The announcement of the next version of Internet Explorer, Internet Explorer 9 has caused me to also stumble upon an article that talks about what we should all be looking for in the next version of the Microsoft Internet browser.

I’m a happy user of Mozilla Firefox, which is mainly due to the ability to extend the functionality of the browser with the various plugins and add-ons I’ve found over the years to help me get more out of my Internet experience.

I’d say the big thing that Microsoft should be sure and add to their next browser is much more opportunities for extending the features of the browser.

As I think about those options, I begin to wonder why all of these add-ons couldn’t be developed in an open XML architecture that would allow the same plug-in to run on various browsers. That would take away some of the advantage of what Firefox has available to it compared to the other major browsers.

The other items that should always be addressed with a browser include a collection of "S" items. New browsers should achieve a goal of speed, security, standards and social media.

The standards could be covered with an open architecture. The popularity of a variety of social media tools should be easily integrated into your web experience as well. We should always expect security as an absolute bare minimum.

Post from: EveryJoe

Looking for a New Web Browser

There are a couple of websites I use regularly that continually wanted me to install the QuickTime application so I could enjoy the website in all its glory. I finally caved in and decided to give QuickTime another try.

Then I kept getting updates and updates that kept wanting me to install iTunes and Safari along with my QuickTime updates. It just gets annoying and I decided I’ve had enough. So I uninstalled everything again. Then I start getting the message window above. I couldn’t figure out how to turn everything off so I set-out for an answer.

I’d recently heard about the hidden options for Mozilla Firefox with the about:config settings. After searching around for some keywords I finally found two that seem to be doing the trick.

In the “Filter:” section on the config tools look for the following:

• plugin.scan.plid.all
• plugin.default_plugin_disabled

On both of these items set the “Value” to “false” and close and restart Firefox.

Since I’ve done this I haven’t had the warnings about the QuickTime plugin. I’m hoping it stays that way.

Post from: EveryJoe

Stop the QuickTime Prompts on Firefox

The functionality reminds of the Profile features within Microsoft Mail and Microsoft Outlook. You can setup a different profile for each member of your family if you all share the same computer, or you could setup a different profile for personal and business use.

Once the multiple profiles are setup you can configure Firefox to prompt you to choose the user profile you want to use when you start-up the browser.

Each profile maintains their own bookmarks, themes, history and add-ons.

My friend Dave told me about the functionality as a way to try a clear start with my security issues. It appears it did work, but my challenge is that it appears I’m going to have to manually reinstall all of my preferred Firefox add-ons. When I exported and restored them from another profile, the security certificate issue followed me to the new profile.

Post from: EveryJoe

Using Profiles in Mozilla Firefox

I eventually decided to try and delete all the certificates on my system first. I thought this might cause everything to refresh and as I hit more sites that required a certificate I would approve each request one at a time and see if I could track down the issue.

I keep approving them for sites I trust but they continue to show-up and annoy me.

My overall desire would be to not completely disable the functionality as this website provides instructions to do.

I’m wondering if there’s some kind of additional service that I can bounce these things off of in the future? Yet when I think of that, I think that is the purpose of my browser knowing what to do and verify these certificates in the first place.

Anyone have any ideas or suggestions on what I need to do to resolve these issues?

(Note: In the time it’s taken me to write this post I’ve been interrupted 9 times with a certificate warning)

Image: Mozilla Firefox Security Alert windows

Post from: EveryJoe

Fighting Security Certificates in Firefox

I’m going to contradict myself a bit now with that argument. When it comes to screen real-estate, I want an effective use of space. This argument may be less of a rant on size though and more of a rant on flexibility and personal preference.

This was recently made clear to me as I was trying to customize the display and organization of my toolbars in Mozilla Firefox.

If we take a look at the graphic above, there’s an illustration of what I’m talking about here. Layered towards the back of the graphic is how my collection of toolbars currently display in Mozilla Firefox 3.5.1. Taking up quite a bit of screen space.

My preference, after manually editing how I’d like things to be organized in a graphics program, is the way the color graphic is displayed. It’s a little hard to tell perhaps, but my Firefox related toolbars are stacked horizontally at the top, with the bookmarks bar below, then followed by my Google Toolbar and StumbleUpon toolbar’s stacked horizontally at the bottom. Three lines of toolbars instead of the previous five lines of toolbars.

From what I can tell, in Firefox, toolbars are locked and cannot be stacked horizontally to save space. Am I missing something that will allow me to do that?

Post from: EveryJoe

How Do I Customize Mozilla Firefox Toolbars to My Desires

The four extensions that were dead with the upgrade were the following:

• coComment
• Google Gears
• Google Notebook
• New Tab to Window

The tab function was okay to lose as moving tabs around was a specific feature added in the new version of Firefox 3.5. coComment I enjoyed using, but figured I could do without it if necessary. I’m kind of surprised that Google Gears wasn’t prepped for the upgrade and I no longer use Google Notebook, having ditched it for Evernote instead.

