only supports five sizes and has no keyboard shortcut that I could determine. For sites that use fairly small fonts, having more larger sizes in necessary for those without perfect vision.

    Note that using the mouse isn't a keyboard shortcut.

  7. Can zoom any text, even that with fixed pixel sizes

    Can zoom text no matter what units were specified, an often cited issue with IE.

  8. Can select from multiple stylesheets provided by page

    When a page provides multiple (or alternate) stylesheets, one can select between them by choosing from the Use Style sub-menu in the View menu.

  9. Page info dialog

    Provides additional information about encoding, MIME type, referrer and meta tags. Some of this information is also available in IE's properties dialog although it isn't as detailed and the window isn't resizable.

  10. Detailed form/link/media info dialog

    The page info dialog provides tabs which have lists of the form elements, links, images and other media in a page. You can even preview images and save them from this window.

  11. Save plugins

    Mozilla saves plugins when saving a Web page as complete. You can also save them from the Page Info window.

  12. Themes

    Provides two themes by default (Classic and Modern), but others may be installed.

    There is a theming system that is part of Windows XP, however this isn't supported by Microsoft. It also isn't part of any other version of Windows. Mozilla's themes work on all versions of Windows and on all platforms; you can change your theme by selecting Apply Theme from the View menu.

  13. Bookmark window displays more detail

    Displays more information about the bookmark in the bookmark window. IE's favorites dialog is a bit awkward and is modal, which means you can't interact with the browser window while it is open. You also cannot add bookmarks from the window.

  14. Bookmark keywords

    Keywords to look up bookmarks quickly. Keywords have the advantage that the part entered after the keyword is filled in where '%s' appears in the bookmarks's URL.

  15. Bookmarks can be checked at a certain schedule

    One can set bookmarks to be checked at various schedules and notify when the content has changed. At least, in theory. IE has something like this, which is intended for synchronizing content for offline viewing. It can only check once per day, and provides no notification that the page has changed other than changing the icon or sending an email. Mozilla can check updates on certain days only and at any interval.

  16. Cookie Manager

    The cookie manager lets you view the cookies that have been set, their values and their expiry times.

    Some people have mentioned that one can view Cookies by pressing a View Files button in the Options, but that just provides a list of all cached files. While the list does include cookies, hidden amongst the other files, it isn't tailored to cookies (it is just a generic file listing), so one cannot really view the data or expiry times easily.

  17. Can delete cookies individually

    The cookie manager lets you delete individual cookies without having to search around your file system. In IE's file view, it's tricky to distinguish cookies from similar domains, and all cookies from the same domain are stored in the same file.

  18. Block images from third party sites

    One can block images that come from a third party domain. This means that you can block images found on a page that come from a site other than that of the page. To set this in Mozilla, open Privacy & Security from the Preferences Window, and then select the Images panel. Choose "Accept images that come from the originating server only".

  19. Can block images from certain sites

    Images can be blocked from particular domains, such as those that commonly display ads. You can disable an image from a site by right-clicking on an image, and then selecting "Block images from this Server". You can change the list of blocked images from the Image Manager, opened from the Tools menu.

  20. Download Manager

    The download manager provides a tabular view of all of the files that you have ever downloaded, allowing you to open them without having to search around on your file system. It provides progress indicators in the window as items download.

    On the topic of downloading files, IE does not begin to download a file until you have selected where to save it to, while Mozilla begins as soon as the link is clicked, downloading in the background while you are selecting a place to save it.

  21. Can pause downloads

    In Mozilla, one cause pause downloads. Some people may find this useful during long downloads.

  22. View Source

    View the syntax coloured source of a page, without having to view it in Notepad.

    Some people have mentioned that one can edit the page using Notepad (or at least a copy of it). True, but that's what Edit in the File menu is for. Some people like a simple source viewer for viewing content.

  23. JavaScript Console

    The console displays a log of errors that you can easily scroll through, or ignore if so desired.

  24. JavaScript Console displays script warnings

    The console separates warnings and errors. The warnings allow you to see obsolete script usage and so forth.

  25. JavaScript Debugger

    This is a utility for debugging JavaScript.

  26. DOM Inspector

    View the structure of a document using a nifty tree view. Also lets you view script properties and style applied to each element. You can open it from the Tools -> Web Development men.

