firefox

Quickly Enable Right Click Menu In Your Browser

Quickly Enable Right Click Menu In Your Browser

Internet , , , 0 Comments

Some websites restrict their users to copy any particular item from the site. For this purpose, the websites will usually disable the context menu on their pages which means that the user will not be able to right click on a particular item of the whole page making it impossible to copy anything using the mouse.

This is a simple JavaScript trick which can disable the right click menu in your browser, of course, if your browser supports JavaScript. The simple script is very similar to the following code:

<body oncontextmenu="return false;">

There are various studies that suggest that disabling the right click menu and preventing the users from copying or downloading anything from a website is annoying, pointless and unprofessional. But some sites will disable copying of images and others will disable copying or even looking at the website code.

If you encounter a site which is preventing you to right click on any part of the site, you can simply disable JavaScript in your browser to enable the right click menu again.

Disable JavaScript in Internet Explorer

To disable JavaScript in Internet Explorer, go to Internet Options –> Security –> Custom level

Select Disable for “Active Scripting” under Scripting.

Disable JavaScript in Internet Explorer

Disable JavaScript in Firefox

To disable JavaScript in Firefox, to to Options –> Content –> Uncheck “Enable JavaScript (Alt + J).

Disable JavaScript in Firefox

Disable JavaScript in Google Chrome

To disable JavaScript in Google Chrome, go to Settings –> Show Advanced Settings

Press Content settings button under Privacy and select “Do not allow any site to run JavaScript”.

Disable JavaScript in Google Chrome

Disabling JavaScript using a bookmarklet

JavaScript is an important part of the web and many sites rely on JavaScript for their functionality. So it is not wise to disable JavaScript completely. Usually, the user has to disable JavaScript on a particular site just to enable the right click functionality. Here is a bookmarklet which you can use to instantly enable right click menu without disabling JavaScript from the browser. This bookmarklet will work for that particular page only on which it is executed.

Enable right click bookmarklet

You can drag the above link to your bookmarks toolbar in any browser. And when you encounter disabled right click menu on any page, just click on the bookmarklet and it will instantly enable the right click menu.

See Memory Usage Of Add-Ons And Tabs In Firefox

See Memory Usage Of Add-Ons And Tabs In Firefox

Internet , , 2 Comments

Firefox used to be a memory hog in the past. But its different now. The recent versions of Firefox are very much memory efficient and less memory leakage is seen in the browser. If you keep Firefox open for long periods of time, it will keep on using more memory. This is because of several reasons including more active add-ons, opened and active tabs etc.

In this article, we strive to cover how to manage memory usage of add-ons in Firefox. After going through this article we will be able to conserve memory usage of add-ons in Firefox efficiently enhancing the performance of system as a whole.

More →

Firefox 19 Final Offline Installers Full Setup Download [All Languages]

Firefox 19 Final Offline Installers Full Setup Download [All Languages]

Software , 3 Comments

Firefox 19 Final has been released by Mozilla. As of now, the main website of Firefox does not mention Firefox 19 as the latest stable build but it has been uploaded to Mozilla’s FTP servers and may be downloaded from there (direct download links at the end of the article).

There have been two major features and a lot of enhancements to the new Firefox 19 browser. The first feature that was in works before has been released in this build. A more secure built-in PDF viewer based on HTML5 and JavaScript has been included in Firefox 19. This is from the project PDF.js. Although there was nothing wrong with this new feature in the alpha and beta development cycles, Mozilla has given a way to disable this feature is you are not satisfied or if anything wrong happens due to this feature. So now the users will be able to view PDF files directly inside Firefox securely and without crashing the browser.

If you are not comfortable with the inline PDF viewer of Firefox 19, you can easily disable it by following the steps below:

  1. Open Firefox 19
  2. Go to Tools –> Options –> Applications tab
  3. Find “Portable Document Format (PDF)”
  4. Select Always ask from the drop down selection
    disable inline PDF viewer in Firefox 19

The second major feature is a security feature. Firefox 19 Awesomebar will now alert the users if an application or add-on changes the default search provider. Now the user will be able to revert to the default search provider with the alert. The search provider can be changed in Firefox through about:config page.

