AVINASH 2.0

Guy Blocks Firefox Users Because They Use Adblock Plus

I read this weird post over at Download Squad that a guy blocked Firefox users because they use Adblock Plus to filter site advertisements.

If you visit his weblog, it’ll redirect you to a Why Firefox is blocked page. The guy equates your decision to skip over the ads as “stealing” content by viewing the original material without the ads.

Am I the only person who thinks that this guy has made a big mistake by blocking Firefox? Don’t website visitors have the right to see a website content according to their own requirements? I know many people who browse in text-mode. This guy should have blocked ‘em as well! It’s like you block a visitor who is using the NoScript extension to block Scripts and flash content on your site.

By the way, when did site advertisements become “content”? Let me know what you think about this guy.

Improve Text Readability in FireFox (Anti-Aliasing in Firefox)

I’m writing this post for everybody out there who uses FireFox. If you liked the font Anti-Aliasing in Safari when it was made available on the Windows platform and want to achieve something similar even in Firefox, you’ll find this article useful.

Our Aim:

The main aim of this article is to guide you how to achieve Anti-Aliasing in Firefox and any other Windows application that respects Windows GUI guidelines.

The Required Steps:

First of all, if you already haven’t enabled ClearType font, enable it:

Right Click on your Windows desktop >> Properties >> Appearance >> Effects. In the ‘Effects’ window, there is a checkbox “Use the following method to smooth edges of screen fonts:”. Make sure that this check box is enabled. Currently, this check box should show ‘Standard’ as the default option. Select ‘ClearType’.

That’s it. Click ‘OK’. Back in the “Display Properties” window, click the ‘Apply’ button. You should notice a change in the way fonts appear on your screen as soon as you apply the new settings. Click ‘OK’.

Now if you launch Firefox and visit any website, you’ll notice a wonderful change in the way your browser renders fonts.

ClearType Off

ClearType Enabled

Notice the difference?

Now, to tweak it even further, you need to download and install the Windows XP Power Toy ClearType Tuner utility. I hope that if you properly tweak the ClearType font settings on your system using this utility, you’ll be able to achieve anti-aliasing for all the applications that run on the Windows platform. Windows 2003 users don’t need to worry because this utility works nicely even on a Windows 2003 powered workstation.

[tags]Readability, Firefox, Windows, ClearType, Tweaks[/tags]

Split Browser – The Window Cutter for Firefox Users

On June 1st, 2007, Craig Childs over at Lifehack.org posted a list of 17 Firefox extensions that make blogging easy.

Though I was already familiar with the 16 Firefox extensions mentioned in that article, one extension named Split Browser suddenly caught my attention. This is an amazing plugin because it allows you to split your browser window infinitely (depends on the amount of RAM).

USES EXAMPLES:�

Ex. 1) Imagine yourself in a situation when you are writing any article to post on your blog and you have to switch tabs again and again to read another web page. With the help of Split Browser extension, you can split your content area in 2 parts. Now you can easily write the article in the 1st part while the 2nd part is always visible.

Ex. 2) Split your browser in 2 parts. Now you can use the 1st part to surf the web and the 2nd part can be used for YouTube videos. ;)

You can install Split Browser extension by vising this link.

[tags]Firefox, Extension, Add-ons, Split Browser, Productivity, Browsing Tips[/tags]

Got 30 Seconds? Hide Complete Menubar In Firefox

Since everybody isn’t able to keep large screen monitors, I’m writing this article to show you the way to completely hide your Firefox menu bar. Trust me, it’s pretty simple. You can do this in seconds if you are an experienced computer user.

Screenshot:

Warning:
Don’t do this unless you know all the important Firefox shortcuts.

Important:
Install the Menu Editor Firefox extension if you want to be able to access context menus. The Menu Editor extension allows you to customize all the Firefox context menu options. For example, you can add all the “Tools” menu options in your tab bar.

Here are the steps:

1). Double-click the My Computer icon on the desktop.

2). Go to Tools >>Folder Options >>View >>Show hidden files and folders.

3). Go to X:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\some_characters.default\chrome {//Where X = Your main system drive. Most of the time, your main drive is C. }

4). Open your favorite text editor. (Ex. Notepad).

5). Copy this code and paste it into your text editor:

/*
 * This file can be used to customize the look of Mozilla's user interface
 * You should consider using !important on rules which you want to
 * override default settings.
 */
	
/*
 * Do not remove the @namespace line -- it's required for correct functioning
 */
@namespace url(\"http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul\"); /* set default namespace to XUL */
	
#toolbar-menubar { display: none !important; }
	
/*
 * Some possible accessibility enhancements:
 */
/*
 * Make all the default font sizes 20 pt:
 *
 * * {
 *   font-size: 20pt !important
 * }
 */
/*
 * Make menu items in particular 15 pt instead of the default size:
 *
 * menupopup > * {
 *   font-size: 15pt !important
 * }
 */
/*
 * Give the Location (URL) Bar a fixed-width font
 *
 * #urlbar {
 *    font-family: monospace !important;
 * }
 */
	
/*
 * Eliminate the throbber and its annoying movement:
 *
 * #throbber-box {
 *   display: none !important;
 * }
 */
	
/*
 * For more examples see http://www.mozilla.org/unix/customizing.html
 */
	

7). Save the file as userChrome.css into your X:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\some_characters.default\chrome directory.

8). Restart Firefox.

Enjoy!

