Google Chrome recently updated to Version 85.0.4183.83 on my machines, but unlike most updates, there was a rather unfortunate downside to the update. I was no longer able to log in to certain web sites. The problem manifested in two ways that I saw. One, an infinite redirect loop and two, a failed login even […]

When I middle-click to open a link in Chrome, I like the tab to show up right next to the tab I’m on, not all the way at the end of the row of tabs. The Tab Position Customizer extension worked great, then it disappeared from the Chrome Web Store. For the past few months […]

Chrome keeps changing the layout of the new tab page, but I just want a blank page that loads quickly. The Empty New Tab extension almost did what I wanted, but I didn’t like the blank titles. It was like staring into soulless eyes. So I created a new extension, dubbed Quick New Tab. It’s […]

Update 23 Apr 2015 As of Chrome version 42, NPAPI has been disabled by default. This effectively disables the Java plugin. In order for the below instructions to work, you can re-enable NPAPI by pasting this URL into Chrome: chrome://flags/#enable-npapi, enabling NPAPI support, and restarting Chrome. The Java browser plugin has a sordid security history […]

If you use Firefox on Windows and it feels slow at times, this is worth a try. Palemoon is an optimized build of Firefox. It works like Firefox, looks like Firefox (except for the moon icon) and feels like Firefox, except it’s 25% faster. I’ve been using it for a few weeks and it does […]

As I illustrated in this screencast on the readability bookmarklet (a new version was released yesterday), I like to read content on the web, not advertising. Here are some other tips to make reading on the web easier when ads overrun the site or articles are split up into a ton of separate pages. Our […]

Google Chrome is getting a lot of well-deserved good press for it’s blazing speed. For that reason I use it occasionally, but Firefox remains my core browser. Why? Three reasons. 1. Adblock Plus 2. Xmarks 3. Diigo I recently used Chrome for a day but returned to Firefox. Here’s what happened. Using the Chrome Channel […]

I’ve been running a portable version of Firefox 3.5 b99 (a preview release) to see what the excitement was about. I was a little disappointed. Aside from a few very minor cosmetic changes, it looks the same as 3.0.x. I didn’t do a formal speed analysis, but it felt like it loaded pages a little […]

With the recent release of Safari 4 Beta, there are 4 viable browser options for Windows users. I don’t consider Internet Explorer a good option (measured by security, speed, user friendliness and adherence to web standards) but one could argue there are 5. I’ve heard murmurs that IE 8 is a big improvement, but I’ll […]

In keeping with my recent theme of keyboard shortcuts, this post will show you how to launch any bookmarklet you want with a keyboard shortcut. At first I searched high and low for a Firefox extension that would help with this. The closest one I found is called Devo. It’s a command launcher for Firefox, […]

Fashion Your Firefox lets you choose a category, like Digital Pack Rat, Shutterbug, Finder and Seeker, Social Butterfly or News Junkie. Then it suggest the top add-ons in that category. It’s a great way to find the most popular Firefox extensions in a certain area. (via Lifehacker)

If you’ve ever wanted to do a whois, host, nslookup or ping on a domain and you use Firefox, this tip is for you. You can run those commands right from your browser. For instance, running whois is as easy as typing “whois google.com” in the URL field and hitting enter. As an example, let’s […]

Here are the main Firefox shortcuts I use on a regular basis. Tabs Ctrl-t – Open new tab Ctrl-w – Close active tab Ctrl-Shift-t – Open last closed tab (you can do this over and over) Ctrl-PageUp, PageDown – Cycle through tabs Ctrl-1 to Ctrl-8 – Go to the first, second, third…eighth tab Ctrl-9 – […]

There’s something about seeing an ordinary object online in 3D that makes it seem exciting. Even though everything in real life is 3D, it’s cool when movies or computers can do it. If you are genuinely enthused by 3D objects, you must have a very exciting life. Hey Joe, you’re in 3D! There’s my car, […]