Here is the changelog list of Firefox 19:

  1. Built-in PDF viewer
  2. Canvas elements can export their content as an image blob using canvas.toBlob
  3. Startup performance improvements
  4. Debugger now supports pausing on exceptions and hiding non-enumerable properties
  5. Remote Web Console is available for connecting to Firefox on Android or Firefox OS (experimental, set devtools.debugger.remote-enabled to true)
  6. There is now a Browser Debugger available for add-on and browser developers (experimental, set devtools.chrome.enabled to true)
  7. Web Console CSS links now open in the Style Editor
  8. CSS @page is now supported
  9. CSS viewport-percentage length units implemented (vh, vw, vmin and vmax)
  10. CSS text-transform now supports full-width
  11. Starting Firefox with -private flag incorrectly claims you are not in Private Browsing mode

Some unresolved issues include:

  1. Certain valid WebGL drawing operations are incorrectly rejected, leaving incomplete rendering in affected pages
  2. If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash
  3. For some users, scrolling in the main GMail window will be slower than usual
  4. Windows: The use of Microsoft’s System Restore functionality shortly after updating Firefox may prevent future updates
  5. Plugins stop rendering when the top half of the plugin is scrolled off the top of the page, in HiDPI mode

Let’s go through the screenshots of Firefox 19 installation (Upgrade) process.

Welcome to Mozilla Firefox 19

Select setup options in Firefox 19

Selecting destination folder

Create icons for Firefox

Finally upgrade to Firefox 19

Finish and launch Firefox 19

Firefox 19 download links

Firefox 19 32-bit installer for Windows

Firefox 19.tar.bz2 for Linux

Firefox 19.dmg for Mac

The are the direct download links for Firefox 19 Final setup in en-US. If you want to download Firefox in another language, just go to the following URL and then go to the right folder.

Firefox 19 multilingual for Windows

Firefox 19 multilingual for Linux

Firefox 19 multilingual for Mac

Mozilla Language Packs For Firefox With Auto-Update Feature

Mozilla Language Packs For Firefox With Auto-Update Feature

Internet, Software , , 2 Comments

Firefox language packsAs we know that Firefox is available in so many languages in addition to the default English language. You can download Firefox in any language from this page. The problem with Firefox downloaded in different languages was that only one language could be installed at a time. The second biggest problem was that the language packs of Firefox had to be updated for each and every release of Firefox. This was quite a hard work for the people who were maintaining the language packs.

There was yet another problem that the users had to download and install the correct language pack that was compatible with their version of Firefox. If the wrong language pack was selected and installed, it would not work. So this feature of language packs auto-update feature remained a feature request for quite some time.

Now Mozilla has made the language packs feature available to all the users. Now whenever the user updates his installation of Firefox, the language pack he has installed will also be auto-updated with the most recent and compatible language pack. This means that the users will not run into compatibility issues any more.

If you go to Mozilla language tools section, you will see two downloads for each language, dictionary and language pack. The dictionary will add auto-correct feature for that particular language in Firefox while the language pack will change the language of Firefox completely including menus, toolbars, help section etc.

Now you can also change the language of Firefox on the fly. For this, you will have to follow the instructions below:

  1. Go to the awesome bar and write about:config.
  2. Pressing enter will take you to the advanced Firefox configuration.
  3. Please note that you will be given a warning that changing the advanced settings can be harmful to your installation of Firefox. Just press the “I’ll be careful, promise” button.
  4. Search for general.useragent.locale and change its value to the locale or language abbreviation you want to convert to.
    switching locale in Firefox
  5. You will need to restart the browser in order for the new selected language to take effect.

An easier solution would be to install Quick Locale Switcher Firefox add-on. This will give you an additional menu under Tools menu from where you can select any language that is installed in your Firefox browser.

Spice Up Your Firefox Experience with These Add-ons

Spice Up Your Firefox Experience with These Add-ons

Internet, List , 0 Comments

Firefox is one of the most popular web browsers along with Google Chrome and Internet Explorer. The extra spice in Firefox is its ability to extend the browser functionality using add-on and plugins. Firefox can becomes a full productivity suite using these add-on. All add-on of Firefox can be accessed from here.

Installing an add-on is easy. Just select the add-on and click on the “Add to Firefox” button. You may need to restart Firefox in order to enable the installed add-on. We list down some of the productivity add-ons and extensions which will make your experience with Firefox more productive and enjoyable.

Better Links

betterlinks-firefox-addon

Better links spices up the browsing experience by inserting relevant and informational links within the content while you are browsing. The inserted links are from authority sites like Wikipedia. Better links adds about 4 links on each page making sure that it does not intrude too much information and annoy you.

