All in all, 2009 was a great year for Firefox.  It grew by leaps and bounds, and continues to be the best alternative browser out there.  Firefox Facts did pretty well in it’s own right too – surpassing the 7,000+ RSS subscriber mark.  So with today being the last day of 2009, let us all sit back and revisit some of the best posts of the year.

Here are 10 of the most read stories, tips, tutorials and reviews I have posted here in 2009.  Hope you check out some classics you might have missed, or revisit a favorite post or two.

#10 – Love (or Disable) the New Tab Button in Firefox

Love it, or hate it – Firefox got one more addition to it’s browser that seems to have gotten a mixed reaction from the fans. The open new tab button rests at the end of your tab bar in Firefox 3.5 giving you an easier user interface to open a new tab.

• More Tab Fun – Move the Close Tab in Firefox

#9 – 10 Popular Web Designer Tools for Firefox

Thanks to Firefox and some of the great add-ons that have been developed for it, your browser is your best friend when it comes to web site design.  From CSS tools, to promoting your domain, here are 10 of the most popular web designer tools for Firefox.

• Top 10 Greatness – Top 10 Personas Backgrounds for Firefox

#8 – Add Another Bookmarks Toolbar to Firefox

Have more than a few bookmarks you want to keep handy on the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox but don’t have the room?  Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar, an extension for Firefox, will help you solve that issue by letting you add as many bookmark toolbars as you need.

• Popular Add-ons – Most Downloaded Bookmark Add-ons

#7 – Firefox Private Browsing Mode Help and FAQ

Want to increase your privacy on your PC?  With the release of Firefox 3.5, our favorite browser now has a Private Browsing mode.  Usually your browser remembers the web sites you have visited, your user names and passwords, your browsing history and more.  However, with this newest addition to the Firefox 3.5 feature list, you can now go incognito on the Internet.

• Firefox Tip – Easier Access to Private Browsing Mode

#6 – Convert YouTube Videos to MP3

The experimental add-on YouTube 2 MP3 will convert and download YouTube videos in the .mp3 audio format.  There is no doubt that YouTube has a large collection of music videos, so this type of service was bound to happen eventually.

• More YouTube Tips – 1-Click YouTube Video Downloader

#5 – Speed up Flash Videos in Firefox

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.  Now you might ask, what does this have to do with flash videos?  Well, the snapshot action is what is causing your ten second delay, at times, with watching flash videos on the Web.

• Firefox Hacks – More Fun Tips with About:Config

#4 – 10 Popular Themes That Are Firefox 3.5 Ready

One of the negative side effects of a new version of Firefox rolling out is the fact that some Firefox theme creators neglect to update their themes to the newest versions.  So, when updating our browser, that leaves some of us in the dark, when it comes to using the themes we know and love.  However, this time around many more popular themes have been updated to support Firefox 3.5 and here are my favorite ten for you to choose from.

• Skins Galore – All the Great Firefox Themes I’ve Reviewed

#3 – Skip to the Download on Rapidshare, Megaupload and More!

Want to skip the totally unnecessary “wait to download” pages on Rapidshare, Megaupload and more?  SkipScreen, and add-on for Firefox is here to help.

#2- All About Perspective – Firefox Wallpaper

Firefox wallpaper that I would actually see myself using is hard to find.  The main reason behind third is that I don’t really like text on my desktop, and I really don’t like feeling like a marketing campaign either.  So with that said, what type of Firefox wallpaper does make me happy?

• Desktop Decorations – Five Star Firefox Wallpaper

#1 – Beginner’s Guide to Greasemonkey

In a nutshell, Greasemonkey is an add-on for Firefox that allows you to customize a web site’s look and function.  Now you don’t have to be a coder to use it though, because there are already hundreds of scripts out there available for free that you can use to help you do a number of different things.

• Another Great Guide: Beginner’s Manual to Stylish

I hope you have enjoyed reading all the Firefox Facts tips, tricks and more this year – and you’ll subscribe to the RSS feed, visit daily and be entertained and informed all the way though 2010 and beyond.  This site wouldn’t be a success without you, so thank you for making Firefox Facts on of the most popular Firefox tip related blogs out there today. Happy New Year!

