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.

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!

So, now the question is – what does it look like in action?

I do have to say, this is a very innovative idea.  Not sure if it is really practical, but shows that there are still a lot of creative minds out there tweaking around with what Firefox can do.

Read more about this project over at blog.mozbox.org.

I have one more Firefox 3.6 about:config tip up my sleeve.  By toggling one setting, you can go from having a drop down list of tabs to a thumb-nailed view of each tab that is open.

Here is how you too can enable this secret Firefox 3.6 feature.

How to Enable the Tab Preview Menu Button

• Type about:config in the address bar. Then, if needed click the “I’ll be careful, I promise!” button.
• Next, in the filter box – type in:
  • browser.allTabs.previews
• Right-click that about:config entry, and select “Toggle”

This will change it from false, to true.  You could take the same steps to disable it too.  Now when you click that icon with the four tiny squares, you will get a visually prettier way to check out all your tabs.

Also once this has been enabled, you can use the keyboard combination:

Shift + Ctrl + Tab

To get the same tab previews, just without the button clicking.

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In what is being seen by some as a silly feature to add, Firefox 3.6 is apparently getting better support for orientation of where it is at.  What does this mean, exactly?  Firefox will know, if your computer has an accelerometer in it, if it is tilting to the left, right, front, or back and will respond with the way the web page your looking at is displayed.

Here’s a few more details about the new feature coming to Firefox:

Originally built as something that we would include for our upcoming mobile browser release, we’ve made it available on desktop systems as well. Many modern Macbooks and Thinkpads contain devices and drivers that expose this information. We’ve added support for Linux, Macs and some Thinkpads where drivers and devices are available.

Overall, this is a pretty awesome new feature for the computers that will support it.  This picture really does not do it justice, go check out the video demonstration over at hacks.mozilla.org.

Anthony is one of the driving forces behind that project, so I thought it would be fun to pick his brain to find out what his part in the project is, and what advice he might have for other hopeful Greasemonkey script writers or Firefox add-on developers.

What all have you done in development for the Firefox Greasemonkey extension?

I’ve definitely lost track of when and how exactly I first learned about Greasemonkey, and when I got involved.  Luckily, I can look up enough old records to get a pretty good idea of what the right answer here is.

I first interacted with Greasemonkey as a user.  Quickly though I graduated to User Script author.  My earliest blog post about a script I authored was in March of 2005.  I wrote a few scripts, some quite popular, for a while.  By June, Mark Pilgrim contacted me about being included in the “Greasemonkey Hacks” book, essentially a cookbook-like collection of existing User Scripts, with discussion about what they were and how they worked.  I was included as a contributor when that book was published.

I am first credited in a commit message from November, 2006.  That’s when I first began development of Greasemonkey itself, nearly three years ago.  At the time, the original creator, Aaron Boodman, was very much in charge and I was minimally involved.  Over time, I became more and more involved in the development process.

The first change I made to the source code directly, rather than submitting to the maintainers and being recognized for, was in February of 2007.  It was a very gradual process from there, but by some time in 2008 I was one of the more recognized authorities within the development community.  Finally, in August of 2009, the project’s original creator stepped down from the role of primary developer, handing the reins to myself and Johan Sundström, leaving me in the “co-lead” role with Johan.

Development progress over time has been relatively slow.  On one hand, Greasemonkey serves its purpose quite well, so doesn’t need to change very much.  On the other, there was a more complicated and difficult process for agreeing to and including changes.  Now that I’m more “in charge” than ever, I (along with Johan) am hoping to make it easier for Greasemonkey to progress, in the future.

As far as scripting and coding goes, how did you get started and what would you suggest somebody who wants to write their own Greasemoney script or Firefox add-on go to learn more on how to do so?

I’ve been programming since I was 10 or 11 years old.  Even earlier than that, I did “programming” by typing source code from a magazine into the Atari BASIC interpreter.  By my teens I was writing little programs, and by college I was beginning to learn PHP.  I got involved heavily in web development, and have been doing that professionally for six years now.

I was interested in Firefox extension development from the word go. Back in the 1.x days, however, tutorials and documentation was sparse, varied, and confusing.  Luckily today these problems have been solved. Mechanisms in Firefox 2 and 3 help make extension development easier, and both documentation and examples are much easier to find and understand.

I actually tried, and failed, to make my own extensions a few times. I finally got my first one running in June of 2005. Since then I’ve made a few of my own, and gotten involved with Greasemonkey.  For new extension authors, the developer.mozilla.org site is definitely the place to go, today.

User scripts are a different beast, and thankfully quite a bit simpler.  If you know javascript, you can probably get your first user script working in just a few minutes.  To learn how, visit the Greasespot Wiki, specifically the Manual.  The “common pitfalls” article by Mark Pilgrim is also very useful.

As an add-on developer, is there anything else you wish that the Mozilla team provided, or do you feel pretty happy with the information and support that they provide to developers?

It’s hard to say.  At this point, I’m a seasoned developer, so most of what I need is in my head.  There are two things that I would really like though:

Something like xulplanet.com’s XPCOM reference. The xulplanet.com site is now dead, giving just a link to the general developer wiki.  This is a good and helpful wiki, *but* has two weaknesses: it covers many disjoint topics (i.e. both web development, and extension development), and lacks the coverage that xulplanet.com
had.  There are many interfaces that, now, are harder to discover and understand.  Since xulplanet went away, I’ve found myself resorting to reading the source directly, which is more difficult to navigate to, and more difficult to read.

