Give Firefox 3 Firefox 2’s Address Bar

Comments (14) · February 16, 2008 at 10:08 am · Firefox Usability

Today I saw my first Firefox 3 extension that bring back “classic” features of Firefox 2. It was only a matter of time before some of these started to pop up and I have a feeling that many more may be on their way.

The oldbar addon replaces Firefox 3’s new address bar with the one that you are used to now in Firefox 2. Here is the new Firefox 3 address bar (or otherwise known as the location bar):

Then here is the classic one you will get with this Firefox 3 extension:

You can pick up the oldbar extension over at the Mozilla addons web site.

Change Default Search in Firefox

Comments (3) · January 13, 2008 at 5:00 am · Firefox Hacks

Tired of having Google as the default search engine in Firefox? Maybe it is another search engine’s turn to be on top?! If you feel the urge to dethrone Google as the default search engine for your Firefox search box - this is how you can get it done:

In your address bar, type in: “about:config”

Inside of the filter search box, type in:

browser.search.defaultenginename

Double click that entry (or right click and choose “Modify”) and then type in the name of the search engine you wish to have as the default search engine. It must be one that you already have installed and also make sure you type in the name correctly.

Now if you type in “Yahoo”, restart Firefox and when your browser comes back up you will see the red Yahoo “Y” and Yahoo as your default search engine.

Tweak Google Calendar

Comments (1) · August 31, 2007 at 6:49 am · Firefox Usability, Greasemonkey

Gina is at it again with one of those “Better” Firefox extensions. This time around she tackles Google Calendar. As a big user of the other extensions she has released (plus I use Google Calendar too) I couldn’t pass up on the chance to try this one out.

The Better GCal extension for Firefox wraps some of the best Greasemonkey scripts into one easy to install extension. Editing the options of the extension allows you to also turn certain features on and off. Here are some of my favorite Greasemonkey scripts that have been included:

• Google Calendar Air Skin
• Collapse the Header and Sidebar
• Colorize Weekends
• Force Secure Connections (via https)

Plus a lot more tweaks and edits you can do.

If you use Google Calendar (or you think you might if a few things were changed around) then I would suggest giving this extension a shot.

Change Tab Close Buttons

Comments (1) · November 4, 2006 at 5:00 am · Firefox Hacks

Firefox 2 handles closing tabs a little differently than the old 1.5 version of Firefox does. With Firefox 2 you are given a close “x” on each tab - instead of having it all the way over at the right hand side of the browser. If this really bugs you or you want to edit around with it - I have found the perfect tweak for you.

+ Change the Tab Close Buttons!

New Digg, Old Style

Comments off · August 1, 2006 at 5:00 am · Firefox Usability

Are you upset with the way Digg looks now at version 3? Well, with a little scripting and some CSS skills you can roll yourself back to a more pleasing version. Personally I like the new look, but I have seen others that do not. Here is the fix for your problem.

+ Roll Back the Digg.com Layout!