  27. DOM Inspector image capture

    The DOM Inspector has a tool to capture an image of part of a page, although it doesn't seem to work all too well.

  28. Select text and perform search

    Select some text, bring up the context menu, and choose 'Search' to search for the selected text.

  29. Can select custom search engine

    You can select any search engine you wish, not just one that has been chosen for you.

  30. Can display search results in sidebar

    When one does a search via a search engine, results are automatically interpreted and displayed in the sidebar. You can then view pages without hiding the search results.

  31. Supports any Sherlock search plugin

    Supports the Macintosh Sherlock search format, so any search engine that supports it can be used.

  32. Can manage saved passwords

    Lets you view and delete stored login and passwords. Choose the Password Manager from the Tools menu.

  33. Can fill-in complete forms automatically

    Stores complete forms which can be later be filled in automatically. This is useful if you want to register for something 600 times. To fill in a form, choose Fill In Form from the Edit menu.

  34. Master password encrypts info

    A single master password can be used to protect all of your other passwords.

  35. Can disable tooltips

    Not very exciting, but useful if someone thinks they get in the way.

  36. Caret Browsing

    Press F7 and a cursor appears on the page. This can be used to navigate a page and select text using only the keyboard.

    Some people thought this was this the same as setting contenteditable="true" on an element. While that does show a cursor in IE, it actually allows the content to be edited, and disables all links and mouse events with-in the content. Caret browsing in Mozilla is designed to allow one to browse, navigate links and select text using only the keyboard.

  37. Type Ahead Find

    Press a few keys to search for links with that text. More information

  38. View Selection Source

    Select some text, bring up the context menu, and choose 'View Selection Source' to view the source just for the selected content. This can also be used to view the generated source after an XSLT transformation.

  39. Properties dialog lets you see info about various tags

    Right click on certain links and images and so on, and view info about them, such as language and whether links will open in a new window. The window can also be resized.

  40. View scripts and stylesheets directly

    Mozilla can display scripts and stylesheets directly as plain text without a separate application which is useful if you just want a quick peek at something.

  41. More font options

    One has more control over the fonts used, including customizing the various CSS fonts. To change this, select Appearance and then Fonts from the Preferences window.

  42. Can set minimum font sizes

    Can set the minimum font size that text is displayed in which is useful on some sites. To change this, select Appearance and then Fonts from the Preferences window.

  43. Mouse wheel options

    Pressing Alt and scrolling the wheel will navigate back and forward in the browser history. One can also configure the wheel for other modifier keys for scrolling and changing the font size.

  44. Multiple profiles

    Can handle multiple profiles so you can use one for testing, or share them between multiple persons. You can do something like this in Windows with multiple user accounts, although it affects all applications.

  45. May be installed quickly and anywhere

    Mozilla may be installed on any drive and at any location. It may installed on a network drive and run directly from there. In fact, it really doesn't have to be installed at all.

  46. Can be easily uninstalled

    One can uninstall in the same manner as one does with other applications.

  47. May have multiple versions installed at once

    One can have as many different versions of Mozilla installed at once which is useful if you need to test on various versions.

  48. Cross-platform

    Mozilla is available for a number of different platforms. (8 to 12 depending on the exact version). It has the same the same features on all of them. IE only runs on Windows and Mac and supports quite a different set of features on each. Limited versions of IE for Unix platforms were available at one time, but are no longer available.

  49. XUL

    The XML User Interface Language is used to create complex user interfaces using markup.

  50. XBL

    The eXtensible Bindings Language is used to create custom widgets or elements and bind them to other XUL, XML or HTML elements.

  51. RDF

    Mozilla can read and manipulate Resource Description Framework files.

  52. MathML

    MathML is a markup language for displaying math equations.

  53. XPCOM

    Native interface accessible via C++ or JavaScript which lets you perform various Mozilla functions.

  54. Properly handles MIME types

    Properly displays content using the content type supplied by the server instead of various other incorrect things. You can learn more information about this.

  55. Supports documents sent as application/xhtml+xml (XHTML)

    The debate is still on whether this content type should be used for XHTML, but Mozilla supports it. Mozilla also supports XHTML sent as text/xml.

