Get Menu Bar Back In Firefox 4

The default setting for the new Firefox 4 has a big button on the top left, leaving out the old menu bar that we all know and love. Tabs are located on the top now instead of under the menu, since there isn't a menu bar.

Take a look at these screenshots to learn to re-enable the menu bar in Firefox 4.

Option 1 (click image to enlarge)

Option 2 (click image to enlarge)

Backup Web Browsers

"FavBackup is a simple solution for you to backup and restore web browser settings and other data on Windows 7/Vista/XP/2000 systems. No installation required."

FavBackup makes it considerably smooth for me to "backup and restore [my] web browser" whenever I want.

Check Sites For Updates

Update Scanner is a magnificent Firefox Add-on. What you do is add sites to the program and it checks for updates periodically. This can really save on Internet time.

1. Once installed, right-click on a web page and choose "Scan Page For Updates...".

2. You will then be presented with an options window, which you can always change later, so pick what you think you might want and click "OK".

The options you set will search through the site for changes. When a number of changes occur that fit your preferences, you will be notified.

To change these settings, click the "arrow on the Status Bar>Right-Click Site>Properties".

You can always open the program (as stated above: through the Status Bar) and manually Scan by simply clicking the "Scan" button located at the top.

"Tools>Add-ons>Extensions>Update Scanner" is another little options menu you can mess with.

The really beneficial use for this Add-on is its convenience. You do not have to keep checking sites every day for updates. Instead, you will be notified.

[Direct download via Firefox]

Firebug Web Development Add-on

View "CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page". Firefox has an add-on called Firebug that is perfect for helping you capture different site information that you are viewing. This helps a lot if you are creating a site and want to use the same sort of form, header, etc. that your favorite site has.

This is what it looks like using Firebug to peer into Google's website:



You can enter into "Inspect" mode, hover your mouse over the header, for example, and view the header in HTML.

View Colors Used On Site

If you are viewing a website and want to use the colors they used on your own site, there is a very easy way to find out what they are using. Just enter this code:

javascript:s=document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script'));s.id='fs';s.language='javascript';void(s.src='http://slayeroffice.com/tools/color_list/color_list_moz.js');

in the URL of the site and hit enter. A box will appear telling you what colors are being viewed on the site. You can then use this as a reference in finding colors for your own site.

Edit Webpage

Editing a web page using a JavaScript is very easy. All you have to do is enter it in the URL of the site you are viewing and you can now edit anything on the page. This could be used to see what a site would look like after it's been changed, or just to mess around. Either way, here is the code:

javascript:document.body.contentEditable='true';% 20document.designMode='on';%20void%200

Once you hit enter to start editing, there may be a very little change in the way the site appears. Some text may be bolded, underlined, or marked as not being spelled right. There is no way to change this.

Save Flash Games To Flash/Thumb Drive

If you want to play games at school, but your IT blocked those fun sites, here is a simple way to get around it. At home, navigate to a website that has flash games. Addicting Games is one, so we will use this for an example.

1. Open the site.

2. Click on the game you want to be able to play at school.

3. While or when the game is loaded, go to View>Page Source.

4. Ctrl+F for "Find", and type in:

.swf

5. Find the spot in the text that says something like:

displayFlash('/D78AQSAKQLQWI9/5687.swf', 600, 620);

6. From the above example, I would copy:

D78AQSAKQLQWI9/5687.swf

7. Now go to a new page in Firefox and type in:

http://www.addictinggames.com/D78AQSAKQLQWI9/5687.swf

(Thats just: the site/copied letters & numbers/more numbers.swf )

8. Now make sure your game is the only thing that is being viewed in the page.

9. Now go to File>Save As.

10. Save you game on to your flash/thumb drive.

Now since the game is being pulled off of your drive and not the internet, the computer guy at school, work, (or wherever) would have to disable the use of external drives (your drive) for your game to be unusable. This is so much better then trying to find sites that aren't blocked.

Or of course you could visit proxies to play these games. ;)

Xmarks Firefox Add-on

Firefox has an Add-on called Xmarks which is a bookmarks backup program. It is more useful then a local backup (one that just backs up your bookmarks to you computer) because you can access your bookmarks from any computer with Internet access.

Once installed and you have your free account created, you can set the settings to synchronize your bookmarks when you exit Firefox. This is very useful in case you often forget to backup.



To retrieve your saved links just log on to the Xmarks website and go to your bookmarks page. You can then open any link you have right there from the site.

Access Blocked Sites

Some sites at school or work are blocked. These sites may or may not be legitimately bad, but regardless of what you think, some are just blocked. There is an easy way to bypass this though. What you can do is view the blocked site through another site that is not blocked. For example, lets say Facebook is blocked.

What you can do is:

1. Go to a site like meut.info which, lets say, is not blocked.

(It probably wouldn't be because its not a site that is 'bad'.)

2. You enter Facebook's URL in the space provided and it opens Facebook.com inside of meut.info. This is what a proxy does.

Here are some lists of other proxies:

Proxies.us

Proxies2

Web Proxy

There are tons of proxies available--just search for more if these do not fit your desires.

Download Videos From Online

Downloading YouTube videos is real easy. You can also download videos from other sites that the program supports. The program is called Download Helper. What you have to do is download it as an extension to Firefox. The options are pretty self explanatory.

1. Follow the link, and click and download Download Helper.
It will be installed in Firefox.
2. Go to Tools>Add-ons in Firefox and find your newly downloaded ad-don.
3. Tinker with the options to suit your preferences, and start downloading videos from Firefox.

You can also register for a conversion program that can convert your downloaded movie to other formats, including extracting the sound (music from a music video) and creating an mp3 from the video.

Make Firefox Faster

Is you internet browser slow? Does it seem like it takes forever to load up? Here are a few tricks to enhance the speed on the internet browser Firefox:

Type:

about:config

in the address bar. Then look for the following entries, and make the corresponding changes.

1. network.http.max-connections-per-server =32 2. network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy =16 3. network.http.max-connections = 64 4. network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server = 10 5. network.http.pipelining = true 6. network.http.pipelining.maxrequests = 200 7. network.http.request.max-start-delay = 0 8. network.http.proxy.pipelining = true 9. network.http.proxy.version = 1.0

Finally, right-click anywhere and select New>Integer.

Name it:

nglayout.initialpaint.delay>td

Set its value to:

0

The "zero" stands for the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.