Why would you want to do this?  Well, some people may feel that having the Google+ information up there 24/7 is a distraction from what they are doing.  If I am trying to clear away the dozens of emails I got last night, do I really need to know that Uncle Bob has just put me in his inner circle?  Probably not.

You will need Greasemonkey installed to make the script work.  Go check out imwill.com for more information on and about this specific script and you can download it directly from the UserScripts.org website.

To get started, make sure you have the Stylish extension installed for Firefox, and then head on over to the userstyles.org website.  You can choose from these four sizes when installing.

• 60px
• 80px
• 120px
• 150px

Once you select the minimum width you want your active tab to be (for reference, the default size is 100px) hit the button labeled, "Install with Stylish" and follow the on screen instructions.

Sometimes it is the little tweaks that are the most impressive.  You can pick up FF3+ Increase active tab minimum width from the userstyles.org website.

Have you noticed your friend number going down recently? I always kind of wonder who would unfriend me on Facebook and why.  The Unfriend Finder user script will at least help me answer one of those questions.  It will keep track of who unfriends you on Facebook.

The problem is that once you have over 100 friends it is a little hard to keep track of them all.  The Unfriend Finder simply gives you the ability to know when they have unfriended you or their account.  Once installed, you will have 0 unfriends.  When a person removes you or deactivates their account, you will be notified on the new "unfriend" page added to Facebook by this script.

This Unfriend Finder also gives you the ability to know who has not yet accepted your friend request. So if you want to know who is ignoring you – this gives you the real time ability to do just that too.

You will need Greasemonkey installed to make the script work.  Once you have that in place though, head over to unfriendfinder.com and start finding out who is unfriending you on Facebook.

Need to tweak the Google search interface, and make it look the way you want it to look?  Maybe you want a few more columns of results? Maybe you don’t like the related searches? One great tool to use to tweak your Google search interface is GoogleMonkeyR.  This user script written for the Greasemonkey add-on will have you tweaking Google in just a few clicks.

One installed, the GoogleMonkeyR user script can be configured by clicking the link for it next your your email address at the top of any Google search result page. 

Here is a screenshot of the changes you can make with this fantastic Greasemonkey user script:

As you can see, there is a lot to love about this fantastic little script.  You can pick up GoogleMonkeyR from the userscripts.org website. To learn more about Greasemonkey and how to use it with Firefox, I highly recommend my guide on Greasemonkey usage in the Firefox Facts archive.

Want to give Facebook a more minimalist look and feel?  If so, I have found the perfect Greasemonkey script for you to install and use.  The simply named, Minimalist Facebook userscript removes several annoying (and space wasting) features of the Facebook website.

After installing this user script, here are the elements that were changed or removed on the Facebook website:

• unnecessary right column gone
• feed column and comment boxes extended
• chat info on left column gone
• chat dock is partly transparent

It is a big improvement.  I like the wider content area – seems to make things easier to read.  You can pick up the Minimalist Facebook userscript for Greasemonkey on DeviantArt or UserScripts.org.

With Firefox 4 coming soon, we will be finding a lot of new hacks, interface customizations and more we can do to make Firefox more personalized to our own needs.  So, with that said, I thought it might be fun to look back at some of the most popular hacks for Firefox 3.5 and up to give you all one last chance to try them out before Firefox 4 changes the game again.

How to Disable the New Tab Button

For some people out there, the new tab button on the tab toolbar was a waste of space.  By editing your userChrome.css file, you can easily remove it.

Speed Up Flash Videos (like YouTube)

Want to speed up your flash video watching?  By default, Firefox takes a sort of “snapshot” of whatever you are doing every ten seconds.  Why?  It is so that the browser can restore itself, just in case of a crash. With a little about:config tweak you can speed up the videos you are watching on YouTube and other video sharing websites.

Quicker Route to Private Browsing

Yes, we did finally get a way to enable private browsing in Firefox.  The problem is, it is a pain to enable!  Well, to save you a few clicks, I figured out a way you can start private browsing mode in Firefox from within the awesome address bar.

Move the Close Tab Button

In an effort to simplify the Firefox interface, did you know you can make a few changes in the about:config page to move the close tab buttons around?  I’ll show you how to move it to the far right of the browser, in just six easy steps.

