computer online tips & tricks

Do you know how many cache locations Firefox uses to store web pages and images? It turns out there are three locations, known as device’s that makes up the cache used by Firefox. They are Memory cache device, Disk cache device and Offline cache device. In case you are unfamiliar with the “cache”, it is a location that Firefox uses to store web pages, images, etc, that’s used to speed up loading and displaying web pages. So instead of downloading a page from a web site server, if the page has not changed, Firefox will check it’s cache and load the page if it exist. Now, you may not care much about what’s in the cache, but if you are having problems and need to check the content of the cache, Firefox provides a command that will display all locations. All you need to do is type the following command in the location bar (address bar) and press enter. about:cache You will then see the following page with information about the three cache locations and how much space is in use. What’s

A friend of mine was commenting today on a common scenario that a lot of us run into. When you’re actively working on a project, you often times have several tabs open in your browser solely related to that work: some API documentation, a couple versions of a site you are working on, a google spreadsheet, a project resource/status page, and things of that sort. When you change gears to work on something else, you might have another entirely different set of pages that you keep open all the time. If you juggle several projects at the same time, it can be a nuisance (not to mention a waste of time) to constantly be closing and opening all those windows throughout the day. This isn’t new news, but Firefox and Safari both have a really convenient and often overooked–feature built into their tabbed browsing and bookmarking functionality that makes managing groups of commonly viewed documents really simple. In Safari, just create and fill a folder in your bookmarks menu for each group of sit

If you are running Windows XP, there is no standard support for ISO files. These files however are quite common as an alternative to installation CDs or DVDs. An ISO file is basically an image of a CD or DVD. You can use CD Burning software to create a CD from the ISO file. But in many cases you might not want to write a CD-ROM or DVD from the ISO file, you simply want to access the contents while the ISO file resides on your hard disk. There are software solutions available for this, which create a virtual CD or DVD drive. You can then mount the ISO file as a drive and access the contents of the ISO file. Most of these software solutions however are commercial software, which means you need to pay for them. If you do not need the fancy user interface, you can also use a virtual cd-rom tool created by Microsoft. It is called the Virtual CD-ROM Control Panel, and can be downloaded from the Microsoft website. The downloaded file (60KB) is an installer, which you need to execute to extrac

If you’re tired of the slow downs and errors of Internet Explorer, then maybe it’s time to try something new, perhaps safer and more efficient. It’s a free web browser called Mozilla Firefox. It’s a good idea to have more than one web browser anyway; so why not give this one a try? Necessary Things: Computer with Internet access, Brief downloading knowledge, Access to Mozilla Firefox’s website 1. Go to the website listed below in the Resources section (http://www.mozilla.com). 2. Once there, click the large button on the screen labeled “download Firefox–free.” Then wait for the download to begin. A dialog box then appears that asks “would you like to save this file?” Click the “save file” button on the left. 3. Once the file is downloaded, click install and follow the on screen step by step prompts. Your browser will restart with Google.com as your home page. If you would like to change this, go to “tools” on the top menu and select the “main” tab. 4. Type in your new home page web add

If you wish to conceal your identity in real life, you need only to shove a paper bag over your head and alter your voice. Voilà, instant anonymity! But it’s not as easy to lurk in the shadows online a savvy surfer can dig up all kinds of information about you, from your name and address to your social security number. And it doesn’t take a sophisticated stalker to track you down; chances are, you’ve left behind a trail even a first year Boy Scout could follow. What You Need * Internet Connection * XeroBank Browser * Proxy IP Address 1. Surf with an Anonymizer In the online world, a web proxy acts as your Internet agent and requests information from websites on your behalf. The website in turn communicates with the proxy, which then passes the information back to you. Meanwhile, your IP address stays concealed and the website has no idea how to get in contact with you directly. The easiest way to run with a proxy is through one of the many free websites offering anonymous web surfing.

Firefox with its default configuration does not integrate well with kde . Now you will see how to setup firefox as default client in the following two cases 1 ) Clicking on a email link in a webpage should create a new email with kmail. Start firefox and type the following in the url bar: about:config A big table with configuration options will appear in the main browser window. Look for the item network.protocol-handler.external.mailto and make sure its value is set to true. The value is the right most piece of text in the row for that item. Right-click on that line and select “toggle” in the pop-up menu to toggle if necessary. Now, do a right-click again and select New -> String. A window will appear, asking you to set the name of the new config item, set it to network.protocol-handler.app.mailto and and click OK to confirm. A second window will appear to ask for the value of the config item. Type kmail into its text field and confirm again. Now, if you click on an email link on a

The IE Tab extension lets you switch between Firefox and IE rendering. Once installed, I had no trouble using the IE Tab add-on to run Microsoft Update. According to Mozilla’s Web site, the IE Tab works with Firefox versions 1.5 through 3.0a5. I used it with 2.0.0.6. To install the IE Tab, go to the add-ons site using the above link. Choose Install Now. The installer will restart Firefox when finished or prompt you to do so before the changes will take effect. To add the IE Tab button to your Firefox Toolbar, right-click the toolbar and choose Customize. Drag the IE Tab icon and drop it where you want it. When clicked, the IE Tab button will swap rendering engines. Once you’ve done this, you can use Firefox with Scheduled Tasks in XP; however, keep in mind that only administrators can install updates. The scheduling steps are slightly different from the ones provided in the last issue: Step 1: Choose Start, All Programs, Accessories, System Tools, Scheduled Tasks. Step 2: In the Schedu