BONUS – Check out the Best of Mitchelaneous (2009 Edition)

How Does It Work?

This extension adds the functionality to download, convert or embed videos posted on Facebook.  When you click the download video link, the video will open as a .mp4 file.  You can then select, “Save Page As” from the File option in your menu bar to choose where to save the file on your PC.

The convert video link will take the video to the Zamzar free file conversion web site, where you can convert the file to .flv, .wmv, .avi, or the audio formats .mp3, .flac, or .wav. 

Start Downloading Facebook Videos! – You can pick up the Facebook Video add-on from the Firefox Add-ons web site.  So there you have it, now you can grab those Facebook videos you have been wanting to save to watch later.  (Kudos goes to ZeroPaid.com for finding this tip!)

Tired of finding mp3 files on the Web, that have no inline player so you can simply check them out as you find them?  Well, thanks to the Lifehacker team you can now use Google’s inline mp3 player to stream any mp3 on any web site.

For those you have Greasemonkey installed, the Google Inline MP3 Player script inserts the Google flash mp3 player next to any linked MP3 file.  Want to give it a shot?  Go check out the Lifehacker page on the topic, and click there to get it installed.

As a bonus, for those of you who might want the opposite of this, we have the Give me the MP3 user script. Once you install this into Greasemonkey, you can pull the mp3 link out instead of using a flash player that is embedded on the web site you are browsing.

So to play, or not to play – you now have the option to do both!

Once installed, the add-on will add a link to each YouTube video page that says, “Convert & Download as MP3”.  Once clicked, the extension takes you to another web site where the mp3 will be available for you to download.  The only downside I could find, is that it takes some time to convert the videos to the .mp3 format. 

As a bonus, if you want to use the YouTube video to mp3 converting service without the add-on you can do that too.  Just bookmark this link:  http://youtube2mp3.wmn.eu/

You can download YouTube 2 MP3 extension on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

This downloads muxtape songs. Just click the “Download me!” link, change the file-name to your liking and append .mp3 to it.

There you go!  Pick up the Greasemonkey script in question here:

  http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/24382

Now of course I am not encouraging you to go out there and be a pirate, but for those tunes up there that you can not find anywhere else or may be original works from an independent artist you would like to enjoy – the option to download is now there.  I have a feeling though they will more than likely get this fixed soon on the MuxTape side of things.

So I am curious if anybody out there would be interested in seeing a Firefox Facts podcast? This is just an idea right now, and I would figure that I would cover a lot of what I cover here – but in audio form. I could also take your audio questions and comments or do interview with Firefox “movers and shakers”.

Now I am not going to promise anything just yet, just interested in hearing if there would be any interest from the public in me following up with the project.

The Mozilla Digital Memory Bank has announced the launch of a new weekly podcast featuring snippets from the memory bank’s audio content.

Organized a few years ago by the Center for History and New Media, the MDMB “is a permanent, open, peer-produced digital archive of Mozilla history” that “collects and permanently preserves digital texts, images, audio, video, personal narratives, and oral histories related to Mozilla, its products, and its community of developers, testers, and users”.

The first one launched, an interview with Ben Goodger, I have not had the pleasure of listening to yet, but I have a feeling it should be interesting.

The Stop Autoplay extension for Firefox disable the autoplay of the embedded music and movie (mp3, wma, wmv, avi, mpg, and more). Are you locked out of hearing or seeing it then? No! The users can press the play button of the controller to play it. Now this is the way the Web was suppose to be.

+ Learn More About and Install the Stop Autoplay Firefox Extension!

[Learn More About FoxyTunes 2.0!]

The Digital Inspiration blog shows how to construct a URL that will play any MP3 file with Google’s player, which is nice, but it seems like a lot of work. So I’ve modified the auto inline MP3 player greasemonkey script to embed the Google Player in case you prefer the look and feel of Google’s player to the Musicplayer.

+ Read More About This at Lifehacker!
+ Read More About the Google MP3 Player!

Facebook Fan Page Come join the fun on the Firefox Facts Facebook Fan Page!

© Mitch Keeler 2011 | Check out my personal blog and my hosting podcast too!

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