Better support for venkman. Venkman, the javascript debugger, was once quite wonderful.  Today, it’s often difficult to find the file you want to access (sometimes it’s there, sometimes it’s not) and almost impossible to find those that are/are referenced by javascript components.  Venkman seems to have bitrotted a bit.  Personally, even for web development, I strongly prefer it to Firebug for script debugging — it provides a multi-paneled interface that is significantly easier to use, than that of Firebugs, which is designed to fit in that tiny band at the bottom of the browser.

How big of a role has working on Firefox add-ons played in your professional life?

Almost none.  I interviewed for, but ultimately did not accept one position that would have been FF extension development.  My previous job did include creation of one extension, a port of the IE specific add-on that the company made, but was a secondary/side role.

What Firefox add-ons or Greasemonkey scripts are you a fan of?

For extensions, I like FireBug and Firecookie, JSONView, Open In Browser, and Web Developer extensions.

Most of the user scripts I use, I wrote myself.  Of those I find Linkify Plus and Submit in Select to be indispensible.  But I also use Check Range, and Google Reader Quick Links.

For more information on Anthony, what he does and his work – be sure to check out his personal site Arantius.com.  To check out all the Firefox add-ons he has been a part of, you can also check out his profile page on the Mozilla Add-ons web site.  From all the Firefox fans, I would also like to thank Anthony for the work he has done to (in the long run) make Firefox a better browser for all.

Please Note: To use any of these, you will need to have the Firefox add-on Stylish installed.

No Icon Image Until Click – New tab button icon does not appear until you CLICK on it instead of when you hover because there is another style that produces that effect.

Tiny + 3D(Special Effects) – New Tab Button on the tab bar is tiny and when you click on it, it changes.

Left Side New Tab Button – Move the new tab button to the left of the tab bar, instead of the far right of the tab bar.

Smaller New Tab Button – make the new tab button smaller, which changes how it looks in the Firefox interface (makes it more of a button).

Change the New Tab Icon into a Firefox Icon – Want something a little more colorful to show you how to open a new tab?  This user style will replace your new tab icon with the Firefox icon.

Round off the New Tab Button – Give that new tab button a rounded off edge, so it isn’t such a square.

Change the New Tab Button Color – with this, the new tab button will become another color when you hover.

Remove the Open a New Tab Button – Don’t like the new tab button?  With this user style you can get rid of it all together.

Hope you enjoyed these Stylish tweaks from the awesome coders at UserStyles.org.  If you have another favorite style edit for Firefox 3.5’s new tab button, or you fully enjoyed any of these tweaks, be sure to let us know in the comments.

Need to access the Firefox 3 Library function without clicking on Bookmarks, then Organize Bookmarks?  You could always go with the keyboard combination Ctrl+Shift+B.  Want an easier one? Try typing this in your address bar:

chrome://browser/content/places/places.xul

This will open up your Firefox 3 Library inside of your main browsing window.  Now you can have a little more screen real estate to edit and manage your favorite links.  Bookmark it and get this "big view" at your fingertips anytime you need it with just the click of a bookmark.

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The beauty of Greasemonkey is it can practically make anything better – even YouTube. Now it can’t make the idiots smacking themselves in the face with flaming bags of poo smarter, but it can give you a better way of viewing, downloading and sharing their misfortunes with your own crew of friends. Here is the Firefox Facts round up of some of the newest and the best Greasemonkey scripts to make YouTube really better.

1. Youtube Get FLV URL – Grab the URL for the .flv file so you can save the YouTube video to your desktop.

2. BetterTube – A number of hacks and fixes to try to make YouTube video (and other providers) better.

3. YouTube Relinker – This replaces YouTube embedded videos with a link to watch it on YouTube.com.

4. Videoembed – Auto adds the embed codes so you can watch videos in a screen right under the links.

5. YouTube Country Server Selector – Replaces YouTube embedded videos server with your country server or the one that you wish to use.

6. Video Focus v1.0.7 – Allows you to remove all the rest of the page content so you can focus right on the video you want to watch. You can also resize or maximize the video centered on the site.

7. Youtube Alternate Video Player – Replace the YouTube default player with the one from flowplayer.org.

8. YouTube Lyrics – Want to know the words to that video your watching? This script places a lyrics search link on the video’s page.

9. Pop YouTube Video Into Sidebar – Does exactly what you would think it does. Pushes your YouTube video to the sidebar in Firefox.

10. YousableTubeFix – Does a number of fixes such as removing ads, download links for videos, displaying all comments for a video and more.

As a side note, to try out any of these on Firefox you will need to make sure you have Greasemonkey installed. Know of any scripts that do the YouTube job better?

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+ Check out the sequel – 8 Fresher YouTube Scripts!

Stop Resizing and Moving My Firefox Browser

Want to stop the ability for web sites to resize your browser window or move it around? In Firefox go to Tools, then Options the the Content tab. Where you see the check mark box for “Enable JavaScript” hit the Advanced button next to it. Here you can enable or disable the ability for web sites to resize or move your existing window.

Turn Back on My Ability to Resize Any Popup Myself

Now the second situation you might find yourself in is when you want to resize the window but the designer locked it down so that you can’t. Thanks to gHacks.net though for finding this next tweak, you can override the “cannot resize popup” setting when you run into popups that can not be resized.

There is however a way in Firefox to override the “cannot resize popup” setting which in turn makes it possible to resize any popup that you might come across. To do so you need to type about:config in the address bar of Firefox and filter for the term dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizable. Set the value of this setting to true to be able to resize all windows in Firefox.

Restart Firefox and you should be able to resize those popup windows on any web site.