Add any button to Firefox addon bar

Why?

The addon bar is not just meant for addons. Any Firefox button can be added to it! Recent versions of Firefox hide almost all the toolbars to present a minimal UI. If you miss some of the buttons you used frequently, it might be a good idea to add them to the addon bar. This turns the addon bar into your own custom button bar.

Another advantage is that the addon bar is thinner than any of the toolbars at the top. Thus, you save a bit of precious vertical space. The addon bar can be toggled easily using its keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+/), which actually makes it much more convenient than the toolbars at the top.

How?

Toggle the addon bar to make it visible if it isn’t already so. Right-click any empty space in the tab bar at the top and choose Customize. Once the Customize dialog shows up, drag any button down to the addon bar. The button you drag can be in the Customize dialog or it can even be in any of the toolbars behind it. Cancel the Customize dialog and you are done!

Tried with: Firefox 12.0

User Agent Switcher addon for Firefox

User Agent Switcher is a pretty useful addon for Firefox. It can be used to switch the user agent string sent in the HTTP GET request to any custom string you want.

Most popular websites display a different UI for iPhone or Android user strings. So, I typically use this addon to switch to the iPhone user string to try this minimal UI.

This addon adds an entry in the Tools menu. Since Firefox hides most toolbar menus by default now, accessing this menu is a pain. Instead, I prefer to use the button that is provided by this addon. This button can be added to the addon bar, from where it is convenient to use.

Tried with: User Agent Switcher 0.7.3

DownThemAll!

If you use Firefox as your primary browser, then having a good download manager is a must. The built-in downloader of Firefox is all right, but there is much more a download manager can do to make your life easier.

I have been using the DownThemAll! addon as my download manager for a long time now. It is actually meant to download all or many of the content files on a webpage. But, I use it because it can accelerate downloads by downloading multiple pieces of the file at the same time. I can also use it to pause and restart downloads. It also displays some cool-looking graphs and detailed statistics while it downloads files.

[ The OneClick button on Save dialog ]

I also like to configure it so that it appears in the right-click context menu and in the Save dialog. In both of these places, it can be further configured as dTA OneClick, which means it starts downloading when I click it without asking me where and how to save it. The OneClick feature takes the settings from the previous download and runs with it. This saves me from going through one more dialog, which is quite useful if you always save files to the same directory.

Tried with: DownThemAll! 2.0.13

Firefox: Change Zoom Values

Problem

On certain webpages, I find that the zoom increments of Firefox seem quite large. It would be nice to be able to tweak the zoom increment or level.

Solution

By default, Firefox is configured to zoom down to 30% and zoom up to 300%. There is no fixed increment in which in zooms down or up from the default value of 100%. Instead, it uses a list of zoom values. These default zoom values can be found in about:config at toolkit.zoomManager.zoomValues.

The default zoom values on my Firefox are:

.3,.5,.67,.8,.9,1,1.1,1.2,1.33,1.5,1.7,2,2.4,3

Multiply the values by 100 to get the zoom percentage. For example, .3 is 30% and so on.

Assume that I find that the zoom down from 1 to .9 is too big a leap. I would like the decrement here to be finer. If so, then I add a new zoom value .95 into the list between .9 and 1. In a similar manner, you can tweak the zoom values to whatever is appropriate to you.

Tried with: Firefox 10.0.2

Udacity course not loading with Firefox

Problem

Udacity courses are stuck at the Loading stage when you try to view them with Firefox.

Solution

This problem is caused by the HTTPS Everywhere addon for Firefox. Udacity uses YouTube for their videos. And by looking at the messages in the Error Console of Firefox, you can see that there is some problem. It looks like HTTP Youtube is trying to load content from HTTPS Youtube. HTTPS Everywhere does not like this behaviour and thus blocks it.

To be able to load Udacity courses with Firefox, disable the rulesets for all the Youtube entries in the Options of HTTPS Everywhere. On my system, there were two entries: YouTube (partial) and YouTube-nocookie, and I disabled both of them. Once these changes are applied, Udacity courses should load. Restarting Firefox is not needed.

