Stealther

Chrome’s Incognito browsing turns on incognito surfing that allows viewing porn without keeping any history of that browsing session anywhere on your computer and in Firefox, the Stealther extension does the same thing. The main difference is that in Chrome, a single window can enter Incognito mode, whereas in Firefox it’s enabled globally.

Download Statusbar

The Download Statusbar Firefox extension puts downloads in your status bar and it offers lots of additional options and saves substantial RAM space. Chrome is all about saving space, so the files you download do not break out into a separate window, instead they live in your status bar.

Speed Dial and Auto Dial

Chrome’s empty tab page displays your most visited sites, most used search boxes and even your recently closed tabs. The Speed Dial (and Auto Dial) extension for Firefox, provides a very similar thumbnail based new tab page where you can quickly access them with keyboard shortcuts which power up your empty tabs.

Locationbar2 Adds Domain-Highlighting to the Address Bar

Google Chrome’s “omni bar” sports root domain highlighting, a cool feature that doubles as a nice anti-phishing device. The Locationbar2 Firefox extension boasts of a similar highlighting app that adds domain highlighting to the address bar in addition to several other excellent features.

Prism Extension Turns Any Site into a Separate Application

Chrome makes it easy on you to break out a webapp you use all day long into a separate window and desktop shortcut. The concept of separating webapps isn’t new, with Prism for Firefox extension that turns any website into a separate app, where you need to go to Tools -> Convert Website to Application to break a webapp into a separate window and application.

Keyword Search Bookmarks

Chrome also doesn’t currently support keyword bookmarking in general, which is one of the most time saving features in Firefox. The keyword search bookmarks integrate site specific search with the address bar in Firefox. It’s not as attractive as Speed Dial or Chrome’s new tab page, though. But it’s also not much of an innovation over keyword searches in Firefox where you have to manually add a search box but you can also define exactly what you want that shortcut to be.

You may be a huge Firefox fan and experiencing a lot of crashes, especially when in Gmail, but can’t think of  abandoning Firefox. The first thing you need to do to re-install Firefox to Troubleshoot Hangups is to ensure that you have backups of everything.

Manual Backups of  Bookmarks and Saved Passwords

I would highly recommend a manual backup of  saved passwords and bookmarks. you can easily backup the bookmarks from Firefox directly, but to backup the passwords you need to first install the Password Exporter extension.

On installation, open the Add-ons window and click the Options button on the extension where you can simply export the passwords or encrypt it using the button.

When you backup the bookmarks, open up the Organized Bookmarks item on the menu and choose Backup from the “Import and Backup” menu.

Note: ensure to save both the files to a safe place before continuing further.

MozBackup

The MozBackup utility is also highly recommended since you can make sure that you have a total backup of everything in your profile. Here you choose Firefox in the first screen, then choose which profile to backup, when there is more than one.

Note: the default save location appears to be under “Documents”.

Thereafter, choose what you actually want to backup. It is recommended to back up everything as some issue could crop up in between the files.

Uninstall Firefox

This depends on your operating system, either you have to go into Add or Remove programs or “Uninstall Programs”, then find Mozilla Firefox in the list and choose Uninstall to get rid of any saved profiles.

Note: if you do a clean install with a new profile there are a lot less problems.

In XP or Vista, you can find your Profile folder by typing the following into the location bar:

%APPDATA%Mozilla

Finally, you can either delete it completely or  just move that folder somewhere else. I would recommend to move it somewhere else in case you need the files again.

Re-install Firefox

Now you can simply re-install Firefox and begin with a completely clean browser. When you import your passwords or bookmarks, just use the same menus that you used above to backup, but choose the restore options instead.