Enable the Visual Tab Switcher

With Firefox 3.6’s release, we can all do a quick about:config tweak that will enable the prettier tab switching.  By default, when you hit the keyboard keys Ctrl + Tab you just rotate through your tabs.  By making some quick adjustments though, you can pull up the new tab switcher that you see in the picture above.

Make New Tab Pages Open in the Far Right of the Tab Bar

New to Firefox 3.6, when you are on a page, and you want to open a link in a new tab – rather than opening the link in the far right of the tab bar, Firefox will now open the link right next to the tab you are in.  Now, while this might be convenient for some, it is a feature I don’t really need.  Now, let us put things back the way they were.

Change the Firefox Spell Check Font Format

Want to make your misspelled words stand out a ‘bit more when composing a message in Firefox?  It is easy to do with this quick about:config tweak.  You can select no highlighting, a dotted line, long dots, a single straight line, a double underline or the default squiggly line.

I hope you enjoyed this collection of classic Firefox 3.5+ interface hacks and tweaks you can do to make the browser a little more customized to your own browsing needs.  Have another favorite customization tip I might have missed?  Leave it in the comments!

How can you add the full screen button to YouTube videos found on Facebook?  This is the question that was brought to my attention Friday by one of my Facebook followers, and after doing a little hunting I did find a solution.

You see, for some unknown reason, either Facebook or YouTube does not want you to watch videos in full screen when on Facebook. Why?  I guess they are afraid it will take you, “out of the Facebook environment, leaving you with a less desirable experience” or at least that is what I would guess the Facebook public relations team would have to say.

So, how do you bring the full screen icon back to YouTube videos featured on Facebook?  Just grab the Greasemonkey add-on for Firefox, then get the user script named Fullscreen Youtube & Vimeo (+others) on Facebook.  Once this script is installed, you will see the full screen icon come back to your online videos you find on Facebook.

The control to watch things full screen (or not) is back to being your choice, and not the choice of the Facebook public relations team.  Thanks to Filipe for the great question!

Want to make your misspelled words stand out a ‘bit more when composing a message in Firefox?  It is easy to do with this quick about:config tweak.  You can select no highlighting, a dotted line, long dots, a single straight line, a double underline or the default squiggly line.

Here is how you can make your spelling mistakes stand out more in Firefox.

1. Enter About:config in the Firefox address bar. If it pops up an alert, tell it that you know what you’re doing and proceed.
2. Search for ui.SpellCheckerUnderlineStyle. If you find anything, skip to step 5.
3. If your system is like mine, you found nothing. That means you have to add this configuration value. Right-click the main portion of the window and select New > Integer.
4. Now, enter ui.SpellCheckerUnderlineStyle to create a setting by this name.
5. Now you can set the value of this setting to one of several options: 0 for no highlighting, 1 for a dotted line, 2 for long dots, 3 for a single straight line, 4 for a double underline (like you see above – that’s my pick), and 5 for a squiggly line, which is the default.

Once you are done, you will be able to spell check like no other!  Well, ok – that might be a little dramatic, but you will have a more customized misspelled word notification.

Thanks goes to Download Squad for this amazing find!

Tired of having to take the “long way” when it comes to finding the images you want to see via a Google search result? View Google Images Full is a simple Greasemonkey userscript that will help.  When you click a picture inside of the Google image results, it opens up the image alone, and in its full resolution.

This helps to do away with the extra long way approach of having to click, “See Full Size Image” when doing Google image searching.

The best part about this userscript is the fact that you can still access the old link too.  Click on the image in a search result to be taken to the image, or click on the link titled, “Original Link” to be taken to the normal Google image search result.

You can pick up this userscript for Greasemonkey over at Userscripts.org.

Google recently changed the way your search results look and feel with a little more navigational help.  If you are not digging the new left hand sidebar on your Google search results, and you want to remove (or just hide) it, I have two great solutions for you to try out.

You should pick up either the Hide/Show Google left-hand menu add-on or the userscript with the same name for Greasemonkey.  Both options will add a toggle button (seen as +left nav in the picture above) so you can quickly gain more screen real estate by turning these extra links on or off.

Personally, I like the new helpful links over there in my Google search results, however it is nice to show or hide them when I need them.  It is all about dynamic customization here.

You can pick up the Firefox add-on on the Firefox Add-ons web site.  If you already have Greasemonkey installed, I would suggest grabbing that version instead over at UserScripts.org.  Either way you go, you’ll be able to toggle this new Google interface feature on or off depending on your own searching needs.