Get Better links

Grammarly Lite

Grammarly lite is an instant grammar check tool designed for the web. Grammarly scans your text, article, resumes,emails,blog posts and your comments at Facebook or any other social networking website and notifies you in case you make any grammatical mistake. Notice the encircled ‘1’ indicating that Grammarly Lite has detected one error in the text.

grammarly-facebook

Grammarly is not only an auto spell checker, it checks the text against more than 150 grammar rules. It helps you improve your writing skills by suggesting optimized synonyms and adaptive spell check. Grammarly can be used by editors, authors and professionals to proof read any document. Besides the most popular features of editing and improving, it also checks the writing piece for plagiarism and warns you timely before you forward any copyrighted documents.

grammarly-spell-check Get Grammarly

Clear Console

Clear console is an add-on for clearing up your browser history, cache, HTTPs Logins and cookies. Add Clear Console to your browser and you won’t need to go to the traditional ways of deleting history. Just click on the Clear Console button that appears at the top of page and clear cookies, history, cache or restart the browser. You can remove history over a specific time range by going to Clear Console -> Options -> Select Time Range ->Clear Now.

clear-console-addon

clear-console-history-range

Download Clear Console

Buttonizer

A few days back, we have been looking for a way to minimize the space occupied by the toolbars in our browser. While searching for a technical solution, we came across an interesting add-on ‘Buttonizer’ that eases our task. Buttonizer turns a toolbar into a button that helps you save space on your browser window.

buttonizer-addon-firefox

 

Note: Firefox needs to be restarted after its installation and you will notice Buttonizer icon next to address bars in the browser.

To turn a toolbar into a button, right click on the Buttonizer icon and a menu will appear containing the list of installed toolbars. Select the one that occupies more space and hide it from the browser. You can access this toolbar by moving your mouse on the buttonizer icon.However, you can only buttonize one toolbar at a time.

Get Buttonizer

Evernote Clearly

Evernote Clearly is a must have add-on for all those who get irritated by the flashy advertisements and the disturbing promotional stuff while surfing the internet. Evernote enhances the readability of webpages by removing all the stuff except the text. It is designed for the web pages that contains some large piece of text like blogs, articles or newspaper. If you apply it on any blog post, you will notice that it also hides the images included and even the readers’ comments.

After installation you can see icon of Evernote Clearly at the right of address bar and search bar. Whenever you want to clean up any webpage just click this icon and the task will be done. Click it again to restore the original page. Evernote clearly offers several features like highlighting the text, make notes of it, change the font size of the document and saving all your notes and files at one place. Create an Evernote account to enjoy the add-on to its fullest.

evernote-clearly

 

Uninstall Any Add-on

In case you do not like any add on, you can disable or remove it by following few steps.

  1. Go to Firefox -> Add-on or simply press ‘Ctrl+shift+a’ to open the Add-on Manager.
  2. Select My Add-on and list of your installed add-ons is disabled.
  3. Click remove or disable buttons provided next to the add-on name.

And that’s it!

edit-add-ons

We would love to hear from you about the plugins and add-ons which are spicying up your Firefox experience and making you more productive. Share your thoughts in the comments.

Bypass Adf.ly Link Pages

Bypass Adf.ly Link Pages

Internet, Tips/Troubleshooting , , , 0 Comments

Adf.ly is a URL shortening service with a little tweak. While other shortening services will redirect to the original page, adf.ly takes the user to an interstitial ad page where the user has to click on the Skip Ad button in order to proceed to the original link. Normally a user has to wait for 5 seconds until the Skip Ad button appears.

If you visit forums and blogs regularly, you must have encountered adf.ly links. The site owners are able to monetize their links using this service.

Bypassing adf.ly ads

There are a lot of similar services while adf.ly is becoming more popular these days. Other similar services include ad.cx, adfly, adcraft, adfocus, adfoc.us, linkbucks, linkbabes, qqc.co, seriousdeals, seriousfiles, tinylinks.co, ubucks, linkbee, urlcash, redir.su etc.

This type of service is really annoying for the user because the user has to wait for their final destination to open. For example, if I have to download a file, I will definitely like to have a direct download link to the file instead of passing it through services like adf.ly.

There are some ways by which we can bypass adf.ly link pages.

Adsfight for Chrome and Firefox

If you are using Google Chrome or Firefox as your primary browser, the good news is that there is an extension called Adsfight which helps to automatically skip adf.ly ad pages. Since Adsfight is a userscript, it needs Greasemonkey to be installed in order to run properly.

Install Greasemonkey for Firefox

If you are using Google Chrome, you can install Adsfight directly without installing Greasemonkey scripts.

When you are done with the installation of Adsfight, there is no additional configuration required. This script will automatically bypass many paid link redirectors including adf.ly and all of the above mentioned services.

