Is it fair that other companies can install unrequested plugins to Firefox?  It is happening right now, and there is not a lot we can do about it.  Asa Dotzler brought this topic up in one of his most recent blog posts and I do think it is an interesting debate.  The three big tech giants out there find it ok to add things to Firefox without asking me first.  Google does it.  Microsoft does it.  Even Apple does it. 

Here is meat and potatoes of the complaint from Asa’s post:

Why do Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others think that it is an OK practice to add plug-ins to Firefox when I’m installing their software packages. When I installed iTunes, in order to manage my music collection and sync to my iPod, why did Apple think it was OK to add the iTunes Application Detector plug-in to my Firefox web browser without asking me? Why did Microsoft think it was OK to sneak their Windows Live Photo Gallery or Office Live Plug-in for Firefox into my browser (presumably) when I installed Microsoft Office? What makes Google think it’s reasonable behavior for them to slip a Google Update plug-in into Firefox when I installed Google Earth or Google Chrome (not sure which one caused this) without asking me first?

I have to agree with him, I do not think this is an ok behavior at all.  When installing any type of software to Firefox or to my computer in general – companies should be open and honest when doing so.  Make sure people know what they are getting and well, they shouldn’t be evil.  When you stop and think about it, Apple, Microsoft and Google all have their own browsers now too. 

What is to stop them from doing something bad with their Firefox plugins to make themselves look better?

The ACE Foxdie theme for Firefox might very well be one of the most creative themes I have seen out there today for the Firefox browser.  Now, that is pretty big praise to give any theme out there for Firefox – but let me tell you why I think this is so.

Once you install this theme for Firefox, you are actually given options on how you want the basic theme to look and feel.  You choose how the buttons look, the appearance of the browser, how it integrates with the rest of your operating system, and you can enable or disable a handful of tweaks.

• Under the Buttons menu, you select the size, color, shape and texture for the Firefox browser buttons.
• Under the Appearance menu, you choose how you want the tabs to show up.
• Under the Miscellaneous menu, you can hide favicons, change the location bar, and tweak with other browser settings.
• Under the OS Integration menu, you have the choice to choose what font you want to use, or to disable text-shadows in certain places.

You can tell a lot of love went into making this theme fantastic.  Just within this one theme, you have hundreds of different customization options, and nobody’s browsing experience has to be the same.

You can pick up this great theme from the Firefox Add-ons website.

Just to recap, the idea of Firefox Home is simple.  It uses the Firefox Sync service to keep your desktop history, bookmarks and open tabs accessible via your iPhone or iPod touch.

How to Setup

First, make sure you have Firefox Sync set up and running via your desktop Firefox installation. Next, go to the App Store on your iPhone or iPod Touch and search for Firefox Home (you can also install Firefox Home via iTunes). Then, all you have to do is launch the application on your iPhone or iPod Touch, enter your Firefox Sync account information and your secret phase.  You are finished.  Now you can take your Firefox browsing history with you, anywhere you go.

iPad Support?

So will we see iPad support soon for Firefox Home?  According to the Firefox Home FAQ page:

Firefox Home 1.0 for the iPhone will work on the iPad, but it is not optimized for the iPad.

So, sounds like it works – but might have to wait till a later version before it works really well.

Firefox Home brings your Firefox history, bookmarks, open tabs and the Awesome bar to your Apple portable products.  Not only are the sync features handy, but overall it is more convenient to browse using this great tool because you avoid having to type and re-type long and painful URLs or spend time trying to find that website you know you have bookmarked in your browser.  Firefox may not be allowed on the iPhone (due to Apple’s multiple browser rule) but Firefox Home is the next best thing.

If anybody has tried it out, please feel free to leave your own experiences in the comments.  Being an iPhone and iPod Touch-less person – I am waiting to see what your experiences are.

How excited are you about this new Mozilla innovation?

Firefox Home hopes to be your one stop for all the information you need to keep handy from the web.  No need to type out URLs when you have your Firefox Home application.  Here is a little more about Firefox Home from Mozilla:

Firefox Home enables access to the websites you need on the go by picking up where you left off with your desktop browsing. Firefox Home uses your browser data, securely synced from Firefox on your desktop to the cloud, to let you search and browse it quickly and efficiently. You can view the sites you want directly in Firefox Home, open them in Mobile Safari or share them with friends via e-mail. Your Firefox data is private and only you have access to it.

I personally have neither an iPhone or an iPod Touch, so this news doesn’t mean too much to me personally.  However, once Firefox Home has been added to the Apple Apps Store I’ll be looking for your thoughts on how great it is or what might need to be fixed, tweaked or updated.

