firefox extensions – Daleisphere

June 27, 2010February 28, 2017

How to Avoid The Adobe Download Manager Firefox Extension

Having recently updated my Adobe Flash Player software for the umpteenth time on two different PCs, I discovered that if you download and install it in the normal way, you end up with a new and unwanted Adobe Download Manager Firefox extension that cannot be removed.

Here’s how to avoid this:

On the Adobe Flash Player download page, uncheck the “Free McAfee Security Scan Plus” option (who knows what that will add to your machine), then click on the yellow “Agree and install now” button:

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February 6, 2009February 28, 2017

How I Configure Firefox

I have recently reinstalled Firefox on a number of computers (iMac and two Windows 7 beta machines). Every time I do this, I have to recreate my Firefox configuration from memory. For the benefit of my future Firefox installs, and for anyone else interested in how I configure/optimize Firefox, in this post I describe the various tweaks I make to Firefox and the various add-ons and extensions I routinely use.

Note: The discussion below assumes you are using Firefox 3.0 and above.

A Word about ‘About:Config’

The tweaks below are made through Firefox’s ‘about:config’ page. It’s easy to use. To access the ‘about:config’ settings page enter ‘about:config’ into Firefox’s address bar (circled in green below).

You can scroll up and down the list to find the key you wish to modify (they are listed alphabetically). Click the key you wish to edit, change the value and click ‘OK’. Alternatively you can type the key (or the first few letters of it) in the Filter box (circled in red below) to narrow the list.

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August 1, 2008February 28, 2017

Fix For Firefox 3’s ‘Open in Tabs’ Overwrite Bug

On May 25, 2008, I wrote this post about Firefox 3’s ‘Open in Tabs’ Overwrite Bug. That post has been, by far, the single most accessed post on The Daleisphere.

I’m delighted to report that thanks to Martijn Warger (see comment 57 here), there is now a tiny Firefox extension that completely solves the problem.

The Problem

For as long as I’ve been using Firefox (a couple years now), middle clicking on any group of tabs in a folder would open all the tabs in the group while simultaneously overwriting all currently open tabs – a very valuable function when you routinely browse by folders as I do.

This was the case when when the about:config

browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace

option was set to true – its default setting.

From the early Firefox 3 betas up through to the current Firefox 3.0.1 version, this has been broken. No matter how that option was set, opening new tab groups appended the new tabs to open tabs instead of overwriting them (more details in my original post).

The Solution

[June 30,009 Update: Martijn has updated the ReplaceTabs Extension to work with Firefox 3.5. Read about it on the Bugzilla here or download it here. I have tested it both on the iMac and on Windows 7 RC and it works just fine. Do not used the old one crossed-out below if you have Firefox 3.5 or above]

~~Click~~ ~~here~~ ~~to download/install Martijn’s "ReplaceTabs Extension 1~~". You will need to open the.xpi file with Firefox to install the extension. after installation, Firefox will need to be restarted for the solution to take affect. Once restarted, make sure the about:config option (see picture below) is set as follows:

browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace = true

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May 25, 2008February 28, 2017

Work Around for Firefox 3’s ‘Open in Tabs’ Overwrite Bug

Bugzilla Reports: Bug 175124 | Bug 395024
Forum Threads: mozillaZine | whirlpool
Last Update: August 1, 2008

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[Nov 8. 2008 Update: There is a new add-on from the Mozilla add-on directly to solve the problem: ‘Openintabs-erase’. If you try it, please let us know how it went for you in the comment section below. I haven’t tried it because I’m happy with Martijn’s solution (below).]

[June 30, 2009 Update: Martijn has updated the ReplaceTabs Extension to work with Firefox 3.5. Read about it on the Bugzilla here or download it here. I have tested it both on the iMac and on Windows 7 RC and it works just fine. Do not used the old one crossed-out below if you have Firefox 3.5 or above]

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[Update: August 1, 2008: We have a solution! Martijn Warger posted the "~~ReplaceTabs Extension 1" available~~ ~~here~~ that completely solves the problem! I have replaced all the add-ons discussed below with this tiny Firefox extension (open the downloaded .xpi file with Firefox), and set the about:config ‘browser.tabs.loadFolderAndReplace’ option to ‘true’. Browsing with folder groups in Firefox 3.0.1 now works just as it did in earlier versions of Firefox – overwriting open tabs with your new tabs. For complete details see my new Fix for Firefox 3’s ‘Open in Tabs’ Overwrite Bug post. Thanks so much Martijn!]

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Firefox allows you to organize bookmarks into folders. You can simultaneously open all bookmarks in a given folder by either: 1) clicking on the " Open all in Tabs" option in the folder; or by 2) middle clicking on the folder itself.

When I use Firefox to browse the Internet, I almost exclusively use this feature to browse by folder groups rather than browsing one site of a time. For example, when I want to catch up on the news, I middle click on the "News" folder on my toolbar. When I wish to read my forums, I middle click on the " Forums" folder on my toolbar. I use dozens of such folders, set up on my Firefox toolbar and in my bookmark hierarchy, to navigate the Internet on any given day.

The Problem

For as long as I’ve been using Firefox (a couple years now), middle clicking on any folder group (the "Forums" folder, in the example above) would overwrite all previously opened tabs (the "News" folder tabs in the example above) . So, for example, if the "News" folder contained eight sites and the "Forums" folder contained 10 sites, after middle clicking on the ‘Forums’ folder, just 10 open tabs would remain.

Starting with Firefox 3, when a new folder group is opened, new tabs are appended to the previously opened tabs rather than overwriting them. So, in the example above, after middle clicking on the ‘Forums’ folder, 18 tabs would remain open instead of 10.

You can see then that, if you browse by folders, as I do, within a short time you could have 100 or more open tabs. This becomes untenable very quickly!

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