Download Adsfight userscript

Adf.ly Redir

If you only want to get rid of adf.ly redirections, then adf.ly redir script is for you. Adf.ly Redir is also a userscript and runs with Greasemonkey or Scriptish already installed in the browser. The scripts supports a wide range of browsers including Google Chrome, Firefox, Opera and Safari.

Download Adf.ly Redir

Adf.ly Skipper

If you are looking for a dedicated Firefox extension which does the work of skipping adf.ly ads automatically without installing Greasemonkey or Scriptish, Adf.ly Skipper is for you. This Firefox add-on works on with adf.ly links and will skip the ads page taking the user directly to the destination URL.

Download Adf.ly Skipper

Adf.ly Away

If you are looking for a dedicated Google Chrome extension for bypassing the adf.ly ads, look no further than Adf.ly Away. The benefit of this extension in addition to bypassing is that it actually caches the results so that if you have to visit the same URL again, it will not bother to go to adf.ly first and then redirect. It will rather go directly to the destination link.

Download Adf.ly Away

Bypass Adf.ly without installing anything

If you do not want to install any extension or add-on in your browser and still want to skip the ads, you will need to make use of online services. There are two services where you can insert the adf.ly URL and extract the original URL. You can use any of the services mentioned below.

Adf.ly Breaker

De-Ad Fly

Browser trick

There is a browser trick which you can use to bypass the waiting time for Adf.ly ads. Just create a browser bookmark with the following information:

javascript:showSkip();

Skip Adf.ly ads bookmark

Now whenever you encounter an Adf.ly ad, just click on this bookmark. It will automatically bypass the countdown. You will still need to click the Skip Ad button in order to proceed further.

I hope this has been useful for everyone. If you know of any other method to bypass Adf.ly ads or similar services, please share with us in the comments below. Also share your experiences with the tools and services that I have mentioned in this article.

5 Useful URL Expanders To See Through Short URLs

5 Useful URL Expanders To See Through Short URLs

Internet , , 5 Comments

URL shortening is a technique that is used to convert a long URL into a smaller one. This shortened URL does not provide any hint about the content of link as it is mostly an abrupt combination of alphabets. It is natural to feel hesitation while clicking on a short URL as there always exists a threat of spam, phishing or malware content.

Although URL shortening has been misused by so many spammers for malicious purposes, it has been widespread because of services like Twitter which take a very limited 140 characters of post length. While Twitter uses its own URL shortener with the domain t.co, Google has also started the URL shortening service goo.gl.

Get rid of this threat today by choosing any of the listed URL expanders and know the full length URL behind the shorter ones.

1- Where Does This Link Go

Where does this link go

A really clean URL revealing service that is solely dedicated to expand short URLs. Although it is one of the most popular services but it does not tell any details about the expanded URL.

Go to Where Does This Link Go –> Enter shortened URL –> Expand

2- Clybs

Clybs URL Expander

Clybs does not only expand a short URL but it can also identify spam, malware or any phishing content that is suspected to be undesirable. It detects spam by retrieving the IP address of a site and check if it is present in the DNS- based Blackhole List or not. This tool supports short URLs created using commonly used URL shortening services like Bit.ly, TinyUrl, goo.gl and others. The best thing about Clybs is that it also shows the article title, a brief description of the content, the IP address, PageRank, number of redirects, server location and content type that makes it easier for anyone to decide if he/she should click the link or not.

3- Know URL

Know URL Expander

Know Url supports almost all the URL shortening services including bit.ly, tr.im, tinyurl and many more. Know URL also offers a mobile version, Google Chrome extension and a toolbar to help you find the original links behind the shortened URL. It does not identify or tell you anything about the content of expanded URL. However you can always scan suspicious links for viruses and malware.

You can easily scan links online by clicking ‘Virus Scan Link’ provided below the expanded URL. Clicking on the Virus Scan Link will take you to another webpage which gives you details about the webpage. The scanning report is powered by Google.

Know URL Google Advisory report

4- URL X-ray

Another URL expanding service to reveal the original URL.URL X-ray offers free bookmarklet that can be installed into your browser’s bookmark toolbar. It supports Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer and other browsers. Although it is claimed that the bookmarklet will expand the link without disturbing your browsing, but it opens the link in a separate tab or window.

URL X-Ray Expander Bookmarklet

5- Check Short URL

Check short URL

Check short url is another link expander that provides information about expanded URL such as title, description, keywords and author page. It also checks if the link is alive in search engines or not. Check Short URL integrates services of Web Of Trust , Site Advisor, Google , Sucuri , Norton and Browser Defender to help you identify if the link is safe. It also offers a tool to customize short URLs and remember them easily.