Post from: EveryJoe

Four Add-ons DOA After Firefox 3.5 Upgrade

Snagit of Firefox Add-ons Administration in Firefox

Here’s my list of preferred add-ons. I’ve grouped them by those that I use for business tasks and those that I use just as an extension and improvement of my browser experience. The ones I’ve bolded are those that I don’t think I could really live without and have become almost crucial to my online existence as I know it.

Browser User-Interface Improvements

• Better Gmail 2
• coComment
• Google Gears
• Google Notebook
• Google Toolbar for Firefox
• IE Tab
• New Tab Button Position (love this one but can’t find it anymore)
• Snagit Firefox Extension (available as part of Snagit)
• StumbleUpon
• Tab Scope
• Tab To Window

Business Tools and Features

• Alexa Sparky
• CodeBurner for Firebug
• ColorZilla
• Domain Details
• FireFTP
• Live Writerfox
• Web Developer
• Zemanta (just installed so still playing with this one)

Post from: EveryJoe

My Preferred Firefox Add-ons

During work, e.g., we open a web browser – because we are so used to it – but more importanly have several other programs opened simultaneously. While navigating from Microsoft Outlook to Eclipse to the work folders using Alt + Tab, it is irritating to find Mozilla Firefox in between. Also, the task bar has only this much place.

Still, most of the web browsers like the Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox continue to ignore our need for a “Minimize to system tray” option (Opera provides the option). And we don’t always know the registry hack to minimize Microsoft Outlook. Trayconizer comes to our rescue.

The “Mozilla Firefox” icon sitting in my system tray is not a photoshop gimmick. I used a miniscule utility called Trayconizer.exe to minimze Firefox to the system tray. It is only 10.5 KB in size and, hmm, doesn’t need installation.

All you have to do is invoke the target program, Mozilla Firefox in this example, through the utility. The easiest way to do this is to set the target of a shortcut you use like this:

Replace “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”
with C:\Downloads\Trayconizer.exe “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”

It may not be possible to Trayconize all programs and I am not sure if it works on Windows Vista, but it seems to work well enough on Windows XP. You can download it here. The page shows that the utility hasn’t had a newer version in over 5 years.

Image Source: Screenshots taken on my laptop running Windows XP.

Post from: EveryJoe

Trayconize Any Program to System Tray

Do not make the mistake of installing it or upgrading it now.

Firefox’s “Find Updates” in Tools –> Add-ons could not find the latest version 2.9 just like the Mozilla Add-ons website couldn’t recommend it because Site Advisor is not your normal .XPI add-on. One has to download and install a .EXE through the Site Advisor download page.

The latest version is about 3.0MB large, takes a lot of time to install, asks for a reboot, and even then creates annoying problems post-installation until you disable it. The problem is that every time you open Mozilla Firefox or Internet Explorer, a popup asking you about post-installation settings appears again, asking you to Accept or Decline their EULA. The annoyance stops only after declining.

I tried this (by mistake) on a friend’s and my laptop and the problem was persistent. On one of the two, the pop-ups stopped but McAfee Site Advisor no longer had its search bar and it wasn’t showing whether a site is safe or not. That is because one has to “Decline” to get there in the first place.

I couldn’t find any fixes online yet. Let me know if you have any.

Image Source: McAfee Site Advisor Screenshots taken on my laptop.

Post from: EveryJoe

Do Not Install or Upgrade McAfee Site Advisor

Meanwhile, Michael Howard, a principal security program manager at Microsoft, made a clean post about what they have learnt from the latest bug and why they couldn’t detect it in the first place. It is a very interesting read, especially if you can put aside your demands for infallibility of security engineers and appreciate the honesty.

Whenever a security threat becomes known, Microsoft gets a lot of attention that it would prefer not to. This is leading to the exodus of the Internet Explorer users to other browser options. Gregg Keizer of ComputerWorld covers a story that says that IE’s European share fell under 60% for the first time. A more interesting part of the story is that Firefox’s user share has stalled too, after the release of Google Chrome.

Brad Linder on Download Squad discovered a tool to backup the Internet Explorer Settings. Also in the post are links to tools that can backup Firefox profiles and Opera data.

After finding Symantec Ghost distasteful in imaging Windows Vista, Brian of Reich Consulting finally tried the Windows Deployment Service and wrote about his first impressions on it.

Image Source: Internet Explorer Logo from the Microsoft Website.

Post from: EveryJoe

Internet Roundup About the Internet Explorer