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Daveybot · 29th Mar 2006, 13:36

The Bot weighs in...

I'm not a coder and I don't create web pages. (Well, not for anyone else, anyway.) However, I do use the world wide web an awful lot. Along with AuotoCAD, 3DStudio, Photoshop, Sketchup and InDesign, I always have at least one browsing window open. I've heard several people say that IE is quicker than the opposition, but I must say I've found it to be nowhere near as useful or as pleasant a piece of software as Firefox. Here's how I've tweaked mine...

...link to full size screen-capture image.

Themes and appearance
As Wavid has already mentioned, you can change the appearance of Firefox to anything of your pleasing. My honest opinion of the standard theme is that it's overly rounded and colourful. I like my icons clear and small so I use the Whitehart theme - with small icons and no descriptive text. Also I've got the WellRounded extension which gives a cheesy rounded appearance to the address and search bars across the top there.

Del.icio.us and online bookmarks
For all that the actual del.icio.us website is boring to read and dull to look at, the content and functionality of it is really useful. Using a couple of extensions it's become a big part of my web-browser configuration. If I find a website I'm keen to visit again I hit my 'tag' button (Number 1 on the screengrab - inserted into my toolbars by the Del.icio.us extension) and it opens up the dialogue window for adding the site into my del.icio.us account. The Foxylicious extension creates my bookmarks [2] directly from my del.icio.us tags, and my del.icio.us RSS feed drops new items into my web page [3] at Daveybot.com. So, I get the same information available as a blog-type entry on my website, in my browser's bookmark folder, and available on del.icio.us for when I'm on someone else's computer - All this from clicking on one button. Another nice thing about using del.icio.us is that if my computer is destroyed in a fire I won't lose my bookmarks - the same thinking was one of the original reasons I signed up with Flickr and Oddpost, and as I use a lot of different machines on campus it's nice to be able to get at all my email, RSS feeds and bookmarks from wherever I am.

Searching
Yeah, you can get a Google search bar installed on IE, but I find the firefox one [4] to be particularly handy in that it can be expanded to include other searching sources. I use the Creative Commons one for finding remixable content a lot, and the Jabberwalker one for finding torrents. Handy. Also I use the google deskbar for searching Google when I don't have my firefox window on top - one less click saves half a second! One thing that's nice is that by default those search results open in a new tab in Firefox so I don't lose the page I may have been looking at. I'm not sure of the searching practicalities of IE these days - I stopped using it months ago - but I haven't heard anyone singing its praises recently so I imagine there have been no giant leaps forward. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Extensions: poxy?
Okay obviously this is all relative, and a whole bunch of the available extensions are pretty useless - want to know what the weather's like? Look out the freaking window! - but if you don't want them, simply don't install them. Having said that, I can also state personally that many of the extensions I run have made the biggest improvement to my use of the web since I discovered RSS! Here are the ones I use and what they do.

Save image in folder [5]
You can assign a list of 'most used' folders according to where you might want to copy an image. It automatically renames or numbers images if there are conflicts, and saves having to browse through your documents each time you want to get somewhere.

Bloglines Toolkit [6]
That little box down on the bottom right lights up when there's a new entry from one of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Clicking on it opens up my bloglines page in a new tab.

Copy Plain Text
Tiny but handy extension - it enables me to copy text without any formatting. Really useful for quoting - especially if you're pasting straight into Word or something similar.

Tabbrowser Preferences
Just extends the practicality of tabbed browsing, really. A few more options than those which come standard with Firefox.

WellRounded
Rounds off my address and search input bars. Purely cosmetic.

MinimizeToTray [7]
A good space-saver, this - the little firefox icon down there on my system tray is where my firefox window goes when it's minimised, neatly freeing up more space on my taskbar (itself two or three pixels shorter than the XP standard because of the Windows theme I use).

IE Tab
I've just mentioned this before, but figure I'll add it into this little (yeah right) post anyway. The little firefox icon on the bottom right of my screengrab [8] indicates which browsing engine I'm using for displaying any given tabbed webpage. Clicking on it toggles between Firefox and the autob0rking Internet Explorer. I'm not much of a web coder, but it's quite handy just for testing how my efforts display in each browser. If you're displaying a tab in IE it changes that tab's icon to let you know. [9]

del.icio.us
Just adds two buttons to my toolbar [1]. One takes me to del.icio.us, the other opens a del.icio.us entry window for tagging pages. Combined with Foxylicious as described above, this is really really useful.

Greasemonkey [10]
I've only just started using Greasemonkey scripts. Basically instead of altering the appearance and functionality of my web browser they alter the appearance and functionality of web sites themselves. I think the use of this kind of thing should probably be pretty minimal, but I've found some handy ones which expand Flickr very well (removing text ads, enlarging the standard photo, providing driect links to different size images and their html straight from a photopage, showing more statistics etc...) I had one briefly which showed any price in dollars on a site as a price in 'barrels of oil' but got bored of it pretty quickly. As of the date of my writing this entry I see userscripts.org have served up almost a million scripts.