Q. How to get my Menu bar back?
A. Just delete the “userChrome.css” file from your X:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\some_characters.default\chrome directory, restart Firefox and you’ll find your menu bar back in normal condition.

Q. Any risk?
A. No risk. It’s a completely safe process. You don’t need to worry about losing your bookmarks, etc. Carefully follow the steps and everything will run smoothly.

[tags]Firefox, Firefox Hacks, Firefox tips, Hide Firefox Menu bar, Menu bar, Hide Complete Menubar, Mozilla[/tags]

Firefox Add-ons For Power Surfers

While Firefox is a powerful browser, perhaps it wouldn’t be so popular without extensions. This is a list of all the Firefox extensions that I find pretty useful. You may want to keep an eye on this list because I’ll keep updating the list whenever a new Firefox extension attracts my attention..

1). Google Notebook Firefox Extension
I’ve found this extension highly useful. This extension gives you access to the mini Google Notebook feature, which allows you to:

* Clip and collect information as you surf the web.
* Stay in your browser window.
* Organize your notes from the web page you’re on.

2). Adblock Plus
Ever been annoyed by intrusive advertisements? Install Adblock Plus and select a filter subscription. If you encounter an ad your subscription does not take care of, right-click it and select �Adblock.� You will never download ads again!

3). Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey allows you to customize Web pages by adding �user scripts,� which are small JavaScript files, to change their style. Now you can easily control any aspect of a Web page�s design or interaction.

4). StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon allows you to discover and share great Web content matched to your personal preferences. Whether it’s a website, video, picture, game, blog, or wiki, StumbleUpon helps you find interesting pages recommended by like-minded people with a single click of the Stumble! button.

If you already aren’t using StumbleUpon, I’ll recommend to start using it now.

5). Download Statusbar
Manage your Internet downloads from a tidy toolbar, without the download window getting in the way of your Web browsing. Despite its compact size, Download Statusbar packs in more useful features than the standard download window. The fully customizable interface auto-hides when not in use, allowing full control without interruption.

6). Web Developer
Web Developer adds a menu and a toolbar with various Web developer tools to the browser. The tools allow the user to disable, view, and edit cookies, CSS, HTML, forms, and images; validate pages; and much more.

Highly recommended for Web Designers.

7). Firebug
FireBug lets you explore the inner workings of Web pages. All of the tools you need to debug and perfect your JavaScript, CSS, HTML, and Ajax are brought together into one seamless experience, including HTML and CSS inspectors, a debugger, error console, and command line.

8). NoScript
This add-on provides extra protection to your Firefox. It allows JavaScript, Java and other executable content to run only from trusted domains of your choice, e.g. your home-banking web site.

9). IE Tab
IE Tab features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox.

This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.

10). del.icio.us Bookmarks
This extension integrates your browser with del.icio.us (http://del.icio.us/), the leading social bookmarking service on the Web. It does this by replacing the default bookmarking functionality in Firefox with a new experience that makes it much easier to access your bookmarks wherever you are and keep them organized no matter how many you have.

11). Tab Mix Plus
Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows.

12). PDF Download
This add-on allows to choose if you want to view a PDF file inside the browser (as PDF or HTML), if you want to view it outside Firefox with your default or custom PDF reader, or if you want to download it!

13). UnPlug
UnPlug is an extension which lets you save video and audio which is embedded on a webpage – it’s a video download tool!

UnPlug scans web pages and tells you where media players are getting their data from, and displays it as a simple hyperlink: in most cases, you can then follow the simple download link to save the media file.

UnPlug works for lots of sites including youtube.com, iflim.com, current.tv, myspace.com (video), revver.com, mobuzz.tv and lots more.

Unlike many other extensions, UnPlug scans the page, and if it doesn’t know there the data comes from it can guess – correctly most of the time.

UnPlug your Plug-Ins and view media however you want!

14). ColorZilla
Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.

With ColorZilla you can get a color reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. You can Zoom the page you are viewing and measure distances between any two points on the page. The built-in palette browser allows choosing colors from pre-defined color sets and saving the most used colors in custom palettes. DOM spying features allow getting various information about DOM elements quickly and easily.

15). FoxLingo
The Ultimate Language Tool. I’ve found this extension pretty useful whenever I wanted to translate a web page. You can read my previous post about FoxLingo on this page.

16). Torbutton
Torbutton provides a button to easily enable or disable the browser’s use of Tor.

17). MeasureIt
Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage.

18). FoxClocks
FoxClocks lets you keep an eye on the time around the world – or just your local time – by putting small clocks in your statusbar. Choose from a set of useful standard time formats or create your own – custom formats are easy to create and very flexible.

19). SEO for Firefox (Beta)
A Firefox add-on by Aaron Wall, the author of SEO Book. Import useful marketing data right into Google and Yahoo search results.

Note: I’ll keep updating this list with new and useful Firefox extensions. If you know other *useful & important* Firefox extension, please let me know in your comments!

[tags]Firefox, Firefox Extensions, Firefox Add-ons[/tags]

FoxLingo – A FireFox Webpage Translation Plugin

Ever faced trouble understanding the language of a particular website? If you are a FireFox user, there is a nice translation plugin available to make web page translation pretty easier.

FoxLingo is a FireFox plugin that translates full web pages, supports 45 languages and uses 34 free online web page translation services.

It has three automatic translation options to make the web page translation job fully automatic. This plugin has completely solved my web page translation problems.

[tags]Firefox, plugin[/tags]