July 31, 2010 2:47 am by Jal
Google and privacy issues go hand in hand. Even
Google admits it. And people like you and me are getting increasingly cautious about our privacies online. And we should be. Internet privacy tools have become the talk of the day and if you are using
Firefox or
Google Chrome, here’s something new to keep you notified when you are being watched by Google’s corporate evil eye.
Google Alarm, is a tiny add-on for Firefox and Chrome that shows an alert message (with an optional alarm ring) as and when you stumble on a site where Google lurks in the form of scripts. Obviously, it includes all Google sites as well. The add-on does nothing fancy and will never come in your way but it’s more like James Patterson saying “you’ve-been-warned”.
I kind of liked this add-on as it specifically tells me what scripts are monitoring my actions. There are 4 versions of Google Alarm, two for each browser, one with alarm ringer and one without it. Check it out.
Download Google Alarm for Firefox and Chrome
July 2, 2010 18:40 pm by Jal
Firefox 4 Beta 1 and (recently
Beta 2 
has been released and it’s been super awesome. I have installed it and it’s a refreshing change for me. Apart from the visual enhancements and snappier interface, I like the way how new features are so seamlessly integrated and the original features are tweaked to awesomeness. Now, if you have installed Firefox 4 Betas, then you will notice that most of your
add-ons are disbled owing to compatibility problems.
But, you can still use those add-ons by following some simple steps. Be ready to face the fact that even if you enable the add-ons, some of them might not work; while some will perform flawlessly. Due to these anomalies, Firefox disables all the add-ons altogether in their pre-release versions. Here’s how you enable it in Firefox 4 Beta 1 and 2.
1) In the address-bar, write ‘about:addons’ and press Enter. Alternatively, you can press Alt to display the menu bar, click ‘Tools’ > ‘Add-ons’.
2) The new add-on manager window will open. Here, click ‘Get Add-ons’ in the left sidebar. Then in the right pane, click ‘Add-on Compatibility Reporter’.
3) This will install the compatibility reporter add-on which will enable all your add-ons. The real purpose of this add-on is to let you report add-on compatibility status to Mozilla and it’s great if you do so, else you can just be happy with your resurrected add-ons. ;)
April 30, 2010 17:44 pm by Jal
You will witness a significant change in the next version of Firefox and that is the completely revamped add-ons manager. Firefox has been
working lately to tweak the add-ons manager, one of the most used feature in Firefox to make it more appealing and user friendly.
The new customized version of the add-ons manager works in a tab with a sidebar. The add-ons categories like Languages, Extensions, Themes, and Plugins have been placed in a sidebar to the left. Moreover, there’s a ‘Get Addons’ link that integrates the Mozilla Add-ons Gallery inside the add-ons manager.
However, I find the integration of search engine selection within the add-ons manager a bit odd. But the gallery integration makes up for it :). Mozilla employee Dave Townsend said in a blogpost,
What you see on trunk over the next few days is just the initial steps to switching to a redesigned UI and (more importantly from my point of view) a totally new extension manager backend that will make it easier for us to improve and build upon in the future. The changes are so large that it is important to get more people testing it now while it still looks fairly unpolished so we can pick up problems that we’ve missed.
The Mozilla Quality Assurance team has also declared today (30th April, 2010) as the Add-ons Manager Test Day for users interested to use and debug the Add-ons Manager Rewrite for Firefox. [image credit]
April 9, 2010 10:08 am by Jal
Ok, Internet Explorer paved a long way and is marching towards version 9 but can we expect the support for third party extensions in the new version of IE when Microsoft is going about making statements like, “Extensions (add-ons) cause 70% of browser crashes.” ?? In a recently
published white paper, Microsoft clearly seemed defensive by putting major blame on the extensions:
Although browser add-ons can add great new features to your browser, they can also introduce performance issues if written poorly. Add-ons cause most browser crashes, accounting for over 70% of Internet Explorer 8’s crashes. Slowdowns in Internet Explorer 8 are very often caused by add-ons – especially when you open a new browser window or tab.
Now to tackle it out, Microsoft also gave a solution. And that is to OFF them altogether.
How to troubleshoot issues with add-ons: Running Internet Explorer in “No Add-Ons” mode is an easy way to see if add-ons are affecting the performance of your browser.
I am not happy with this approach. Firefox also has the same issue but they never blamed the add-ons. Obviously add-ons are bound to be buggy because they are mostly developed by amateurs. It’s a browser’s responsibility to ‘automatically’ detect what’s wrong, do the throw and catch of exceptions, suspend the add-on and finally provide a notification message to the user. The keyword here is ‘automatically’. My expectations are high but it’s Microsoft we’re talking about right?
Isn’t it a coincidence that Mozilla released Firefox v3.6.4 (Lorentz) Beta today that’s capable to isolate each and every add-on process? That’s called a solution. Even, Chrome has to deal with hundreds of add-ons but it still is fast.
IE8 is good but not the best. Microsoft need to make it robust rather than blaming the extensions. Considering the present status of the web, add-ons are simply inevitable. You can’t (and shouldn’t) provide each and every functionality within a single package. I have huge expectations from IE9 but I seriously hope MS do not fall short on them.
