Browser Watch

Mozilla, makers of the popular Firefox web browser, have passed a huge milestone, with over 1 billion add-ons downloaded.

This number is much likely larger, as Mozilla only started tracking downloads in 2005, with add-ons also available from other websites.

Justin Scott from Mozilla says there are about “1.5 million add-on downloads per day and increasing”.

Add-ons are currently available for a large range of Mozilla products including Firefox, Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Sunbird, Komodo, Flock, and Songbird.

Have you fashioned your Firefox?

Firefox Add-ons, Firefox, Flock, Komodo, Mozilla, SeaMonkey, Songbird, Sunbird, Thunderbird, Tweaks

I’m sure some of you may be frustrated by Firefox 3.1’s new tab behaviour when pressing Ctrl + Tab. No longer does it just browse through the tabs, but instead it switches to the most recently viewed tab (much like Windows Alt + Tab.

Thankfully, you can turn the new Ctrl + Tab behaviour off, and return it old skool. Simply follow the steps below:

• Go to about:config in the URL bar
• Set browser.ctrlTab.mostRecentlyUsed to false
• Set browser.ctrlTab.recentlyUsedLimit to 0
• Restart Firefox

All done! Enjoy the old Ctrl + Tab behaviour.

Firefox Firefox, Firefox 3.1, Tweaks

Those of you still using Internet Explorer may notice that you can only download a maximum of two files at once. With a quick registry fix you can increase this number up to 10. The steps you need to follow are found below:

1. Click Start->Run
2. Type ‘regedit‘ without the quotes and hit Run.
3. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersions\Internet Settings
4. Click Edit->New->DWORD Value
5. Call it MaxConnectionsPerServer
6. Right click on the new value and select Modify
7. Change Base to Decimal
8. Change the Value data to 10 and click OK
9. Click Edit->New->DWORD Value
10. Call it MaxConnectionsPer1_0Server
11. Right click on the new value and select Modify
12. Change Base to Decimal
13. Change the Value data to 10 and click OK
14. Click File->Exit

You should now be able to download up to 10 files at once. Much better for today’s broadband connection. This trick works for all versions of Internet Explorer from version 4 onwards. Happy downloading!

Internet Explorer Increase Download Speed, Internet Explorer, Tweaks

Mashable has posted a great article with 25 resources on how to customise your favorite browser.

Included are resources for Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera and Google Chrome.

You can read the full article on the Mashable website.

Happy customising!

Chrome, Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari Customising, Tweaks

Edit: For clarification - there is no full-screen mode in Google Chrome yet. This simply opens the browser maximized.

One thing that many users may find frustrating is that Google Chrome opens in window mode. Thankfully there is a simple fix for this. By editing the Google Chrome shortcut, you simply need to add the -start-maximized parameter to the end of the shortcut line.

Your new shortcut line should look something like this:

C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe -start-maximized

Problem solved! Chrome will now open in full-screen mode.

Chrome Chrome, Full screen, Google Chrome, Tweaks

There are many cool little Firefox tweaks that users often don’t know about, all hidden away and editable from a special link within Firefox. These following tweaks will make your Firefox quicker and more efficient for today’s broadband connection.

To get to this special menu, in the address bar type about:config and then press enter. Firefox 3 presents you with an extra button asking you to “promise and be careful” which you can safely click.

Now you should be presented with a list of options that you can change to improve Firefox’s performance. Below are some common settings that can be changed. Simply click on the filter box and search for the following settings and change their values as below:

• network.http.pipelining → true
• network.http.pipelining.firstrequest → true (Not in Firefox 3)
  
• network.http.pipelining.maxrequests → 32
• network.http.proxy.pipelining → true
• nglayout.initialpaint.delay → 0 (Not in Firefox 3)

These little gems will help your Firefox fly faster. Pipelining allows multiple HTTP 1.1 requests to be sent before any responses are received from the browser, hence allowing you to ask for more data at once. Give it a go and try it out - you’ve got nothing to loose!

Firefox about:config, Firefox, Firefox 3, Increase Download Speed, Tweaks