Posts Tagged ‘Firefox’

I have been having problems with Firefox/Swiftfox/Iceweasel and java on my Debian Squeeze box. There are a couple of issues at hand. The first is that the plugin package for java simply creates the appropriate simlink to the plugin provided by the parent java package and is dependent upon Iceweasel. This is a problem for me because I prefer the more streamlined and up to date packages available for Swiftfox and really do not want to have to have both on my system. the second problem is when I created the simlink manually and point to a java test page I get an error loading java. I did some reading and found out there are network issues with ipv6 and java which seems to be a common problem. I found this post and followed its suggestion. Everything seemed to look okay at the test page. When i tried to login to this WordPress blog (which uses WordPress Fluency) the browser crashes with a segmentation fault. At that point I am absolutely frustrated with the whole nonsenses and simply remove java from my system and install the open source IcedTea by installing it with apt:

sudo aptitude install icedtea6-plugin

which will remove Sun Java 6 and install the appropriate IcedTea packages. Now that is done Java applets and Java powered web applications seem to work just fine.

I use the official binaries of Firefox and Thunderbird from Mozilla. With this arrangement, hyperlinks in Thunderbird do not open into Firefox (the only browser on my system). It is inconvenience to copy each URL I receive in an email and paste it into Firefox. To solve this problem I exited out of Thunderbird and created the user.js file in my ~/.thunderbird directory (this file is found in a directory with a random string of numbers followed by .default). I edited user.js to look like this:

user_pref(“network.protocol-handler.app.http”, “/opt/firefox/firefox”);
user_pref(“network.protocol-handler.app.https”, “/opt/firefox/firefox”);
user_pref(“network.protocol-handler.app.ftp”, “/opt/firefox/firefox”);

Now I opened up Thunderbird and clicked on a Hyperlink in one of my eMails and Firefox promptly opened up and sent me to the URL. It seems that this behavior is default in Windows, but us Linux Users, who may not use the official packages provided by our distribution might have to make this adjustment. Alternatively you can use the ThunderBrowse plugin which will embed a simple browser within Thunderbird, or can be configured to specify an external browser.

I like to have a fairly clean and uncluttered desktop. There is no exception when it comes to my web browser. I have found the following Firefox Extensions and theme to provide me a sleek customized interface which stays out of my way.

Add Bookmark Here2

Add a menuitem “Add Bookmark Here…” to Bookmarks…

Fission

Fission combines address bar and progress bar (Safari style). This makes the progress bar more visible and allows for a nice visual effect.

Smart Stop/Reload

Combines/merges the Stop and Reload toolbar buttons.

Speed Dial

Direct access to your most visited websites

Tiny Menu

Replace the standard menu bar with a tiny menu popup.

These icons are designed around the simplified Stop, Reload, Back and Forward icons of Strata… expanding those basic elements across the entire interface. My goal is to create a compact alternative default theme… something that’s not just a special effect, but a fun and functional interface.

In addition to these extentions and theme I enter about:config in the address bar and change the value keyword.URL to http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&q= (allowing me to type in a search string in the address bar that presents me with the Google results, letting me remove the search bar from firefox entirely if so felt).

Google makes me nevus. Any monopoly makes me nervous. But Google especially. With absence collecting data from the majority of websites I visit, to their privacy policies, relations with China, Gmail, and Mozilla Partnership, it has become THE portal for the internet. I don’t trust them. I bailed out of any web application once acquired by Google, and thinking of moving my blogspot blog to a self hosted one. Perhaps I am a parinoid conspiricy type, but I am no the only one (read Google Watch or better, this Mother Jones article). With that said its an unavoidable evil empire.

However, you don’t have to use Google for ALL your searching needs.

First let me allow Clusty to introduce itself;

Clusty queries several top search engines, combines the results, and generates an ordered list based on comparative ranking. This “metasearch” approach helps raise the best results to the top and push search engine spam to the bottom.

But what really makes Clusty unique is what happens after you search. Instead of delivering millions of search results in one long list, our search engine groups similar results together into clusters. Clusters help you see your search results by topic so you can zero in on exactly what you’re looking for or discover unexpected relationships between items. When was the last time you went to the third or fourth page of the search results? Rather than scrolling through page after page, the clusters help you find results you may have missed or that were buried deep in the ranked list.

And with a name like Clusty, it’s gotta be good!

From the Clusty webiste

Next, say hellow to Ask.com

Our ExpertRank algorithm provides relevant search results by identifying the most authoritative sites on the Web. With Ask search technology, it’s not just about who’s biggest: it’s about who’s best. Our ExpertRank algorithm goes beyond mere link popularity (which ranks pages based on the sheer volume of links pointing to a particular page) to determine popularity among pages considered to be experts on the topic of your search. This is known as subject-specific popularity. Identifying topics (also known as “clusters”), the experts on those topics, and the popularity of millions of pages amongst those experts — at the exact moment your search query is conducted — requires many additional calculations that other search engines do not perform. The result is world-class relevance that often offers a unique editorial flavor compared to other search engines.

From Ask.com website

Last, but not least is Dogpile.

If you had a choice between a single-person search party, or a search team of half-a-dozen, which would you choose? Yep, us too. Why not put six search engines to work on something in the same time it takes to use one? This is what we call metasearch. Dogpile puts the power all the leading search engines – Google, Yahoo!, Live Search, and Ask – together in one search box to deliver the best combined results. The process is more efficient and yields more relevant results.

Aren’t all search engines pretty much the same? Funny, we thought that too, but they aren’t. In fact, different search engines often return different search results for the same query. Based on everything from how information is arranged on a web page, to what each search engine pinpoints as most relevant, search results can vary widely across each search provider.

Our time is important to us too. So, we had an idea to bring together the Web’s best search engines in one place and deliver the most comprehensive and relevant results, and metasearch was born. The solution is an efficient, single-search-box engine that makes things easier for all of us. Especially when you learn that our special technology removes duplicates and analyzes the results to ensure the best results are always on top of the pile.

From the Dogpile website

In Firefox you can replace the Google search tools with other options. I even go as far as to replace the keyword.URL function in about:config (typed into the address bar).

For Clusty: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=

For Ask.com: http://www.ask.com/web?q=

For Dogpile: http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/search/web/

UPDATE: these packages have been replaced by Firefox 3.6 (32bit only). To install use the Oojah!Repo.

The 32bit package was built using the binaries available from Mozilla. The plugins directory is symlinked to /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins so that you can simply install the flashplugin and javaplugin from the main repository.  The 64bit was created by compiling from source as discussed in this post and is rather bulky weighing in at 25mb (the 32bit is only 10mb). These where the first two packages I have every built for Debian, and I am by no means a pro at the processes, however, I thought I would provide them for whomever may wish to use them.