February 3, 2010 23:15 pm by Jal
January 26, 2010 12:05 pm by Jal
Taskbar Previews is a real-time thumbnail of the window displayed when you hover over it’s icon in the taskbar in Windows Vista and 7. If you have noticed, the open tabs of the Internet Explorer are also displayed in the taskbar previews but other browsers are not supported. However, with a small trick, you can enable Taskbar Previews for Firefox 3.6 in Windows Vista and 7.
How to enable Taskbar Previews for Firefox 3.6?
1) Open Firefox 3.6 and in the address-bar, write ‘about:config’ and press Enter.
2) Click ‘I’ll be careful, I promise!’ button and you will be presented with a huge list of configuration options.
3) In the ‘Filter’ box, write ‘browser.taskbar’ and you will be able to see some entries below.
4) Double-click the entry ‘browser.taskbar.previews.enable’ to set it to ‘true’.
There you go! You’ve unlocked the ‘Taskbar Preview’ visual treat for Firefox. 
January 23, 2010 6:24 am by Jal
Recently Mozilla slipped out a new version to Firefox –
Firefox 3.6, packed with some revamped and some new features. Now
it turns out that Firefox 3.6 is capable of integrating the Windows-like Alt-tab feature natively.
With this new feature, called the Ctrl-Tab Preview, you can quickly navigate through all open tabs using the key combination ‘Ctrl’ + ‘Tab’, similar to the Alt-Tab feature in Windows.
How to enable Ctrl + Tab Preview feature in Firefox 3.6?
1) Open Firefox 3.6 and in the address-bar, write ‘about:config’ and press Enter.
2) Click ‘I’ll be careful, I promise!’ button and you will be presented with a huge list of configuration options.
3) In the ‘Filter’ box, write ‘browser.ctrlTab.previews’ and you will be able to see its entry below.
4) Double-click on it to make it ‘True’.
Now you can ‘preview’ all the open tabs using Ctrl+Tab hotkey.
Enjoy!
January 3, 2010 7:35 am by Jal
This has been pretty silent and smooth. Mozilla quietly slipped out an RC1 of the Firefox’s avatar built specially for the Maemo (Nokia N900 and Nokia N810).
Firefox RC1 for Maemo aka Mozilla Fennec is claimed to give you a glitch free, full multimedia enabled browsing experience on Maemo. It strives to make you forget about the clunky, stripped-down versions of the conventional mobile web.
According to Pavlov, a software engineer at Mozilla, Firefox’s Maemo has some significant improvements like
» Enhanced text rendering
» New hooks for add-on developers
» Fixes to some N900 related issues
» Available in more than 30 languages
» More eye candy
Image Courtesy: Unwired
Other notable features of Fennec:
» Password manager
» Tabbed browsing,
» One-touch bookmarking
» Geo-location based browsing
» Desktop syncing
TechExplorer verdict: If you are using Maemo (Nokia N900 or Nokia N810) there is no reason why you shouldn’t use Fennec. We definitely recommend it.
Update: Mozilla Fennec RC2 released. If you are running RC1, you will get an update shortly. You can manually install it by clicking the link below.
Download Mozilla Fennec RC1 RC2 for Maemo
December 2, 2009 19:41 pm by Jal
I was unable to post for almost a week and there is a reason for that. A happy reason. Uptill now, TechExplorer was hosted on blogger platform and we recently made a switch to BlueHost and now using WordPress as our CMS. During the whole process I frequently dealt with online money transactions and which made this post possible. I made some apparent conclusions on what browsers one should use while dealing with sensitive online transactions.
Although most browsers have evolved themselves and are quite capable for online transactions and the security measures that come alongwith, here are the top 3 browsers one should use irrespective of what your favorite one is.
#3 – Opera 10.x
Opera is certainly one of the highly anticipated and much loved browser with great features. However, I felt the browser being a little slow while making online transactions. It takes quite a time to load a page during a transaction and urges you to hit the refresh button again (which is a terrible thing to do while the transaction is in process). Moreover, I felt that Opera is a bit tacky in handling and displaying Ajax content that reloads a specific content on your webpage. So, Opera goes at #3.
#2 – Mozilla Firefox 3.x.x
My personal favorite. Mozilla Firefox is unarguably the best browser I have used. But when it comes to online transactions, it ‘sometimes’ behaves unexpectedly. The worst thing is, you never know when. We know that Mozilla Firefox is notorious for being resource hungry and chokes your computer if lot of tabs are open or if an addon misbehaves. This can ruin your work. Otherwise, the transaction itself is a smooth process in Firefox. You just have to be a bit careful on opening multiple instances of Firefox windows and tabs while doing some important work. Hence, #2 for Mozilla Firefox.
#1 – Internet Explorer 7+
Not so happy about ranking IE as #1 but when it comes to compatibility with almost all websites, specifically the ones involving money transactions, IE is an out-n-out winner. The reason lies not in the capability but the popularity of IE. Web devs design their websites keeping the compatibility with IE at the top of their list. This is reason enough to use IE when dealing with online transactions. Moreover, it is my personal experience that certain websites of banks and financial institutions are rather shoddy and can only be used with IE if you seek a glitch free experience. Hence, #1 for IE.
Finally, it’s needless to say your browser should be up-to-date with a good antivirus running on your computer while performing an online transaction.
October 29, 2009 13:14 pm by Jal
Firefox is an amazing browser with lots of features and support for 3rd party addons. But with lots of features, comes little annoyances that you hardly even notice. But it there. Such is the default download manager window. Whenever you start a download, the download manager window pops up, distracts you, takes away focus and requires your action to minimize it. I personally find it very irritating. I just need to know my download progress whenever *I* feel so. If you are also the one getting annoyed by the little download manager window, here’s a quick tip:
1) Open Firefox and navigate to ‘about:config’.
2) In the ‘Filter:’ box, type in ‘download.manager’ and you will get all the configuration options related to download manager.
3) Double click ‘browser.download.manager.showWhenStarting’ to change its value to ‘false’.
You’re done. Now whenever you click a download link, the download will be done silently and in case you want to see the download progress then click ‘Tools’ > ‘Downloads’ or simply Ctrl+J.
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October 19, 2009 21:47 pm by Jal
Google Chrome has paved its way to become one of the finest browsers due to its remarkably sleek and light interface. But as with all applications, Google Chrome is prone to crashes and unexpected shutdowns. Chances are, you may not only loose your current session but also the bookmarks, profile settings and history. To avoid such implications, there is a small application called
Google Chrome Backup which easily backs up your profile settings and can be summoned in case of a crash. Google Chrome Backup lets you create, manage and restore Google Chrome profiles which holds data like bookmarks and history. This application also supports Chromium.
Screenshots: parhelia-tools.com
The GUI is very intuitive to use. Just a few clicks and you are all sorted. Although this software is free to use, you can avail features like ‘Bookmarks Manager’ if you register.
Download Google Chrome Backup
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It is all very clear that Firefox 4.0 will be leaning heavily on the UI changes to make web browsing fun and easy for the users. Revamping the UI seems to involve animations as well. Stephen Horlander released two videos depicting the New Tab animation and the visually appealing Tab Tear Off.
