Firefox Tips

My setup (Firefox 3.0)

Versions are not necessarily kept up-to-date with my real install...
Generated: Wed Jun 18 2008 00:54:10 GMT+0200 (CEST)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9) Gecko/2008052912 (No IDN) Firefox/3.0
Build ID: 2008052912

Extensions for Firefox

Those I'm currently using under FF3

• AutoPager 0.1.6.0.25
• Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5
• Color Management 0.4
• Delicious Bookmarks 2.0.58
• DownThemAll! 1.0.3
• Firefox Companion for Ebay 1.6
• FireGestures 1.1.2
• FoxyProxy 2.7.5
• Google Gears 0.3.24.0
• IEtab
  • Useful under Windows when you have crappy intranet requiring IE
• Key Manager 0.1.3.20080615
• Live HTTP Headers 0.14
  • Available as Debian package: mozilla-livehttpheaders
• MR Tech Local Install 6.0a29
  • Note that it's a dev version, available in the dev forum
• NoScript 1.6.9.3
• PDF Download 1.0.1.2
• Prism for Firefox 0.2
• Screen grab! 0.95
• ScribeFire 2.2.7
• Stealther 1.0.3
• StumbleUpon 3.18
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6.1.080416
  • At time of writing, only the devel version is compatible with FF3, you can get it here
• Tamper Data 10.0.3
• Torbutton 1.0.4.01
  • Warning: Next proposed version 1.2.0rc1 broke a lot of things, I had to roll back: delicious, theme, buttons, everything was broken!
• User Agent Switcher 0.6.11
• Web Developer 1.1.6
  • Available as Debian package: firefox-webdeveloper

Those currently disabled, waiting for FF3 compatibility

• Better Flickr 0.2.1
• CertipostTools 1.0
• FireFTP 0.97
• JAJAH - Web-Activated Telephony 1.0.1720
• NextPlease 0.6.6
• Repagination 2006.4.5 => now I'm using AutoPager, cf above

Those I liked but I don't use anymore

• Checky
  • Available as Debian package: mozilla-checky
• googlebar 0.9.15.10
  • Actually I don't use it so much since I could add all the Google searches to the search bar and associate keywords to them to use them through the Awesome Bar!
• JavaScript Debugger
  • Available as Debian package: mozilla-venkman
• Greasemonkey Scripts
  • Available as Debian package: firefox-greasemonkey
• Diggler
• ErrorZilla Mod
• Fasterfox
• Firebug
• Forecastfox
• mozImage
• Reveal, broken since FF2
• Sage
• Séparé
• ?? stylish and greasemonkey (the best greasemonkey scripts)
• Viamatic foXpose
• VideoDownloader
• Web Color Names
• Wikipedia toolbar
• xyzproxy

Themes for Firefox

• Classic Compact 3.0.7
  • And its companion plugin Classic Compact Options 1.1.2
• Noia 2.0 (eXtreme)
  • Not yet FF3-ready, damn!!

Plugins for Firefox

Available as Debian packages

• Shockwave Flash
  • flashplayer-mozilla or the newer flashplugin-nonfree
• Adobe Reader 7.0
  • mozilla-acroread
• Helix DNA Plugin: RealPlayer G2 Plug-In Compatible
  • realplayer
• mozilla-mplayer
• Java(TM) Plug-in 1.5.0_10-b03
  • sun-java5-plugin
• mplayerplug-in, QuickTime Plug-in, RealPlayer 9, Windows Media Player Plugin
  • mozilla-mplayer
• MozPlugger
  • mozplugger

Installed from rpm with alien

• Citrix ICA Client
  • icaclient

Customizing Firefox

Adding search engines

If you don't find it here or there, you can create your own manually or create you own with this very simple web tool
Examples I created easily via Ready2search (only for FF 2.0):

• To get a list of domains pointing to the same IP: Webhosting.info reverse IP search
• To get history of an RFC: RFC editor search engine
• To search an ICQ member by its ID (when I receive unknown requests): ICQ #

Using Liferea as RSS reader

This does not work for now but the manipulation should be:

• apt-get install xulrunner-1.9-gnome-support
• Firefox -> Edit -> Preferences -> Applications -> Web Feed = Other -> /usr/bin/liferea-add-feed

As seen on some bugreports, nothing happens and the liferea-add-feed script is even not called

Anonimizing of your searches using BlackBoxSearch and CustomizeGoogle

For simple anonimization through a proxy use BlackBoxSearch. Mainly BlackBoxSearch anonimizes your searches by hiding your IP. Here is a greasemonkey script that makes the use of BlackBoxSearch automatic.

To obtain a complete solution you should regularly erase your favorite search engine cookies. If you are using Firefox and Google, this can be done automatically through the CustomizeGoogle extension. To do this you have to enable the privacy protection options of it.

References: Schneier Security blog: TrackMeNot

Extensions for Thunderbird

Those I'm currently using under Icedove

• addressContext - An extension to add addressbook-related options to the context menu
• Allow HTML temporary - Allow temporary HTML in the selected message
• Copy Sent to Current - Allows to place a copy of sent messages into the currently active folder or any other folder you choose, when you create the message.
  • RTFM: you've to activate it for each account + some global options to tune
• Display Mail User Agent Extension - Displays the mail program with which the selected mail was written
• Display mailing list header - Displays special mail headers defined in RFC 2369
• Enigmail - OpenPGP message encryption and authentication
  • Available as Debian package: enigmail
• MR Tech Local Install - Local Install power tools for all users.
• Nostalgy - Adds shortcuts to change folder, move message, with folder completion
• Quote Colors - Configure text and background colors for different quote levels in mail/news messages.
• QuoteCollapse - Collapse quotes.
• Show InOut - Adds two columns to the list of mails. One shows an indicator wether a mail is incoming or outgoing, the other shows the sender or the recipient of the mail respectively.

Those I liked but I don't use anymore

• Leet Key - Transforms typed or static text to L337, ROT13, BASE64, HEX, URL, BIN, Morse Code, DVORAK, Upper Case, Lower Case, DES.
• Mozilla Calendar - A calendar client based on iCal standard
• Remove Duplicate Messages - Removes duplicate messages by folder context menu.
• Sync Kolab - Syncronize the address book and calendar with IMAP folder or Kolab1/2 server
• View Headers Toggle Button - Toolbar toggle button for viewing headers.
• ReminderFox

Dictionaries for Thunderbird

• Don't try to install them as xpi, it won't work under Debian, instead, install the proper myspell package:
• apt-get install myspell-en-gb myspell-en-us
• That's all!
• Don't worry if you get twice the dictionaries in Thunderbird, these are just aliases created by myspell.

Themes for Thunderbird

• Noia 2.0 (eXtreme)

Misc

For those who develop websites and need interoperability with e.g. the awfully broken CSS interpreter of IE, you can install IE under linux with those scripts and wine:

wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-2.0.5.tar.gz