Many a time when you are surfing the web you do not want your details to be revealed. Fire Fox 3.5 does have a provision for this in its privacy policy that asks your permission for providing your IP address, nearest wire less access point and your geographical location such as latitude and longitude. But if you are still using the older Fire Fox versions there is a way of securing your privacy and not reveal your private information. This way you will also be able to access sites that have blocked you permission or these sites may have been blocked by your own ISP or net work admin. The browser has to be configured to let you surf proxy.
To begin with you need the proxy server’s IP. This you can obtain by using google if you do not know.
In the “Tools” go to “options”. Now click on the icon of “Advanced”. And select “network”). In the window that appears go to “configure how fire fox connects to the internet” and click on “settings”

In the window of “connection Settings” that appears click on “manual proxy configuration” button to begin the procedure

In the “HTTP Proxy field” enter the field and its “port” number.
Click on “ok” and restart your fire fox.
This will enable you to surf proxy. When you want to revert to the original server’s IP address and when you come to the window of “connection settings”, click on the button “No Proxy” and then click “OK”.

In the normal mode of starting your Fire Fox follows certain standard laid down procedures. This takes some time and there by delays the start up time of the browser. When you first start your Fire Fox browser it begins by loading all d11 files, it then begins collecting information about plug ins and once it finishes collecting information it begins loading them. This procedures takes some time for all the procedures to be completed. One way of reducing the starting time of Fire Fox is by not letting it go through all the procedures and by reducing the number to the barest minimum.

The Fire Fox “installation folder” which can be entered into by typing
C:\program files\ Fire Fox
Once you entered the “installation folder”, down load “UPX” file.
Close the browser and begin the “command prompt” mode in the “installation directory”.
Now you can enter the following code
(for %v in (*.exe *.dll components\*.dll plugins\*.dll) do upx “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v”)
This code compresses all the d11 files and therefore the processing time will be less. You can revert back to the normal mode by going back to the prompt and by typing the code
(for %v in (*.exe *.dll components\*.dll plugins\*.dll) do upx-d “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\%v”).
This procedure lets you compress and then expand your d11 files and lets you control the start up time of your browser.

The Fire Fox 3.5 will be ready for shipment by the end of June. Its not a part of the much touted browser wars between Google’s Chrome and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 8 or Apple’s Safari. But it has established itself on its own and hopes it that it will not be trampled in the stampede.

First thing that Fire Fox 3.5 tries to clarify its position is on privacy issues of browsing and Geo location and asserts that it has no intention of spying on you. That having been taken we wonder how effective it is against the intensifying plague of spyware. Otherwise it has taken sufficient care and simplified the procedures for protecting your privacy vis a vis your browsing habits and geo location.

The speed of Fire Fox has been accelerated but it has not yet caught up with the Steroids that Chrome and IE 8 use. It uses HTML 5 and Java Script Notation based “Trace Monkey” which is open sourced and which does not require any additional plug ins or “Flash” for viewing videos. With this it has been able to optimize its performance and is three times faster than Fire Fox 3.5. Earlier, the problem with memory that used to be requested by an application but lay unused, thereby slowing the system down has been sorted out.

A new search Interface has been created for searching book marks, History, tags etc., The place of search and the query itself can be selected and even combined which can then be saved as a new book mark. Tagging is another new feature where a star icon that is provided on the tool bar helps you to save the current page as a book mark and in the folder you want or lets you even create a new folder for that purpose.

The Auto Complete now encompasses book marks, History and tags not just addresses. The colors used in Auto Complete differ for titles and addresses to enable better cognition by providing contrast.

The back and forward buttons have been clubbed together as a new “gadget” as in the rest of the browsers.

Efforts have been made to integrate the browser with the Operating Systems.

The crucial question of whether Fire Fox can stand on its own will be answered in the coming weeks.

Many a time there may be applications that you are working upon which request for details about your location. This is over and above the details of your browsing history. The choice is left to you whether you want to share your location details with others. Your browsers also need your location details to search for appropriate information that may be location specific when you query. Similarly information of your location is required for navigational purposes too.

But Fire Fox 3.5 does not use or share this information with out the user’s consent. “Google Location Services” is used as default for calculating your position. But even this service exchanges latitude and longitude that is encrypted before exchange. Details of your browsing history are at no time exchanged.

