Tag: Firefox

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Firefox 3 and Google Apps Email – Default mailto Handling

Firefox 3 has a cool new feature to allow you set default mailto handlers from the preferences. Here is how you can use Google Apps (GAFYD) as the default mailto handler.

1. In Firefox’s address bar, copy and paste the following and hit enter:
about:config

2. Click “I’ll be careful, I promise!� when the warning appears

3. In the “Filter:� field, copy and paste:
gecko.handlerService.allowRegisterFromDifferentHost

4. Double click the found result to change the boolean value from false to true

5. In the address bar, copy and paste the following:
javascript:window.navigator.registerProtocolHandler(“mailto”,”https://mail.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/mail/?extsrc=mailto&url=%s”,”Google Apps”)

6. Replace “yourdomain.com” with your own Google Apps hosted domain and hit enter

7. Click “Add Application� when it asks you a question

8. go to Edit > Preferences > Applications > mailto

9. Choose “Use Google Apps�

Categories
Product Reviews

Awesome Firefox Extension/Add-on: GooglePreview

I installed this extension: GooglePreview – about a month ago, pretty awesome. When you search Google (or Yahoo) it puts a little thumbnail preview up by each search result. I am so used to it by now that when I search Google without it (say  in IE for example) it just feels weird.

check it out:

madison

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Categories
Product Reviews

Best Facebook App? – Toolbar for Firefox

Everyone talks about how the applications within Facebook are awesome, which is true, they are, but they add on to Facebook. One app that I rarely hear about or see used though, the Toolbar for Firefox (http://developers.facebook.com/toolbar/)

This toolbar is awesome. If you have Firefox open, which throughout the day you usually do – it will alert you when your friends’ profiles update, or you get new messages, etc. Toast message popup’s.

I have found that by having it, you get more out of Facebook, also the search feature for your friends is a pretty sweet Ajax type search, built into the toolbar.

I recommend that any Facebook junkie check out the toolbar! Get on it! Oh, and if you aren’t on Facebook – why aren’t you – sign up! And add me as a friend! (http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=56011561)

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Categories
Geeky/Programming Product Reviews

Browser Wars: Handling a Phishing Site

The other day, I got an email from US Bank saying I need to login to their site and change my password, funny though, I don’t bank at US Bank. What’s the deal? A “phishing” attempt was made!

Phishing, according to Wikipedia, is: In computing, phishing is a criminal activity using social engineering techniques.[1] Phishers attempt to fraudulently acquire sensitive information, such as usernames, passwords and credit card details, by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication. eBay and PayPal are two of the most targeted companies, and online banks are also common targets. Phishing is typically carried out by email or instant messaging,[2] and often directs users to give details at a website, although phone contact has been used as well.[3] Attempts to deal with the growing number of reported phishing incidents include legislation, user training, and technical measures.

Woah, ok, long definition. What it means is someone tries to pass themselves off as someone else to jack your passwords.

Anyway’s, since I rarely get phishing emails, I decided to test out how Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7 (On Vista) compare as far as their phishing filters.

firefox_phish ie_phish

As you can see from the screenshots, Firefox on the left, Internet Explorer on the right.

Firefox puts a gray shade over the webpage, and pops a balloon up saying :”Suspected Web Forgery”. You can ignore, or get the hell out, which brings you to your homepage. You can clearly see in the address bar that the URL Address is not US bank at all, clearly a hoax. You can also report the site as not a phishing site if by some chance it isn’t.

Internet Explorer makes the address bar “red”, I am assuming meaning “stop!” It actually then displays an error message saying that it is a phishing site and gives a brief overview of the meaning of a phishing site. Two options. “Click here to close” (with a green shield, meaning, go, good) and “Continue to this website (not recommended)” with a red shield, stop, bad. Also they display the URL again in the page contents, and allow you to report it as not a phishing site as well.

Which one is the winner here? Hard to say. I think I like Microsoft’s implementation better, for a few reasons. First, they don’t show the actual image of the site like Firefox. Unsuspecting or unfamiliar users might see that US Bank site the way Firefox displays it and say, hey! that looks like it, so it must be OK. Where on IE, they get the error message, say WTF and close out. I like the red address bar on IE as well, and when you are on some sites (ex: Paypal) it is green, which is good as well. One place where Firefox might be better is in the terminology. They call it a “web forgery” where Microsoft calls it a “phishing website”, but to be true to what it really is, Microsoft is correct.

In any event both browsers are doing good in handling fake websites and making sure the users know they are about to get hoodwinked. A year or two ago, people would just blindly hit these sites and put in their username/password, and be taken to the cleaners.

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Categories
Blogging

Pages Goofed in Firefox

well, I guess I will have to dig into it, but my other pages on my site, when viewed the firefox, the white column doesnt extend down the whole page. Works fine in IE though. Dang!