  56. Can render XML documents with styling

    Can render XML documents with associated style sheets. IE must convert the documents into HTML before displaying them.

  57. Link Prefetching

    Mozilla allows one to set documents or images to prefetch in the background. They are loaded after the document has finished loading so as to not affect performance. Usually, this would be used for the next page in a sequence.

    More information

  58. Displays ABBR/ACRONYM underlined and with titles in tooltips

    Content in these tags are displayed with an underline and the titles of various elements are displayed in a tooltip. (IE does display tooltips for acronyms though).

  59. Supports blinking text

    You can make text blink. This list isn't subjective. Of course the tag is supported, but you can also use the CSS 'text-decoration: blink'

  60. CSS min/max-width/height

    Set minimum or maximum sizes on content to constrain it. For more information see the CSS specification for min/max-width and min/max-height.

  61. CSS position:fixed

    This feature allows content to be fixed to a particular part of the window. If the user scrolls the document, the content stays where it is.

    For an example of this, go to the W3C's CSS page, and watch the menu in the upper right corner as you scroll the document.

  62. CSS display:table and related display types

    Allowing one to create custom table element.

  63. CSS generated content

    Generated content refers to :before, :after, the content property and so on.

  64. CSS2 selectors

    Select elements for styling based on attribute values among other things.

  65. Supports a handful of CSS3 selectors

    Matching on attribute substrings, selected text and so on.

  66. Supports some extension CSS properties

    user-focus,user-select,border-radius, and many more. Mostly used in themes, but they can also be used by Web pages as well if you really need to.

  67. XML Base

    For specifying the base of an XML document. I really don't know if this is supported in other browsers.

  68. FixPtr support

    FixPtr is for referring to parts of XML documents.

  69. Simple XLink support

    This is used for links in XML documents.

  70. XML-RPC

    Simple API for doing XML-RPC.

  71. Built-in SOAP API

    Fairly extensive set of SOAP functions are available without any extra libraries needed.

  72. PNG alpha transparency

    For viewing partially transparent images. See a demo.

  73. MNG image support

    MNG is an animated image format, usually used for animated PNG images.

  74. Supports 'favicons' in any image format

    Supports any image format that Mozilla supports (GIF,JPEG,PNG,MNG,XBM,BMP,ICO). You can even make them animated if you're insane. IE only supports the BMP and ICO format.

  75. Display icons in tabs and address bar

    Displays site icons in the tabs and in the address bar.

  76. Available for more languages/locales

    Mozilla is available for many different languages, including ones you've never heard of before. IE 6.0 is currently available for 24 languages. Mozilla 1.1 or later is available for 29. Mozilla 1.0 or later is available for over 40 languages.

  77. Support for standard event handling

    Supports the standard capturing/bubbling event model.

  78. Support for additional DOM0/DOM1/Core features

    Supports almost all of DOM0 and DOM1.

  79. DOM2 namespace handling

    Supports the various DOM methods that deal with namespaces.

  80. DOM2 Style interfaces

    Supports most of the standard DOM style interfaces.

  81. DOM2 TreeWalker interface

    The TreeWalker interface is used to navigate through a document.

  82. DOM2 Range interface

    Supports the Range interface for grabbing blocks of content.

  83. DOM3 XPath interface

    Supports retrieving elements using XPath expressions in HTML/XML/XUL documents using the DOM3 XPath interface.

  84. Can set size of printed output

    This may vary based on your printer, but one can scale the printed document or fit it to the page. Useful for those sites that are just a bit too large.

  85. Can bookmark groups of pages (in tabs)

    You can bookmark a set of pages and them open them all at once in multiple tabs. To do this, choose Bookmark This Group of Tabs from the Bookmarks menu.

  86. Can set multiple pages as a home page.

    You can set a group as your home page, so multiple pages appear when you start Mozilla. To set this, open the pages you wish in tabs, and then choose Use Current Group in the Navigator preferences panel.

  87. Can search bookmarks

    You can search bookmarks without having to search through your file system.

  88. Easily create and add custom components

    XPInstall can be used to easily install custom components, using an install script written in JavaScript. No special tool is required except a ZIP utility.

  89. Supports finger protocol

    Can use the finger protocol. This has been disabled in newer versions of Mozilla.

  90. Supports data: URLs

    data URLs can be used to embed data in a URL.