Well, we all know we are not going to see Firefox on the iPhone.  Then again, we might get the next best thing with Firefox Home.  Using the technology behind Firefox Sync, this iPhone app with give an Firefox user access to their browser history, bookmarks and tabs from their recent browser session. In other words, you are kind of getting Firefox – but exactly the way you use it in your day to day life now.

Want to see it in action?  Check out this short video tour of the unbranded version:

It it still looks a little rough, do not worry.  Mozilla promises to polish it a ‘bit more before submitting it to the Apple App Store.

Even though I do not have an iPhone, I think this “next best thing” project they have going on here is pretty nice.  You can learn more about Firefox Home and development process on the Mozilla Wiki.

Looking for a lean, mean Mac only Firefox theme?  If you want Firefox to look a little more minimal on your Apple-powered PC, then look no further than Leanfox.  This theme has all the style and substance you need, and little to no distractions in the interface.

Here is a little more about the theme, from the developer:

The aim of this theme is to be no-nonsense, clean, utility like, compact, minimal. This theme has no extra lines or details anywhere: the tabs blend into the main chrome and only the active tab is really highlighted – making you concentrate on only one thing at a time. There’s also minimal separation between the tabs as it became apparent that separating lines were just distracting.

Only downside to this theme is it is Mac only for now (no Windows version yet) but maybe if we leave the author enough nice comments showing him the need for Windows version, he might reconsider.

You can pick up this theme from the Firefox Add-ons web site or via the official Leanfox theme site.

GrayFox, a new theme for Firefox does exactly that.

You see, the image you see above is from the theme when you have “Use Small Icons” checked in the Customize Toolbar window (right-click the navigation toolbar > select customize).  If you use un-check the option to use small icons, then the theme switches to look like this:

Pretty neat, hu?  The theme obviously has inspiration from Apple’s OSX, and Safari – but I won’t hold that against them.

Now for my next trick, I will let you know where you can find this awesome new theme for Firefox.  You can download the GrayFox theme for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons web site.

In the first 24 hours that is was available, Firefox 3.0.11 was downloaded 150 million times.   This big news comes on the heels of Apple boasting about 11 million downloads of Safari 4 in three days. *tries not to chuckle*

Now it is likely that both companies included the automatic updates in their download numbers, however that doesn’t really take away from the fact that many more users are getting those latest updates these days, which for security reasons is a very good thing indeed.

So congrats to Firefox for 150 Million downloads, and to Safari… well, 11 million is pretty good too. *holds back “that is cute” remark*

Looks like this Firefox theme is feeling a little blue.  The Blu Canidae theme for Firefox is a modified version of the iFox theme with Photoshop CS3 style icons.  The combination of those great features makes for a really nice looking blue/mac-ish theme. 

Here is a little more about the theme from the developer:

This was designed to be a cleaner, blue version of iFox. It has stylized buttons, and is intended to be a new alteration of my old theme, Blu Vos. I hope you like it. If you can, please leave a comment and a review. This helps me out immensely. If you run into any problems, or find any flaws, please tell me! I want to make this theme better, and your assistance makes that possible.

You can pickup the Clu Canidae theme yourself on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

So, for those of you who live the Apple lifestyle, here is the way you can navigate around the navigation bar without having to ever lay your fingers on your one button mouse.  If you know of any more (because as you can see, I am not a big Apple user) please share in the comments.  Would love to build up a database of more keyboard shortcuts for everybody to use.

Navigation Bar Keyboard Shortcuts

Choose Your OS: Windows | Linux | Mac OS

Cmd + [ or Cmd + Left Arrow or Delete = Go Back a Page

Cmd + ] or Cmd + Right Arrow or Shift + Delete = Go Forward a Page

Opt + Home = Go to your Homepage

F5 or Cmd + R = Reload a Page

Cmd + . or Esc = Stop a Page from Loading

Cmd + P = Bring up the Print Options

Cmd + J = Launch the Download Window

Cmd + Shift + H = Open Your History in the Sidebar

Cmd + B = Open Your Bookmarks in the Sidebar

Cmd + T = New Tab

Cmd + N = New Browser Window

Cmd + X = Cut

Cmd + C = Copy

Cmd + V = Paste

For the Apple fans out there, here are a few more bonus keyboard combinations, that should help assist you in getting your browsing done a little faster.

• Cmd + F = Find
• Cmd + Home = Go to the Top of a Web Page
• Cmd + End = Go to the Bottom of a Web Page
• Cmd + Shift + T = Reopen the Last Closed Tab

Know of anymore Firefox keyboard shortcuts that would be useful for your fellow Apple fans to know?  Drop in a comment and share!