 Update: I think I fixed it 😛

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Firefox Support

Most of my web developing has been for a corporate environment, where every browser was IE (or we could say – install IE!), but now I have to develop for the internet in general. Today I found that more Firefox issues are handled if you set your browserCaps in your web.config so that ASP.NET sees FF as a “Up Level” browser (and not something like Netscape 2.0!!). Granted that there are other CSS issues and formatting issues, but I found that the majority of issues clear up once ASP.net knows about Firefox (and Opera, et al)

Good browserCaps reference

Categories
Random

Firefox 100 Million Downloads+

Pretty much every tech blog has this as an entry lately. My only question is: Do they count every upgrade as a new download? And when did they start counting?

1.0
1.0.1
1.0.2
1.0.3
1.0.4
1.0.5
1.0.6
1.0.7

Every update I have done, have they counted it? And every install on every pc I have, and everytime I reload my machine? do they count those? I probably have 200 under by belt by now.

Makes you wonder how they count the “real”, “unique” installs

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Firefox and Internet Explorer

The debate between FF and IE is a hot one. Firefox is good, nice tabs, etc, etc. IE integrates well with Windows. I like FF, but one thing I don’t like is it is a 3rd party app. The more stuff you install on your machine, no matter what it is, is more upkeep, more problems can happen, etc. And, everytime you redo your machine you need to install everything again, etc.

Some people think that FF is a paneca for security. Well, it is not. That isn’t saying that IE is fort knox either, but they both have their strengths and weaknesses.

Lately I have been using IE and I am actually excited for IE7 and what IE has to offer in Longhorn.

In any event, it is your choice. Just like if you want to use ITunes or MusicMatch or Winamp to play your music. I choose to use Windows Media Player. I just like it. It integrates tightly with the OS, I like that.

It is analogous to a vehicle. You don’t go putting a Ford engine in a Chevy trunk, it just doesn’t happen. 3rd party after products are usually only used in a case where nothing else is available. Usually after some time, things catch on and the manufacturer creates the part and you can get it from them.

I see FF as an aftermarket part for my computer. I see IE as something like the CD player that comes with your vehicle, and FF as the cool pioneer CD player with all the add ons.

Scoble has been getting major flack for his post today, which I think is kind of wrong. He is just bringing to light news about a tech product. There are flaws in a very popular extension for FF, and also another programming issue about localization, so the FF team is having some problems this week. When Microsoft IE Team has issues, it is all over the news, and people talk about it. If the google toolbar has a flaw in just in IE, I am sure there would be rumblings all over the blogsphere.

The problem is the mindset of people that promote FF and Linux, and anything not Microsoft, they think that whatever they say is the only way, the correct way. They don’t think people should have a choice, they think that if you don’t use FF or Linux or OSS that you are less of a geek, less of a developer, things like that.

I think people shouldn’t be forced to use anything they don’t want to. Free will. I should be able to use whatever browser I choose, and stand behind it.

It reminds me of fights about C# vs VB.Net – neither one is better, it is a choice to use one or the other. The thing is, people that use VB.net are laid back, and don’t get all blown up about people that use C#. On the other hand, people that use C# look down on people that use VB.net, they think they are better than VB.Net developers. When it comes right down to it, C# and VB.Net are the same, why are we even fighting about it? It is your choice to program in whatever language you see fit.

Anyways, I am going off on a tangent, but the bottom line is, FF and IE are both good products, check them both out. Use whichever one you think it the best. But don’t be closed minded. When a new build for either comes out, check them out, see what is new, try them out. That is the fun of having a computer and being able to customize it. If you like one better, choose to use it!

Happy Geeking!!!

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Red Hat 9 – Firefox Install

So I installed Red Hat 9 today on a machine, and I was going to install Firefox (instead of using the built in Mozilla). I was in a terminal, trying to run ./firefox-installer-bin and I was getting a stupid xpistub error. Found out that you just need to run ./firefox-installer

doh!

Anyways, all is well 🙂

Categories
Geeky/Programming

Firefox Upgrades and Extensions

I use firefox for all my internet browsing, and I really like it, except one thing. 80% of the extensions that I have loaded all break everytime I upgrade to the next version, and I have to go and re-download them and install them again, and set up and settings they have. What a PITA. You think that extension developers would get a delta document or something so they could have the extensions ready to go when the next release of the browser comes out. It would also be nice for firefox to tell me what extensions will break before I install the newest version.

Adblock is about the only one that always works. Tabbrowser pref’s always breaks which makes browsing alot harder for a week or two after upgrades. The tabbrowser extension allows you to open everything in a new tab. When it breaks, everything opens up in a new window, so you end up having 8 browsers open, like when you surf with IE.

:S