Tag Archives: Firefox

Google Chrome

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I have been a loyal Firefox user for years. I discovered something a few weeks ago: it’s slow. Google Chrome is fast. Noticeably faster. So I decided to test it out for a week or so. I’m making the switch. Firefox Add-Ons opened up the way I used the Internet and while there aren’t as many Chrome Extensions, I think I can get by.

(and I’m done using bookmarklets. I had my facebook login compromised through a bookmarklet, never again.)

Firefox: Xmarks. Syncing bookmarks is  one of those things I never knew I needed until I had it.
Chrome: it supports Xmarks but I just use Google bookmark sync. Easy mode.

Firefox: Adblock Plus. Click here to take a survey, click here if you want to lose weight, click click click. All gone.
Chrome: AdThwart. Really it’s just as good. It tries to put an icon in the address bar, but you can hide it.

Firefox: IE Tab. Let’s me switch rendering engines to view pages with Internet Explorer specific pages inside of an IE window.
Chrome: IE Tab. Exact same.

Firefox: Personal Menu. Lets me hide the Menu bar and create a shortcut menu.
Chrome: does this by default.

Firefox: Download Statusbar. Instead of a popup window for downloads, it docks them on the status bar.
Chrome: does this by default.

Firefox: LogMeIn. Remote desktop access to my home computers.
Chrome: does this by default.

Firefox: Read It Later. gives me a sidebar with my RIL reading list, a button in the address bar to Add to Reading List or Mark As Read, a quick add option in Google Reader, and a context menu option to save a page or link to Reading List.
Chrome: Ugh. I dearly miss this add-on. Best I can do is create a bookmark for my reading list and load it in a new page. I use the Chrome extension Mark for Later, which gives me an address bar icon. No way to change context menu. I did add a Send To option in Google Reader, but it opens a new window. I miss the sidebar.

All in, I’m not going back to Firefox. Chrome is my new browser.

Closing single tabs in Firefox

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One of my biggest pet peeves in Firefox v. 3.5 and greater is that Firefox will not close the last tab. Closing the last tab closes Firefox. Well I prefer to keep Firefox always open, even if I don’t have a webpage open. So I found a workaround.

Firefox is so unbelievably configurable. You can use a userChrome.css file can override just about any setting with the right scripting. Along with the about:Config menu, I got this setting back. Here’s how:

If you have not already created a userChrome.css file in the Windows profile, go to this folder:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\string.default\chrome

Create a new file and name it userChrome.css. Open in notepad and copy the following three (3) lines.

/* * Do not remove the @namespace line -- it's required for correct functioning */
/* set default namespace to XUL */
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

Or you can just use the existing file if it’s already there. In the userChrome.css file, copy the following lines into bottom of the file.

/* Add tab-close-button to last tab*/
.tabbrowser-tabs[closebuttons="alltabs"] >
 .tabbrowser-tab > .tab-close-button {
  display: -moz-box !important;
 }
.tabbrowser-tabs:not([closebuttons="noclose"]):not([closebuttons="closeatend"]) >
 .tabbrowser-tab[selected="true"] > .tab-close-button {
  display: -moz-box !important;
 }

Save the file and close.

Open Firefox, in the address bar type “about:config” and press Enter. It will probably give you a warning, just click the continue button and you will see a pages long configuration setting. Scroll down to the setting browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab and change the value to FALSE. Then just close Firefox to restart it.

(via Mozilla Support Forums)