Do you trust short URLs and click on them without verifying? If no then which method do you use to see through the short URLs?

Firefox 16.0.1 Released With Critical Bug Fixes About User History Leakage

Software , , , 1 Comment

Firefox updated to version 16

Yesterday, a security vulnerability in the newly released Firefox 16 was discovered. The installer of Firefox 16 was taken off from the download page. Mozilla had promised that they would release the new version of Firefox 16 with the security fixes. They seem to have fulfilled their promise and Firefox 16.0.1 is now available for download.

Here’s the description of the vulnerability which was discovered in the browser:

The vulnerability could allow a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters. At this time we have no indication that this vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild.

Here’s the update from Mozilla security blog:

Update (Oct 11, 2012)

  • An update to Firefox for Windows, Mac and Linux was released at 12pm PT on Oct 11. Users will be automatically updated and new downloads via http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/new/ will receive the updated version (16.0.1).
  • A fix for the Android version of Firefox was released at 9pm PT on Oct 10.

Although Firefox will automatically updated to the latest version but if you want to download it locally, here are the direct download links to the installers:

Firefox 16.0.1 stable for Windows

Firefox 16.0.1 stable for Mac OSX

Firefox 16.0.1 stable for Linux

And follow this link if you want to install a multilingual version of Firefox.

Security Vulnerability Found In Firefox 16 Allows Attackers User Site Visit History

Security Vulnerability Found In Firefox 16 Allows Attackers User Site Visit History

Security, Software 1 Comment

Firefox 16 about dialog - with security vulnerability

Firefox 16 final version was released by Mozilla two days ago. Surprisingly, the download for Firefox 16 has been taken down due to a potential vulnerability found in the browser. If you go to the Firefox download page, you will be able to download Firefox 15.0.1 instead of version 16.

According to Mozilla security blog,

The vulnerability could allow a malicious site to potentially determine which websites users have visited and have access to the URL or URL parameters.  At this time we have no indication that this vulnerability is currently being exploited in the wild.

Mozilla says that the vulnerable installer has been removed from the download page. You will get Firefox 15 instead of 16 when you download the browser. Firefox 15 is not affected by this vulnerability.

The company is working on fixing the vulnerability and will hopefully deliver the patch today. In the mean time, if you are a Firefox user, you may start using another browser like Google Chrome or Internet Explorer until Mozilla updates the latest Firefox build.

You can also downgrade Firefox 16 to version 15 by downloading and installing Firefox 15 on top of the latest installed browser. If you have silent updates enabled in Firefox, you will get the latest update automatically.

Download Firefox 16 Final With More Responsive Garbage Collector

Download Firefox 16 Final With More Responsive Garbage Collector

Software , , 1 Comment

Firefox updated to version 16

Firefox 16 final has been released by Mozilla. While the stable version has been updated on the Firefox site, all other builds including beta, aurora and nightly builds have also moved one version forward to 17, 18 and 19 respectively.

The biggest feature change has been the incremental garbage collection. This feature will make Firefox more responsive and more stable when opening lots of tabs and windows. Firefox 16 also includes the initial web app support. Here’s the explanation of web app support from Mozilla:

Web apps are apps built using standard Web technologies. They work in any modern Web browser, and can be developed using your favorite tools. Some characteristics that distinguish Web apps from websites: Apps are installed by a user, they are self-contained and don’t always require the chrome of a browser window, and they can be built to run offline. Gmail, Twitter, and Etherpad are Web apps.

Two new localizations have been added to the Firefox multilingual support. These include Acholi and Kazakh.

There are also some known issues that may be fixed in the later versions of Firefox. These include:

  • If you try to start Firefox using a locked profile, it will crash
  • For some users, scrolling in the main GMail window will be slower than usual
  • Windows: The use of Microsoft’s System Restore functionality shortly after updating Firefox may prevent future updates
  • Pointer lock doesn’t work in web apps

To read about all the new and fixed features, visit Firefox 16 release notes.

If you are already using Firefox, you may go to the Firefox menu –> Help –> About Firefox and check for updates to automatically install the latest stable build of Firefox. Otherwise download firefox from the direct download links below:

Firefox 16 stable for Windows

Firefox 16 stable for Mac OSX

Firefox 16 for Linux

These are download links for English en-US locale. If you want to install a localized version of Firefox 16, you may download it from here.

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