Mozilla

What is compacting folders in Thunderbird, and why you should do it

Chris Ilias 13 Comments

Are your Thunderbird folders taking up a lot of disk space, even though you only have a few messages? Is Thunderbird slow to open folders? It’s probably because you have not compacted your folders.

When you delete a message, it doesn’t really get deleted from the folder. It gets marked as deleted. Thunderbird sees that marking, and knows not to display the message. Compacting a folder will command Thunderbird to remove all messages marked as deleted from that folder.

To compact your folders, go to the File menu and select Compact Folders.
To compact an individual folder, right-click on the folder and select Compact.

If you’re having any issues, post in the Thunderbird Support forum at https://support.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/kb/ask

Firefox 4 Youtube HTML5

Chris Ilias 22 Comments

Okay, now that Firefox 4 is released and has been downloaded 40 million times, I want all Firefox users to do the following:

  1. Go to http://www.youtube.com/html5
  2. Click on “Join the HTML5 Trial“

Most Youtube videos you watch will be served in WebM format with HTML5 markup, instead of Flash.

Sidenote: Before you go thinking Firefox 4 is the first version of Firefox to support HTML5 video, it should be noted the HTML5 doesn’t specify video codec. Firefox has had support for HTML5 video since version 3.5.

How to change the colour of link previews in Firefox 4

Chris Ilias 3 Comments

In Firefox 3.6, if you want to see the destination URL of a link in a webpage, you can hover the mouse over the link, and the URL will be displayed in the status bar. In Firefox 4 Beta, the destination URL is now displayed in the Location bar.

There have been complaints the the light grey colour makes the text hard to read. This is something you can fix right now with a userChrome.css tweak.

  1. In Firefox, click on the Firefox button and go the Help menu, then select Troubleshooting Information. This will open the about:support page.
  2. Click on Open Containing Folder. That will open Windows explorer in your profile folder.
  3. Create a new folder called “chrome“.
  4. Navigate to the \chrome\ folder, then right-click and select New > Text Document.
  5. Name the file “userChrome.css“.
  6. Open userChrome.css, and insert this text: 
    .urlbar-over-link-box {color: #0000FF !important;}
  7. Save userChrome.css and restart Firefox. Link destinations should now appear in blue.

How to update Firefox 4 Beta

Chris Ilias 11 Comments

A new Firefox 4 Beta is out, and users looking to update may have noticed that the “Check for Updates” menu item no longer there. That’s because the Firefox updater has been moved to the About Firefox window.

To check for updates in Firefox 4, open the Firefox menu (or Help menu if you have the menu bar enabled), and click on About Firefox.

The About Firefox window will open and Firefox will automatically check for an update. If there is one available, Firefox will automatically download it.

When the download is finished, just click on Apply Update.

Firefox tip: Disable unused plugins

Chris Ilias 8 Comments

I used to post a lot of tips and tricks for Firefox and Thunderbird, but I haven’t posted in a long time. Here’s a new one.

If you’re having speed/stability issues with Firefox, the cause of the problem is often one or more plugins. Mozilla offers a plugincheck tool, that tells you if you have the latest version of each of your plugins, so you can make sure all of your plugins are up to date with the latest security and stability fixes.

But many people don’t realize how many plugins they have installed. Seeing so many plugins should be an eye-opener in terms of:

  • how many are listed
  • how many you were aware of
  • how many you use
  • how many you need

Unfortunately, many plugins get installed without us knowing. Even on my mac, when I look at my list of plugins, I see something called “iPhotoPhotocast“. I use iPhoto, but I don’t know what the plugin is for.

One tip that should help improve the stability and performance of your Firefox installation is to disable any plugins you don’t need. To do that, open the Tools menu and click on Add-ons to open the Add-ons manager.

For each plugin you don’t need, select it and click Disable.

  • If there is a plugin you need once in a blue moon, just re-enable it when you need it.
  • If you see a “Mozilla Default Plug-in“, leave it alone.

In my case, the only plugin I have enabled is Flash, because I watch videos on Youtube. I find that I’m needing it less and less using Firefox 4 Beta and joining the Youtube HTML5 Beta program.

Re: Why do I block ads?

Chris Ilias 14 Comments

Re: Why do I block ads?

I recently decided to block ads as well, but for different reasons. For the most part, advertising on the web is something I don’t mind. The deciding factor for me is whether or not it prevents me from seeing the content I want to see. This is what made pop-ups so annoying. They got in the way, and you had to close the pop-up just to see the page you came to see.

Unfortunately advertisers have been using Flash ads to provide the same experience.

It’s the same user experience, but different implementation. (In terms of Firefox development, this is bad because users are told that Firefox has a pop-up blocker, but it doesn’t block these pop-up ads.)

There are also cases where ads push the content out of the view area, forcing you to scroll down.

Sometimes just mousing over the content area of an ad will cause it to expand and prevent you from reading what you want.

Unfortunately, this has become way too common lately, and I finally decided to install Adblock Plus. I understand that many websites rely on ads for revenue, but so did netscape.com. That’s why the Mozilla pop-up blocker was disabled and hidden in Netscape 7. I’m sure something can be worked out, where advertisers are forced to use a technology that cannot get in the way of viewing other website content. If that were to happen, I would bet that a lot less users would have adblockers installed.

Making your bookmarks your home page

Chris Ilias 3 Comments

Some people like to set the Firefox home page to display their bookmarks. That was easy in Firefox 2, when bookmarks were stored in an HTML file, but it’s a little tougher to figure out for Firefox 3. Not only can it be done in Firefox 3, but it works even better.

Just set your home page to the following URL:

chrome://browser/content/bookmarks/bookmarksPanel.xul

That’s it! It doesn’t require you having to find your profile folder, and bookmark folders can be collapsed or expanded individually. Plus the search box at the top of the page will work.

iPhone apps – Fake Calls and Opera Mini

Chris Ilias 10 Comments

One of the things I love about product extendability is some of the great ideas people have. Today, I found out about a cool iPhone app called “Fake Calls“. The idea is this: You can make your iPhone simulate an incoming call. It’s great for socially awkward situations, like blind dates or bad party conversations, that you need to escape from. It works on a timer, and lets you customize the identity of the incoming caller.
It’s a free app until tomorrow.

Speaking of iPhone apps, it looks like Opera developed a version of Opera Mini for the iPhone and submitted it to the App Store. According to Opera Software CEO Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner, Apple blocked it due its competition with the built-in Safari browser. Shame on Apple. I hate monoplies. 🙁