Foxylicious [2]
Creates my browser bookmarks from my del.icio.us tags. Brilliant. I can still add bookmarks the old-fashioned way if I don't want them showing up on del.icio.us, but to be honest I don't. It even builds a folder heirarchy from multiply-tagged sites.

Reveal [11]
A largely cosmetic extension with dozens of applications I don't use, but if I triple-click anywhere it opens a square magnifying glass enabling me to get a closer look at pixel arrangements. Sounds pointless to many I expect, but I actually use this one quite a lot.

...Now I'm sure Microsoft Internet Explorer is able to offer a few of these features in some way or another, and I know that Avant expands things by quite a lot, but there's no way it's this useful. I appreciate many people don't use their web browsers in the same way as me but IE simply doesn't offer the features I want. I wouldn't push these features on anyone else of course, and that's why they're not part of the standard Firefox package, but I bet if we all thought about it for a while there are some extra features we wouldn't mind having to enhance your use of the web. You won't find these features available for IE one tenth as much as you will for Firefox.

So, there are some of the reasons why I prefer Firefox, and they're largely personal or at least highly objective.

But I think there are also some things which are not so personal - some approaches to issues on which I believe we can mostly agree, and where Internet Explorer normally scores poorly and Firefox and other browsers score higher. Firstly the importance of adherance to open standards. Wavid's already written about this and I agree with him absolutely. If the worldwide web is to be made of content which is available to everyone, we need to at least use the same methods for displaying that content. Internet Explorer doesn't. It's lazy, infuriating, and more popular than it should be. Too many companies pander to its crappy standards and they shouldn't. Then of course there's the whole 'Open Source' thing. We may not all think it's such a big deal, but from what I hear it's largely agreed that OS software is more stable, more secure, and quicker to fix any problems which may occur. That seems to me to be a pretty big deal when the internet's involved.

So. If I have to use IE for something I'll open it in a tab of Firefox, but on the whole I've banished it from my computer. IE7 will have tabbed browsing, but that doesn't make up even one tenth of the ground between it and Firefox right now. At best they'll make their cruddy software usable again, but I can't seriously believe they'll be coming up with anything as good as the alternatives. Quite simply there are more imaginative, more trustworthy, more motivated, more efficient, and more effective geeks working on expanding Firefox. Now the question is, does anyone have any more (useful) extensions they think I've been missing...?