Tried with: Firefox 10.0 and HTTPS Everywhere 2.0.1

Ghostery

As we move from one website to another, we are being constantly tracked by social networks (like Facebook or Google+) and advertising networks. This is why the advertisements displayed on webpages seem to know your sex, age, interests and location. This is also why websites now show the articles or pages that were read there by your Facebook or Google+ friends.

If you find such an invasion into your privacy creepy, try the Ghostery addon for Firefox. (It is also available for all other browsers).

Configure it by clicking on its icon in the addon bar and choosing Options. Choose to block all 3rd party elements (3pes) and cookie-based tracking. If this hampers the functionality of a website, you can selectively turn on some of them later.

Once you have blocked all tracking, visit any website and Ghostery will block all tracking from it. It will display the tracking networks it blocked in a purple overlay window (see screenshot above) and also display more details in its icon on the addon bar at the bottom.

Tried with: Ghostery 2.7.1 and Firefox 10.0.2

HTTPS Everywhere

Once in a while you come across an addon so useful and apt that it should have been baked right into Firefox itself. The HTTPS Everywhere addon fits this bill.

We all know how insecure our wifi networks are and how vulnerable our online transactions can be. There is one easy way to ramp up the security level of all our online surfing: HTTPS. A lot of websites support HTTPS, but do not turn it on by default for your session.

The HTTPS Everywhere addon hopes to turn the tide in favour of HTTPS for all websites and all users. Just install this addon and it will try to use HTTPS on all websites that support it automatically. You do not need to do anything! For example, if you type in http://google.com, HTTPS Everywhere will automatically switch this to using https://encrypted.google.com/, the secure version of Google.

IMO this addon is a must-have for everyone who uses Firefox. In fact, Firefox should either bake this feature into their browser or ship Firefox with this addon included and turned on by default.

Tried with: HTTPS Everywhere 1.2.2 and Firefox 10.0.1

Firefox: Blacklisting Flash Content

Problem

The Flashblock addon for Firefox can be used to block all Flash content on all webpages. This can get very irritating since some websites use tiny Flash widgets for some UI operations. For example, Gmail uses Flash to allow users to attach files to an email. Rather than blocking all Flash content, I would like all Flash content to be available and would like to specifically pick or blacklist the Flash content that I find irritating (like advertisements).

Solution

Blacklisting cannot be done with Flashblock. It only has a whitelist option to allow certain sources of Flash content. A blacklisting solution that works is to use the AdBlock Plus addon for Firefox. Hover the mouse over any Flash content on a webpage and a Block tab appears at the top-right corner of the content. Click this Block tab to add this Flash source to the blacklist of AdBlock Plus.

Tried with: Flashblock 1.5.15.1, Adblock Plus 2.0.1 and Firefox 9.0.1

Firefox: Search from address bar using DuckDuckGo

The Firefox address bar can be used to type in keywords to query a search engine directly (see here). By default, the search engine used is Google. This can be changed to any search engine already installed in Firefox (see here). If you have fallen in love with the simplicity and security of searching using DuckDuckGo, then using it right from the address bar is worth the effort.

As of this writing, the DuckDuckGo search engine does not come pre-installed with Google. So, to be able to search from the address bar using DuckDuckGo requires 2 simple steps:

1. Install the DuckDuckGo search engine into Firefox. There are a few variants of the search engine available here. I like to use the HTTP SSL version.
2. Follow the same steps as for setting the default search engine (see here). The name string of this search engine (as of this writing) is DuckDuckGo, so type this in as the value for browser.search.defaultenginename

That is it, type in keywords in the address bar and let DuckDuckGo deliver the results for you!

Tried with: Firefox 9.0.1

Firefox: Search from address bar

The address bar in Firefox is typically used to enter the correct URL of a website. However, if you type in keywords (not a URL) there, Firefox feeds them to a search engine and displays the results page. By default, the search engine it uses for this search is Google.

Since the address bar can be easily accessed using keyboard shortcuts, this is a quick way to search! And this is just as easy to use as the search bar. The real advantage is that you can remove the search bar while losing none of its functionality and thus save some precious horizontal space in the Firefox toolbar.

Tried with: Firefox 9.0.1