Improve Your Web Browser For Free!

spook

slasher wrote:

I used Firefox for a while and it's definitely better than Internet Explorer for features and security...

..however, I then discovered Avant Browser which I think is both faster and more feature packed than both, and it's also completely free.

www.avantbrowser.com

Worth bearing in mind that one of the most important advantages of Firefox is improved security. Not only is it less buggy than IE, but because it's "open source" software, bugs are found and fixed much more quickly because anybody can contribute to the code.

That's not the case for Avant Browser, which to the best of my knowledge is based on IE components with a few added interface features. So it doesn't offer any security advantage over IE.

ggustar

tomthebomb wrote:

Am missing A1 Roboform already.
Any good form filler, Password manageing programmes I can use in Firefox 1.0.6?

No need to miss Roboform, just go to www.roboform.com and download the file for mozilla/Firefox

sra

Foxytunes Extension

You can play audio files from buttons on your browser.
Here is the Money Tip being played:

(It uses my fav Media Player without having to launch it)

sra

You can set it to search virtually any site you want quickly

Click Here

I've set it up to search Argos whenever I type Argos in the address bar. So typing "Argos toaster" searches Argos site for toasters

sra

Sage Extension

You can see if your favourite site has a story that interests you without visiting it.

I can click on the sage Icon and it shows me the sites I've subscribed to. Sites that have new stories have a star next to them.

Click Here

Clicking on MSE All shows me all the latest stories from MSE in the bottom frame then I can click on a story to see it in the main section.

sra

Buddy List

You can make any page you want appear in the sidebar.
I've set the Buddy List to open in the sidebar instead of an annoying pop-up.


That's all for now
Might make more screenshots later

nosweat

3dom wrote:

"Stuff I found that greatly improves Firefoxes Speeeeeed
--

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining
network.http.proxy.pipelining
network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30.
This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0".
This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

4. Find network.dns.disableIPv6

Double click to toggle it to true and then restart Firefox.
You should notice a speed increase, page to page."

Thanks for the advice. But does firefox really need speeding up that much? As a long time firefox user and web designer I find your advice both informative and troubling.

All well designed websites will load perfectly fine without these tweaks. Suggesting that someone sets their max requests to 30 is frankly irresponsible. All you are doing is putting an unnessary load on the hosting server at the expense of everyone else.

It's always great to get an insight into how a browser can be configured, but making more than two or three simultaenous requests to a server from one browser is the equivalent of spamming a mail server.

mozallazine.org, the firefox homepage, and sourceforge.net all contain a wealth of information and plugins (many tried and tested) for firefox, thunder bird and other open source projects.

good_grief_penfold

Hello All,
I have down loaded this browser today and love the tabs. So easy. BUT HELP. I have added the "read mail" option to my tool bar but it opens up outlook express and i use microsoft office outlook . How do i get it to use this as my e-mail default?
Thanks

sra

If you go back to IE and open Tools / Internet Options

then the Programs tab

you should be able to select your fav email client under E-mail

russimp

Some great tips here, thanks all.

I've been using Firefox for a couple of months now, and sometimes have trouble with Java applets not loading.

Any ideas, anyone..??