If you have given permission to give details of your location to a site, you can also cancel it by visiting that site and clicking on the Tools option and select “Page Info”. Then select the “Permission Tab” and make necessary changes to “Share Location”.

Then go to the Tools menu again and click on the “Details” arrow. Select the “Cookies” option and then you should click on “Clear Now”.

By this process Google that otherwise shares your IP address, nearest wireless connection point and a random number that it allocates to you, will disable the passage of this information if requested.

One question comes to our mind what about the mobile phones we use? Do they also pass on this information?

One of the new features of Fire Fox 3.5 which is slated to hit the market by the end of June is Private Browsing. This Firefox-3.5 is estimated to do well and can compete with its latest fight with google chrome.Like the previous versions of firefox, firefox-3.5 will be upto its reputition. When you do not wish your browser to remember the history of your browsing pattern and the contents of the sites you may have visited and if you do not want the content of such sites to be revealed to others you can utilize the private browsing facility. This facility exists in Internet Explorer also. Private browsing will not retain the ensuing information :
1. The visited sites will not be included in the History Menu, the History List in the Library Window and the address list of the Smart Location Bar.
2. In the Form Autocomplete, the information that has been entered in the text boxes on web page forms or the search bar, will be added.
3. Pass words used in private browsing will not be automatically filled or saved.
4. Once private browsing is turned off the list of files browsed will not be shown in the Downloads Window.
5. Cookies created during private browsing will not be stored.
6. Temporary Internet files will be saved only after the private browsing is turned off.
7. Book marks created during private browsing will however be not removed.
8. Files saved during private browsing will not be deleted after wards but their details only will be missing from the download window.
9. You can enable Fire Fox to start in private browsing session only.
To enter private browsing, click on Tools and select the option “Start Private Browsing”. You will then be alerted by Fire Fox that it will commence saving your settings after you finish private browsing. Now click on “Start Private Browsing To Continue”. This alert will not be displayed again when you start private browsing any time again by putting a check mark. Any recent history can also be deleted by clicking on the “Clear Recent History” when the browsing screen appears.
To turn off the private browsing you can go back to “Tools” and click on the “Private Browsing Entry”. All the tabs and windows that were being used when private browsing was enabled will reappear and Fire Fox can then be used normally.

You never know when your computer goes wrong at the least suitable moment. Over the years the bookmarks stored in my browser have been increasing. Most browsers love Firefox for many reasons, especially for its feature to store usernames and passwords.
Firefox offers an excellent ‘Add-on’ which allows you to export and import saved passwords. Such exported data comes handy when Firefox crashes or you want to set-up a new Firefox on another machine, e.g. laptop. The setting up of a replacement computer may take several days before you remember what needs to be re-installed and configured.The best thing about this application is that we can see saved usernames and passwords if we forgot them.
Definitely, one may want to have a backup of saved passwords. But, Firefox does not offer any such built-in option. I am thankful to the synchronization process where you have a unique opportunity to immediately back up the changes in the bookmarks or stored passwords.
The XMarks application offers an excellent solution for all these problems which was previously called as Foxmarks which is a Firefox ‘Add-on’ offering you with automatic backup of your Firefox bookmarks along with online access to it. It provides seamless bookmark synchronization between your computers. It will sync across browsers too. There is an option to adjust the synchronization settings by clicking on the icons at the top of the Firefox window. The bookmark (and optionally password) data is securely stored and backed up on our servers.
It automatically backups the bookmarks, history, cookies and passwords. Besides, you can either check out the backups you have made on the Xmarks website or else share them. The restore process is very simple as I could always access my bookmarks and import them to my new laptop.
One can forget about daily plans for backups as data recovery is very simple and sensitive data will be encrypted. This allows you to select which items will be backed up and what will be encrypted. This Add-on is very useful while using multiple computers, or multiple Firefox on same computers or even going to re-install the Firefox.
The saved passwords can be seen by going to Tools > Options > Security and hitting the “Saved Password” button. Finally, click the “show password” option.Sync is an optional Xmarks feature that is available online.