At last count, I have 32 extensions installed on Firefox. Needless to say, re-installing every time I set up a new version of Firefox on a machine is major PITA. When I first heard about the Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE), I was really excited. This puppy not only backs up all your extensions, but also "will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files". Slick. Then I found about the same dude's Compact Library Extension Organizer (CLEO), which "works with FEBE to package any number of extensions/themes into a single, installable .xpi file." Holy mackeral! Now THAT is uber-useful! Gimme some of that!

Unfortunately, the dang thing only works on Windows, which is nice for the Windows users, but just sucks completely for Linux & Mac OS users. C'mon ... we're beggin' you! Get this thing working on the other, cooler operating systems!

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)

The programmers of Firefox aren't standing still, nosiree. Firefox is already faaaaar better than that hunk of crap known as IE, and the work that's being done on version 2 will continue to keep it ahead of the upcoming IE 7. Want to know what's comin' up in Firefox 2? Then check out this list of cool new features (includes screenshots!). Anti-phishing done right tops the list, which is an excellent addition! Long live the Fox!

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)

Mmmm - mmmmh! Two great things that taste better together: vim & Firefox! Here's a page titled How to use Vim with Firefox that walks you through installing, configuring, & using the ViewSourceWith extension. Once that puppy's in place, you can either view a web page's html source using vim (or gvim) or - and this is SO FREAKING COOL! - you can right-click in any textarea, choose View Source With, and then you're editing that textarea in an external instance of vim. Save it, close it, and that stuff goes into that textarea. Too cool!

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox & vim.)

Ben Goodger, the main man behind Firefox, has created a page that lists the new features coming in Firefox 2. You can read it at "Firefox 2: Safer, Faster, Better", and you should. There's some really nice things in the next rev of our fave browser. I just wish the Linux version wasn't so tied to GNOME. Arrgh.

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)

My buddy Matt in Germany sent me this question:

I just upgraded Firefox to 1.5 (I know, I know, what took so long). Anyway, I have run into a strange problem. I cannot find the print dialog box into which I want to enter the kprinter command. I love the kprinter option because it allows me to save web pages as a pdf. Any clue where the print dialog box has gone? It's not in the usual File-Print-Properties box.

Here's my answer (& I left out my cursing about how Firefox is increasingly becoming GNOME-ified on Linux ... stupid stupid stupid: "Hey, let's REMOVE features that people actually use!" Jeez. Linux was right.)

1. Open Firefox.

2. Enter the following in the address bar & press Enter:

about:config

3. In the filter, enter the following:

print_command

4. Find this:

print.postscript.print_command

Double-click on that line. Where you see this:

lpr ${MOZ_PRINTER_NAME: '-P'}${MOZ_PRINTER_NAME}

Change it to this:

kprinter

5. Close & restart Firefox. When you print in the future, from the dropdown list of printers, choose PostScript/Default to use kprinter. that should fix it.

You'll have to do this crap every time you upgrade Firefox. <sarcasm>Thanks, GNOME!</sarcasm>

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)

Lots of folks are complaining about the so-called "Firefox memory leak", but it turns out there's actually a decent explanation for what's going on. Still, if you want to quickly reduce the amount of memory that Firefox is using, you could try this technique, first posted by Ryan at This May Help Your Firefox Memory Leak. Note this only works on Windows, and that if something goes screwy it's not my problem. Other than that, it appears to really work.

1. Open Firefox and go to the Address Bar. Type in about:config and then press Enter.
2. Right Click in the page and select New -> Boolean.
3. In the box that pops up enter config.trim_on_minimize. Press Enter.
4. Now select True and then press Enter.
5. Restart Firefox.

If you want to be careful, go to Ryan's page above and read the comments. Try it out - if it doesn't help, just reverse the process.

(And yes, I wrote a book about Firefox - Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox - that you might find interesting.)

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)

Major annoyance: clicking on mailto links in Firefox doesn't open the email app I want to use, KMail. Another related major annoyance: going to File > Send Link in Firefox doesn't open the email app I want to use, KMail. The solution? Find your profile folder for Firefox; more than likely you'll find it at /home/[username]/.mozilla/firefox/[random-letters-n-numbers]/. In that folder, if you have a file named user.js, open it with a text editor; otherwise, create it and open it with a text editor. Add the following lines:

// File > Send Link uses Kmail
user_pref("network.protocol-handler.app.mailto","kmailservice");

The 1st line is a comment describing what we're doing; the 2nd line performs the magic. Save & close user.js, restart Firefox, go to a web page, and choose File > Send Link. An email message using KMail should open. Ahhhhh!

(And yes, I wrote a book about Firefox - Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox - that you might find interesting.)

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox and KMail.)

Greasemonkey is still one of the coolest things runnin' on Firefox. If you're programmatically inclined, you too can write your own Greasemonkey scripts for the betterment of us all. Don't know how? Mark Pilgrim has written a book on the subject - Dive Into Greasemonkey - and released it under the GPL. Mark's a heck of a good writer, & the man knows how to program, so this could be just the thing for you. Read it & make something cool!

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox and Greasemonkey.)

Mac OS X has exposé, a cool tool that - with the press of a button - shows you all the open windows in miniature. Here's a cool Firefox extension that does something similar in our favorite web browser: Viamatic foXpose. Press a button, and bam! All your windows, in miniature, with cute lil' thumbnails for the choosin'. And yes, Opera has this, and yes, it's very cool. Check it out.

(And yes, I wrote a book about Firefox - Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox - that you might find interesting.)

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)

Here's how it works: you download Torpark (Windows only right now ... grrrrrr) and install it on a USB flash drive. Then, when you're sitting at a public computer, or someone else's PC, and you wanna browse anonymously, plug the USB flash drive in and open its Torpark, which really open a copy of Firefox designed to work with Tor, the super-cool anonymous proxy. Don't know much about Tor? Read more about it, lazy bones! Wanna stay anonymous when the US government seems hell-bent on knowing every damn thing we do online? Then use Torpark & stick it to the Man!

(Check out all of our posts on Tor and security.)

Earlier today, this guy on a mailing list complained about a problem with the new Firefox. Here's my reply. Feel free to cut and paste it when others you know have Firefox problems.

<begin email>

The standard advice re: something wrong with Firefox applies here: create a
clean profile and use that. If you're still having problems, then you need to
uninstall the whole furshlugginer thing & start over. If problems stop, then
you have extension/config issues. You'll need to reinstall extensions, copy
over bookmarks, and so on.

This is a good explanation of how to create a fresh profile:

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager

Also, my book, Don't Click on the Blue E!: Switching to Firefox, covers this
in depth. It's available online and in the finer bookstores, and I'd sure
appreciate it if you bought a copy. :)

Try creating a new profile. Betcha a million bucks that fixes things.

</end email>

(Check out all of our posts on Firefox.)