29th Mar 2006, 13:36	#76
Daveybot Senior Palimpsester has the freedom of Palimp City Join Date: 1 Sep 2005 Location: Edinburgh, UK Posts: 3,265	Re: Browsers The Bot weighs in... I'm not a coder and I don't create web pages. (Well, not for anyone else, anyway.) However, I do use the world wide web an awful lot. Along with AuotoCAD, 3DStudio, Photoshop, Sketchup and InDesign, I always have at least one browsing window open. I've heard several people say that IE is quicker than the opposition, but I must say I've found it to be nowhere near as useful or as pleasant a piece of software as Firefox. Here's how I've tweaked mine... ...link to full size screen-capture image. Themes and appearance As Wavid has already mentioned, you can change the appearance of Firefox to anything of your pleasing. My honest opinion of the standard theme is that it's overly rounded and colourful. I like my icons clear and small so I use the Whitehart theme - with small icons and no descriptive text. Also I've got the WellRounded extension which gives a cheesy rounded appearance to the address and search bars across the top there. Del.icio.us and online bookmarks For all that the actual del.icio.us website is boring to read and dull to look at, the content and functionality of it is really useful. Using a couple of extensions it's become a big part of my web-browser configuration. If I find a website I'm keen to visit again I hit my 'tag' button (Number 1 on the screengrab - inserted into my toolbars by the Del.icio.us extension) and it opens up the dialogue window for adding the site into my del.icio.us account. The Foxylicious extension creates my bookmarks [2] directly from my del.icio.us tags, and my del.icio.us RSS feed drops new items into my web page [3] at Daveybot.com. So, I get the same information available as a blog-type entry on my website, in my browser's bookmark folder, and available on del.icio.us for when I'm on someone else's computer - All this from clicking on one button. Another nice thing about using del.icio.us is that if my computer is destroyed in a fire I won't lose my bookmarks - the same thinking was one of the original reasons I signed up with Flickr and Oddpost, and as I use a lot of different machines on campus it's nice to be able to get at all my email, RSS feeds and bookmarks from wherever I am. Searching Yeah, you can get a Google search bar installed on IE, but I find the firefox one [4] to be particularly handy in that it can be expanded to include other searching sources. I use the Creative Commons one for finding remixable content a lot, and the Jabberwalker one for finding torrents. Handy. Also I use the google deskbar for searching Google when I don't have my firefox window on top - one less click saves half a second! One thing that's nice is that by default those search results open in a new tab in Firefox so I don't lose the page I may have been looking at. I'm not sure of the searching practicalities of IE these days - I stopped using it months ago - but I haven't heard anyone singing its praises recently so I imagine there have been no giant leaps forward. Please correct me if I'm wrong. Extensions: poxy? Okay obviously this is all relative, and a whole bunch of the available extensions are pretty useless - want to know what the weather's like? Look out the freaking window! - but if you don't want them, simply don't install them. Having said that, I can also state personally that many of the extensions I run have made the biggest improvement to my use of the web since I discovered RSS! Here are the ones I use and what they do. Save image in folder [5] You can assign a list of 'most used' folders according to where you might want to copy an image. It automatically renames or numbers images if there are conflicts, and saves having to browse through your documents each time you want to get somewhere. Bloglines Toolkit [6] That little box down on the bottom right lights up when there's a new entry from one of the RSS feeds I subscribe to. Clicking on it opens up my bloglines page in a new tab. Copy Plain Text Tiny but handy extension - it enables me to copy text without any formatting. Really useful for quoting - especially if you're pasting straight into Word or something similar. Tabbrowser Preferences Just extends the practicality of tabbed browsing, really. A few more options than those which come standard with Firefox. WellRounded Rounds off my address and search input bars. Purely cosmetic. MinimizeToTray [7] A good space-saver, this - the little firefox icon down there on my system tray is where my firefox window goes when it's minimised, neatly freeing up more space on my taskbar (itself two or three pixels shorter than the XP standard because of the Windows theme I use). IE Tab I've just mentioned this before, but figure I'll add it into this little (yeah right) post anyway. The little firefox icon on the bottom right of my screengrab [8] indicates which browsing engine I'm using for displaying any given tabbed webpage. Clicking on it toggles between Firefox and the autob0rking Internet Explorer. I'm not much of a web coder, but it's quite handy just for testing how my efforts display in each browser. If you're displaying a tab in IE it changes that tab's icon to let you know. [9] del.icio.us Just adds two buttons to my toolbar [1]. One takes me to del.icio.us, the other opens a del.icio.us entry window for tagging pages. Combined with Foxylicious as described above, this is really really useful. Greasemonkey [10] I've only just started using Greasemonkey scripts. Basically instead of altering the appearance and functionality of my web browser they alter the appearance and functionality of web sites themselves. I think the use of this kind of thing should probably be pretty minimal, but I've found some handy ones which expand Flickr very well (removing text ads, enlarging the standard photo, providing driect links to different size images and their html straight from a photopage, showing more statistics etc...) I had one briefly which showed any price in dollars on a site as a price in 'barrels of oil' but got bored of it pretty quickly. As of the date of my writing this entry I see userscripts.org have served up almost a million scripts. Foxylicious [2] Creates my browser bookmarks from my del.icio.us tags. Brilliant. I can still add bookmarks the old-fashioned way if I don't want them showing up on del.icio.us, but to be honest I don't. It even builds a folder heirarchy from multiply-tagged sites. Reveal [11] A largely cosmetic extension with dozens of applications I don't use, but if I triple-click anywhere it opens a square magnifying glass enabling me to get a closer look at pixel arrangements. Sounds pointless to many I expect, but I actually use this one quite a lot. ...Now I'm sure Microsoft Internet Explorer is able to offer a few of these features in some way or another, and I know that Avant expands things by quite a lot, but there's no way it's this useful. I appreciate many people don't use their web browsers in the same way as me but IE simply doesn't offer the features I want. I wouldn't push these features on anyone else of course, and that's why they're not part of the standard Firefox package, but I bet if we all thought about it for a while there are some extra features we wouldn't mind having to enhance your use of the web. You won't find these features available for IE one tenth as much as you will for Firefox. So, there are some of the reasons why I prefer Firefox, and they're largely personal or at least highly objective. But I think there are also some things which are not so personal - some approaches to issues on which I believe we can mostly agree, and where Internet Explorer normally scores poorly and Firefox and other browsers score higher. Firstly the importance of adherance to open standards. Wavid's already written about this and I agree with him absolutely. If the worldwide web is to be made of content which is available to everyone, we need to at least use the same methods for displaying that content. Internet Explorer doesn't. It's lazy, infuriating, and more popular than it should be. Too many companies pander to its crappy standards and they shouldn't. Then of course there's the whole 'Open Source' thing. We may not all think it's such a big deal, but from what I hear it's largely agreed that OS software is more stable, more secure, and quicker to fix any problems which may occur. That seems to me to be a pretty big deal when the internet's involved. So. If I have to use IE for something I'll open it in a tab of Firefox, but on the whole I've banished it from my computer. IE7 will have tabbed browsing, but that doesn't make up even one tenth of the ground between it and Firefox right now. At best they'll make their cruddy software usable again, but I can't seriously believe they'll be coming up with anything as good as the alternatives. Quite simply there are more imaginative, more trustworthy, more motivated, more efficient, and more effective geeks working on expanding Firefox. Now the question is, does anyone have any more (useful) extensions they think I've been missing...? __________________ Dave Morris Photography \| flickr \| del.icio.us \| Twitter Last edited by Daveybot; 20th Dec 2006 at 15:21.