  91. HTTP Pipelining

    Allows for better performance when viewing pages.

  92. Supports JavaScript getters/setters

    For adding custom properties to objects that invoke code when retreived or modified. For an example, see the IEEmu which implements some of the non-standard properties of IE.

  93. JavaScript supports strict error checking

    Which means displaying errors for things you didn't think were errors. (Think Perl's strict mode.

  94. Easily accessible preferences file

    Preferences are all stored in a single file (prefs.js) which one can easily edit to add custom settings which have no UI.

  95. Preferences can be moved around easily

    One can easily copy preferences, bookmarks and other settings to another system as they are all stored in a single directory.

  96. Various security related features

    Surely you knew Mozilla had better security features.

  97. Supports the jar protocol

    Supports the jar: protocol for referring to HTML pages or images inside JAR or ZIP files. This might be used to compress a downloaded site.

  98. Open Source

    So keen developers can always find out exactly why Mozilla behaves the way it does, or change it if they so desire.

  99. Bugzilla

    This is Mozilla's bug tracking system, where you can find information about problems you encounter and can help get them fixed.

  100. Giant lizards are cool

Source: http://www.xulplanet.com/ndeakin/arts/reasons.html

Thursday, December 13, 2007

Plugins


Plugins help your browser perform specific functions like viewing special graphic formats or playing multimedia files. Plugins are slightly different from extensions, which modify or add to existing functionality


Adobe Reader:
For viewing and printing Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF)
Install Now

Adobe Flash Player:
Adobe Flash Player is the universal rich client for delivering effective Adobe Flash experiences across desktops and devices.
Install Now

Java:
The Java Runtime Environment enables your computer to run applications and applets that use Java technology.
Install Now

QuickTime Player:
QuickTime Player is an easy-to-use application for playing, interacting with or viewing video, audio, VR or graphics files.
Install Now

RealPlayer:
RealPlayer enables your computer to play streaming RealVideo and RealAudio.
Install Now

Shockwave Player:
Shockwave Player displays Web content that has been created by Adobe Director.
Install Now

Windows Media Player:
Windows Media Player lets you play streaming audio, video, animations, and multimedia presentations on the web.
Install Now


Source: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:7

Orkut Helper

Orkut Helper is a small extension for your Mozilla Firefox browser that will make your stay on orkut much more pleasant add a lot of useful and interesting features into the website's interface.

☺ View "My Scrapbook" Link On Each Of Orkut Pages, Not just On Your Profile/Home Pages.

☺ "View Scrapbook" Link In Front Of Profile Link, so that you can go to their scrapbook, without going to their profile.
Similarly,
☺ "View Album" Link In Front Of Profile Link
☺ "View Message" Link In Front Of Profile Link

☺ "View Community Topics" Link In Front Of Community Link
☺ "View Community Events" Link In Front Of Community Link
☺ "View Community Members" Link In Front Of Community Link

☺ Copy Smileys within the scraps/posts so that you can copy Entire scrap/post, including the smileys [:)]
☺ Replace Orkut Smileys With Animated Smileys. Don't you think, the orkut smileys are static images, would you not like some 'animated' smileys.

☺ Replace The Links In Scraps/Posts Which Point To Images By Their Corresponding Images. So that you don't have to click the link to view the images.
Similarly...
☺ Replace Links To SWFs By Their Corresponding SWFs.


& above all, each of these feature can be turned on or off individually.

☺Also You Can Right Click On Any Profile Link To Go To Scrapbook/Album/'Send Message' (& others) pages of any Profile.

☺You Can Right Click On Any Community Link To Go To Members/Topics/Events (& others) pages of any Community.

☺You Can Search Within Your (or in general anyone's) scrapbook.

☺Similarly You Can Search for a Topic within community topics or a Post in a community topic. or u can also search within messages...

☺You can send a common scrap to all of your (or in general any profile's) friends or members of any community...

☺Remove Google Ads From Orkut Pages...

☺New Scrap Alert...

☺Copy With Formatting; Copy all your scraps/posts with formatting, like bold/italics/underline/colors etc.

☺Automatically Reload The Pages With "No Donuts For You"... (Beta)

☺Orkut Helper Toolbar

☺Support for typing in Indian languages

Source: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3916