The first release candidate of Firefox 3 is available. If you hadn’t upgraded before because of instability concerns, this should take care of all known issues. If no new showstopper bugs are found, this release will be the official one. Download it now (or go to Help -> Check for Updates in your browser)

I was out of the loop for a while on the beta release of Firefox. I like using the latest browsers but for some reason this release escaped me until Beta 4 was out. My first impression: it’s faster, renders pages better and uses less memory than Firefox 2. I’ve been using it for a […]

Do you type in URLs of well known sites over and over and over again? I’ve been doing it for years because I couldn’t think of a better way to browse to frequently used sites. I didn’t want to create bookmarks for two reasons. One, I use several different machines and keeping them all in […]

I’ve watched this at least 10 times, and I laugh every time. I love the Safari icon.

Sites like techcrunch (among many others) have introduced an annoyance that I find exceedingly . . . annoying. Fortunately for me (and anyone else who is similarly annoyed), you have but to click this magical link. It will set a cookie to disable snap preview on every web site that uses it. (via Paul Bausch […]

I was answering a coworker’s question and as he went to a web site I saw he was using Firefox, but all of the tabs were different colors. I thought it might be a skin, but mentioned that I liked his colorful tabs. He laughed and said that was the precise name of the extension. […]

I installed Internet Explorer 7 to see what it was like and was impressed. The tabs are a big improvement and in general I was pleased with it. Then I found out there were several web applications that I needed to use that weren’t compatible with IE7, so I uninstalled it to go back to […]

I like making efficient use of my time, so I’m a big fan of anything that makes common tasks easier. I noticed a small set of web sites that I used a great deal, and realized that making it faster to use those sites would result in significant time savings. I’ve already talked about quicksearches […]

What’s up with the acronym tag in Firefox 2.0? It used to show alt text when you hovered over the acronym but as of the 2.0 release it no longer displays anything when you mouse over it. The acronym is still underlined and the mouse cursor changes when you mouse over it, but nothing happens. […]

Opera changed a few shortcuts to match Firefox (like Ctrl-t to open a new tab), which I like because it makes it easier to switch back and forth between browsers. However I couldn’t figure out how to switch between tabs. I looked on the opera keyboard shortcuts page and found that you have three options. […]

If you use del.icio.us and have lots of tags, you might have noticed that the pages take a long time to load. I just discovered a very easy way to dramatically decrease the time it takes to load the pages. Go to the very bottom of the tags on the right and collapse them. The […]

In Firefox, I have the pages I’m browsing in tabs within a single window. I find it annoying to have a new window pop up when I click a link. Granted, I can Ctrl-click to have the link show up in a tab, but I discovered a better solution. In the Firefox preferences you can […]

I have a list of ideas that I’d like to implement (I use MediaWiki, the same software that runs wikipedia.org, to manage all of my lists and things I want to remember. It’s turned out quite nicely). But back to my original point. On the list of things to implement, I had the idea to […]

I’ve been an Opera fan for several years now, but I haven’t used Opera 8.x in the past year because it didn’t support several essential features in Gmail (like auto-completing e-mail addresses). As a result, I’ve used Firefox exclusively. The last few releases of Firefox have seemed to make it more sluggish and there has […]

If you use Bugzilla as a bug tracking database, or use any bug tracking database for that matter, this may be a handy tip. I often have a bug ID that I want to look up and it’s kind of a pain to have to go to the main bugzilla page, click in the search […]

I’ve been an Opera user for several years along with being a Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox aficionado and now that Opera 8.01 is out, here are my thoughts. First, what I like. Easy to switch plugins on and off (F12 and you can turn on flash, Java, sound etc) Fast (page rendering and generally as an application) Works […]

Opera 8.01 has been released with some security fixes. You can download it from the official site. Here are the changelogs for linux and windows.

