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.

This is a handy browsing trick I just learned about recently.  Usually in my Firefox browser, I have the menu bar hidden, to save on screen real estate.  However, there comes a time (every so often) when I need to get it back.  Rather than un-hiding it, getting what I need, then hiding it again – I have found a much quicker way to bring the menu bar back for just a minute.

Let me start first with the steps you will need to take to hide the menu bar in the first place.  You will want to right-click on the navigation toolbar, then uncheck the menu bar.

Menu Bar Recovery Secret

Now that the menu bar is out of the way, I can share with you my resent keyboard shortcut I found.  To pull the menu bar back up for a few seconds, all you have to do is hit the Alt key on the keyboard. To hide it again, click anywhere else on the screen.

There you have it.  Now you can hide your menu bar and bring it back whenever you need it.  Have another interface tweaking tip to share?

Find yourself looking for more browsing room in Firefox?  Well the titlebar for the Firefox window does take up some space – so why not remove it?  The Hide Caption Titlebar Plus is that add-on you need to make this happen.

This add-on for Firefox will basically take away the chrome wrapper of your Firefox browsing window, and squeezes in all the basic tools you might need.  You can still minimize, maximize, resize and close the Firefox window like normal.  There are no borders around the program at all though.  When using it, I thought it felt like Firefox was kind of embedded into my desktop – which is not a bad thing at all.

Here are a few more features of Hide Caption Titlebar Plus:

• Never: No standard caption for any window, not even popups. (You can get a nice *optional* custom caption bar & borders for dragging.)
• Smart Popups: FF main window/s with hidden std. captions, but the popups will be detected and will have std. caption & borders.
• Smart All: Maximized FF window/s will stay with hidden caption, but Restored (un-maximized) ones will get the standard caption!. (Popups always with caption)
• Always (Firefox default): All windows with standard caption.

Only negative I found with this add-on was you can no longer move Firefox around.  You have to kind of drag and resize the left, and then the right (or vice versa) to get it in the new location.  That is kind of a drag (pun intended).

Want to learn more?  You can go download the Hide Caption Titlebar Plus extension for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons web site.

This add-on for Firefox really is your proverbial utility knife when it comes to controlling, editing or optimizing your browser tabs for better performance.

Not for the faint of heart, this add-on really lets you control every little aspect you would ever need to change in your tabs.  It really takes the best aspects out of some of the more popular tab-related extensions out there, and bundles them all into one handy add-on for the Firefox browser.

Here are just a few of the features it provides:

• Open Bookmarks/History/URL/Search in new tabs: left-click/enter in new foreground tabs, middle-click in new background tabs, ctrl-click/alt-enter in current tab
• Open new tabs next to current tab, Open duplicate tabs next to original tab
• Reuse current/last/all blank tabs, Auto-close redundant blank tabs
• Focus adjacent unread/last selected/last opened/left tab after closing current tab
• Highlight current/unread tabs
• Ctrl-Tab to navigate tabs in most recently used order, Ctrl-Left/Right Arrow in sequential order
• Undo Close Tab button
• openAllInTab/loadAllInBackground/loadAllInForeground statusbar buttons
• Tab clicking options, including left/middle/right/double/ctrl/alt/shift-click on tab/tab bar/new tab button
• Duplicate/Protect/Lock/Faviconize/Hide/Pin Tab

You can pick up the Tab Utilities add-on from the Firefox Add-ons web site.  If you are looking for the best add-on, when it comes to controlling how the tabs work in Firefox, it is hard to say there is any extension with more features out there.

Once FlexBar has been installed, you can very easily configure the visibility of all your menu bars, sidebars, and information bars in Firefox.  You can choose to always show, never show or just hide any toolbar in the Firefox interface too.

Now sure, a lot of what you can do with this extension, you could do by hand – fumbling through the Firefox settings.  The thing FlexBar tries to do right, is it gives you a single location to minimize the Firefox interface.

Here is a little more about the FlexBar add-on, from the developer:

Optionally you can display additional small buttons on left side of the Tab Bar. The navigation buttons offer an identical functionality to the buttons in the Navigation Toolbar. This way a quick page navigation is possible, even when the Navigation Toolbar is hidden. Additionally, there are buttons for quick access to the menu bar and the bookmarks toolbar. This way, even without auto-hide active you can save space by hiding the menu bar and the bookmarks toolbar.

