Finding Your 404s with Firefox

Comments (2) · February 23, 2008 at 12:37 pm · Firefox Usability

Traveling to a link you want to check out, only to find that you reach the dreaded 404 (file not found) is a pain in the browser. Let say you bookmark a link, think you might read it later and then when you finally get the time to a few months later the page is gone. Well if you have Firefox there is new 404 extension that could help you recover your lost page.

Getting an award for the longest extension name ever, 404 : Page is Not Found ? Now it will be! will give you an “archive” button to push when you get your next 404 error page. This button will show you an archived version of any page. Under the hood it looks to be using the Wayback search at archive.org, so not all 404s will be recoverable. It is a very creative idea though, worth checking out if your find yourself running into dead ends a lot these days.

Recover Lost Passwords in Firefox

Comments (3) · November 21, 2007 at 7:24 am · Firefox Security

You know that sick feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, the one that means either you forgot your mother’s birthday or even worse - your password for your favorite web site. Thankfully if Firefox has been remembering these passwords for you, recovering them in an easy task.

Recover Passwords in Firefox Options

For the “long way around” fix - go to:

Tools > Options > Security

Once you find yourself there in that popup options box, go down to where it says “Show Passwords…”. Click that button and a new popup box should appear listing all your web sites and login names. To show your passwords click on the “Show Passwords” button and click “Yes” through the warning it tosses at you.

Quicker JavaScript Fix

For those needing a quicker fix - you can use the Firefox Asterisk Revealer. It uses a line of javascript copied and pasted into the address bar to take a shorter route at getting this job done.

Forgotten Password User Scripts

For the Greasemonkey fans - there are a few more options to try:

• Show Password onMouseOver
• Show Password onFocus
• Show Password ondblclick
• Unpassword

Show Passwords - Yes, an Extension Too!

Unhide Passwords - Sure there is a time and place for security - but if you really need to see what is behind the asterisks, this extension shows the contents of password fields in clear text (instead of the asterisks), to make that process a bit easier.  Have any other fixes?