The Firefox team has released yet another version (1.0.3) but I have one major complaint. Every time I upgrade, I have to reinstall all the extensions. This has made me give up on having a lot of extensions, because I have three computers that I use on a regular basis. I used to have about […]

Opera 8.0 has been released. Get it while it’s hot. Here’s an overview of the new features it provides. Also, to get a free license you just have to refer 250 unique visitors.

I found a site that tests your web browser’s security, trying various exploits to see if you’re vulnerable to them. There’s another site that tests you how well your browser blocks popups. Occasionally I’ll get a popup, but it’s been so infrequent that I haven’t bothered figuring out how they’re getting through.

One of the things I really like about Opera is the ease of searching on Google. To search for information about walruses, type ‘g walruses’ in the URL field and you’re there. Using Firefox, I used to type ‘google.com’ in the URL field which would take me to Google’s web site and I would then […]

It doesn’t happen too much anymore, but in the earlier days of browsers they would crash far too often, and I consequently lost what I was working on. I remember several occasions when I was writing a long e-mail and the browser crashed and I had to write it all over again. Another time I […]

I currently spell check my blog entries by copying and pasting the text of the entry onto spellcheck.net, but I’ve found an easier way with Firefox. It’s called the SpellBound extension and it allows you to spell check any text area by right-clicking in it and selecting the ‘Check Spelling’ option. I tried installing it […]

Firefox is getting a lot of media attention right now, but it’s odd that Opera hasn’t gotten much. Many of the features that people are raving about in Firefox have been available for years in Opera. This wired article about Opera discusses the history of the forgotten browser. Unlike the majority of web users, I’ve […]

In this guide to installing Firefox the author outlines all the extensions he uses. The vast array of extensions is good and bad. It’s good because it allows people to extend the browser to do all sorts of things the original developers never dreamed of, but it also means that if you have multiple machines […]

Firefox 1.0 has been released, get it while it’s hot. Oddly enough, the default start page is a customized Firefox page on Google. I wonder what’s cooking there…

I don’t know how I’m supposed to find out about new releases, but I just happened to check opera.com and saw that version 7.52 is available. I thought I was already subscribed to the Opera newsletter but I haven’t gotten any e-mails in a while, so I’ve resubscribed. That should at least keep me up […]

I don’t know if anyone else has this problem, but whenever I click on a mailto link for an e-mail address Opera pops up a window asking me to configure the mail client. Also, It was a mild annoyance so I didn’t bother doing anything about it, but I recently discovered that you can disable […]

I’ve found that with recent (1.6, 1.7) versions of Mozilla on Linux, you aren’t able to run multiple instances of the browser. If Mozilla is already running and you try to run Mozilla again, you get the Profile Manager which is a nuisance and of little use. My solution was to write a shell script […]

I have been using Opera since 5.0 but Opera 7 has quite a few new features that I have only recently discovered. I’ve been keeping track of the coolest features I’ve found and compiled this list. I may make occasional updates as I find out about new features, but here’s what I have so far. […]

Fresh out of the oven, Opera 7.50 is out of beta and has been officially released. I’m using it right now to post this entry. Stay tuned for a post I’ve been working on for months about lots of the features of Opera 7. I want to take a look at the new features that […]

Opera continues to improve their browser with the latest release, Opera 7.5 Beta 1. A few of the highlights of this release include User interface redesigned Chat client RSS newsfeeds Fast full-text indexing of e-mail messages Support for spell check Graphical smileys in chat and e-mail

I just happened to take a look at Opera’s web site today and found out that as of today, they’ve completed an IPO and will be listed on the Oslo Stock Exchange tomorrow. The price per share has been set at NOK 10, which translates into roughly $1.41 in US currency.

A security release of Opera has been released and recommended for download on both Windows and Linux.

Opera 7.21 for Linux, Windows, FreeBSD and Solaris has been released. You can download it here.

I’ve been using Opera for a long time (over two years I believe) but as of today I am a registered customer. I decided they deserve my support and bought a license for Linux and Windows. The immediate benefit is that I no longer have to see the ads, but I was used to them, […]