Overall, I like this add-on for Firefox.  Anything that gives me more room to browse and customizes the Firefox interface for me is definitely a good thing.  You can pick up FlexBar on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

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.

Browsing space is important; especially for smaller netbook PCs out there.  So, why have the menu bar, bookmark bar and navigation bar shown if you don’t need them?  The Hide GUI bars extension for Firefox will let you hide all three, or bring them back with one single keyboard combination.

Once the Hide GUI bars add-on is installed, customizing it to fit your needs is pretty self explanatory.  In the options you can choose which toolbars get hidden:

• Menu Bar
• Navigation Bar
• Tab Bar
• Bookmarks Bar
• Status Bar

Next, you just choose the keyboard combination you wish to use to hide or show all the Firefox toolbars.

How to Hide Toolbars Manually in Firefox

Can you do this without the use of the Hide GUI bars add-on? Yes, but it is a little more complicated.  One of the new features in Firefox 3.6 is the ability to hide the menu bar.  The navigation bar and bookmarks bar were already hide-able before this most recent release. To hide them, just right-click one of the toolbars, and uncheck the one you wish to hide:

You can pick up the Hide GUI bars add-on for Firefox on the Firefox add-ons web site.

From head to toe, this add-on for Firefox will give you a lot of new toys, options and more to play with on your Facebook account, to make the Facebook experience even better for you.

Better Facebook Activity Tracking

After Installing, just navigate to Facebook’s web site to get started. Right off the bat, you’ll notice that your most recent notifications are now pinned to the right side of the Facebook window, as seen here:

If anybody un-friends you, you will also get notification from the front page of Facebook under the “Friend Tracker” section.

My Group Activity will alert you to new posts, members, and more in groups you are a member of.  This is much more handy than visiting each, one by one.

Better Facebook News Feed

On your news feed, you have a few more options to play with too.  Here is a little more about those from the developer:

Click ‘Mark All Read’ once you have read every story on this page. The stories will then be hidden the next time you view the page. But don’t worry – if any new comments are added they will show back up! This will let you keep track of conversations that you otherwise might have missed.

You can always go back and see all the hidden stories by clicking ‘Show All’, then hide them again by clicking ‘Hide Read’.

Better Facebook Options and More

By clicking the “Options” button on the front page, you can quickly configure and edit how you want to see updates come up.  For example, you can show, minimize or hide new friend notifications.

You can pick up the Better Facebook! add-on for Firefox from the Firefox add-ons web site.

More Facebook/Firefox Fun > Best 5 Add-ons for Facebook Fans

Want to hide all the stuff you do not really need on your personalized iGoogle homepage?  Thanks Super iGoogle, a handy Greasemonkey script, you can simplify iGoogle to only show you the content you need to see.

Why hide iGoogle content?

I really didn’t want to hide everything you see in the screenshot, I mainly needed a way to hide the left sidebar, because I really only use one page on iGoogle for my calendar, RSS links and e-mail.  Once you get Super iGoogle installed into Greasemonkey, the tool itself is pretty self explanatory.

What about other Google links, settings and more?

You get a drop down menu added to the iGoogle web page, where you can choose to hide or show the header, the sidebar, the footer and the mini search the script adds to the very top of your iGoogle page.  Other menu items include:

• Advanced Search
• Search Preferences
• Language Tools
• iGoogle Settings
• Change Theme
• Get artistic themes
• Themes for Causes
• Add Stuff
• Classic Home
• My Account
• Sign Out

So all the usual iGoogle settings are there, they are just tucked away so they are not a visual distraction to you.

Download the Super iGoogle user script on UserScripts.org.

Get more control over your tabbed browsing experience in Firefox with Tabberwocky. This add-on for the browser will give you dozens upon dozens of ways to customize the way you work with tabs. 

Some of the features of this Firefox extension include:

• Open in new tabs from Bookmarks, History, URL Bar, and/or Search Bar
• Open Selected Links in New Tabs
• Retain tab history when opening links in new tabs
• Show/Hide New Tab button and Close Tab buttons
• Highlight unread tabs
• Set minimum/maximum tab width
• Close tabs by double-clicking on them
• Tab clicking options

Plus many more.  It would take me four or five posts to go into all the control this Firefox add-on gives to your tabs. You can pick up Tabberwocky over at the Firefox Add-ons web site.  (kudos to Lifehacker)  It will give you more tabbed browsing controls than you can shake a… well, than you can shake a tab at.