Starting with most likely the next Firefox 3.6.x update (currently scheduled for mid-October) the default set of Search Engine plugins shipping with Firefox will be changing. Microsoft’s Bing will now be included (user had to manually install this search engine plugin prior). Answers.com and Creative Commons are being removed, but can be installed manually by clicking the links here. Google, Yahoo, Amazon, eBay and Wikipedia are staying put along with any other search engines the user has manually installed on their profile. New Default Search Engines installed with Firefox 3.6 Source: Mozilla Links
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I can not completely say this new ‘feature’ was taken from Chrome. Presently Firefox has separate stop, reload and go buttons. There are many add-ons out there such as Stop-or-Reload Button which combine the stop and reload buttons in to one button. In the upcoming Firefox 4 this is taken a step further. The ‘go button’ (which appears at the right-end of the address bar when typing an address) is being moved off the address bar and merged with a combined stop and reload button. As I said this is sort of borrowed from Google Chrome. In Chrome on the…
The summer of 1995 we saw the release of Windows 95, which introduced the paradox of clicking ‘Start’ to turn-off your computer. But more importantly, that summer was also the release of Internet Explorer 1.0 which forever changed the way people accessed the Internet. Yes, there was the Netscape browser but in 1995 the Internet access was still fairly ‘controlled’ by online providers such as AOL which offered a “walled-off version of the Internet.” Internet Explorer was the biggest success for Microsoft, especially when IE4 was released in late 1997. This was the version that Microsoft bundled with Windows 98,…
Back in January I wrote about a couple Chrome Conundrums. They were how when I had Chrome window maximized I could not get to my hidden taskbar without pressing the Windows Key. Further if the Chrome was the active application (not in the background) my computer and/or monitor would not go into power save/sleep mode. A couple of months ago with one of the ‘silent updates’ of Chrome these issues were resolved. I can now have Chrome open maximized and placing the mouse at the bottom of the screen the Windows Taskbar shows up. Even better I can leave the…
The author of the YouTube: Auto Buffer and Stop AutoPlay Greasemonkey script has released an updated version (1.2.5) on April 8th. Recently Google/YouTube made changes which caused this script to stop working. Also new with this version, if an HD version of the YouTube video is available it will automatically be selected (this can be an issue for folks with older systems). Edit: There is an ‘Autobuffer Options’ button just below the video title and to the right of the ‘Subscribe’ button. Options includ: Autoplay Autobuffer Auto HD Hide in-video-ads Hide annotations YouTube Auto Buffer
From The Microsoft Blog: In one short year, Google’s Chrome Web browser tripled its market share. In December, it overtook Apple Safari as the third-place browser as the reigning leader, Microsoft Internet Explorer, continued slipping during 2009. According to Net Applications, Chrome ended 2009 with a claim on 4.63 percent of the market, after starting out at just 1.52 percent. During the same period, Safari and Mozilla Firefox also each gained market share, chipping away at IE’s still-dominant hold on the browser market. In January 2009, Internet Explorer had a 69.72 percent share. By the end of December, its market…
Yes, you read that correct Mozilla Exec, Asa Dotzler is recommending Firefox users to use Microsoft’s Bing Search Engine. Apparently this was sparked by some comments made regarding Google’s privacy by Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “I think judgment matters,” said Schmidt. “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Dotzler then links to the Bing add-on for Firefox, stating that Bing’s privacy policy is better than Google’s (and notably fails to mention Yahoo at all). Schmidt was talking about laws in the US, but the way he…
You would think Microsoft would have learned its lesson after all the negative backlash with the Microsoft .NET Spyware Extension. But this is Microsoft we are talking about. Earlier today I got an odd pop-up window from Firefox: The Windows Presentation Foundation plug-in has been disabled for your protection. Several people on Go Firefox! have reported getting the same message. From what I have read this plug-in that allows the embedding of XAML applications (an XML-based UI technology) in web pages, called XBAP and is part of the .NET Framework 3.5 SP1. On Tuesday, Microsoft announced a security hole was…
Kristof Polleunis recently dropped a note to The Guru to take a look at the Gcache Plus extension. A very simple yet useful extension which allows you to “Resurrect a dead pages“. Simply put once installed the add-on uses a keyboard short cut CRTL+SHIFT+ALT+G or context (right-click) menu entry (Gcached Page) to allow you to pull up (if available) the Google cached version of the page. Gache Plus works with Firefox 2.0 and newer and is around 12 KB.
Found this interesting story on the Microsoft Blog earlier this week. Seems Sony has cut a deal with Google (the makers of the Chrome Browser) to have Chrome to be the default browser on new Sony Vaio PCs instead of the usual Internet Exploiter. The deal is a big win for Google, which has struggled to give Chrome a significant share of the market. In August, Chrome captured nearly 3 percent of the market, versus Internet Explorer’s 67 percent and Firefox’s 23 percent, according to Net Applications. The agreement is Google’s first with a computer manufacturer. Microsoft has similar deals…