For most users, Firefox doesn’t use an abnormally large amount of memory. For others, however, Firefox’s memory consumption is a major problem. Typical Firefox memory usage reported by Windows is around 50-100 MB, with virtual memory usage at 100-150 MB. These numbers will vary because Firefox is configured by default to use more memory on systems that have more memory available and less on systems with less. 1. System Extensions WindowBlinds can dramatically increase memory use. To continue using WindowBlinds and Firefox without memory issues, add Firefox to WindowBlind’s exclusion list. 2. Download History Firefox can slow down or hang if the download history is allowed to accumulate. Clear the download history (you may need to exit Firefox and delete the file “downloads.rdf” from the profile folder in some cases) and change this setting to solve the problem: Tools -> Options -> Privacy and uncheck “Remember what I’ve downloaded” 3. Restarting Firefox If you find that Firefox’

After the release of Firefox 2.0, the memory leak has become an even more notorious problem than before. On average, Firefox should take up no more than 80MB of RAM. Any more than that and you can consider yourself a victim of Firefox’s memory leak. I’m sure you’ve probably already seen a ton of guides on how to fix the memory leak problem in Firefox already. The reason why I’m writing another one on Vista Rewired is because none of those have worked very well for me. This one will be a little different because I’ve added a few of my ingredients in. Just to give you a heads-up, this guide is going to be quite long but it’ll cover everything you need to know. Before we do anything, make sure you have the newest version of Firefox. If you don’t have the latest version, you can 1) Check your extensions and themes: The most common cause for high memory usage for Firefox usually lies in the extensions and themes. If you overloaded your Firefox with extensions, you can expect high memory usa

If you are frequent web browser ,a blogger or a freelancer if you are in any web related profession then you must be spending around at least about 1-2 hours on web. Why open multiple pages at start in mozilla firefox ? Now every minute of your’s is important so it’s you to decide how you can optimise and speed up your repeated browser activity in order to make the most efficient use of your time . Lets assume that you have a medium speed internet connection and you use firefox every time so, if you have to open intial web sites every time before you start work like open email , dash board of your wordpress blog, google reader etc So if you want to open multiple pages at the start up.. 1. File menu>>tools>>options 2. click on the Main tab. 3. In the Home Page TextBox, Type For Example www.gmail.com | 4. click ok

One of the biggest complaints a Firefox evangelist encounters is “it doesn’t act or feel like browser X.” Internet Explorer users complain that Firefox doesn’t look like what they’re used to. Opera, Safari, and Netscape users complain that it’s missing many of their favorite features. And the social networking gurus point to the powerful social networking features Flock boasts and Firefox lacks. However, all these users overlook one of the most powerful features of Firefox: support for third-party add-ons, which can make emulating the features of other browsers extremely simple. Making Firefox look and feel like Internet Explorer 6 One of the most popular browsers (and the most popular browser for non-techies) is Internet Explorer (IE) 6. When you’re converting relatives to Firefox, IE 6 will most likely be what they’re used to. If you want to make an inexperienced Windows users comfortable with Firefox, you’ll first want to make Firefox look exactly like IE. To do this, install the L

Here are a few steps to making your firefox browser a little faster. Firefox comes preset for dial-up users, but can be optimized for better performance if you have a faster connection. This is for users with at least a broadband connection. Things You’ll Need: * Firefox browser * High speed connection (not dial-up) Step 1: Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Step 2: Scroll down and look for the following entries: network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests Step 3: Alter the entries as follows: Set “network.http.pipelining” to “true” Set “network.http.proxy.pipelining” to “true” Set “network.http.pipelining.maxrequests” to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once. Step 4: Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it “nglayout.initialpaint.delay” and set its value to “0″. This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

Firefox is in my opinion the best browser ever made until now. It includes: -improved tabbed browsing -pop up blocking -integrated Goggle search -enhanced privacy controls -built-in phishing protection -online spell checking -lots of themes, interfaces, and extensions/addons Mozilla Firefox officially supports: -Microsoft Windows -Linux -Mac OS X Unofficial Support: -Free BSD -OS/2 -Solaris -SkyOS -BeOS -XP Professional x64 Edition Now here are some Tips&Tricks that can help you double the speed of Firefox. 1. Type about:config in the address bar and then press Enter. 2. In the filter search bar type network.http.pipelining. Be sure the value field is set true,if not double-click to set true. HTTP is the application-layer protocol that most web pages are transferred with. In HTTP 1.1, multiple requests can be sent before any responses are received. This is known as pipelining. Pipelining reduces page loading times, but not all servers support it. 3. Go back to the filter search bar

After days of tweaking my new Firefox 3.0, I found out that one so-called top new features of Firefox is not so pleasing Smart Location Bar or the Awesome Bar. The Smart Location Bar is just too “smart” to an extent that it saves my viewed browsing history without my knowledge! The auto complete feature is fine with me but I would still prefer the old Firefox 2.0 way in handling my addresses. I tried to disable this “smart” option via the Option menu but there is no direct way to do it. So, I have to do it the indirect way via about:config or with a help of an extension. OK, here is how: Remove only bookmarks results from the list To to this, you can just use Hide Unvisited extension to get the job done. What Hide Unvisited does is hide bookmarks that you haven’t visited from showing in the Awesome Bar. Completely disable the Smart Location Bar (Disable auto complete list) You need to do it via about:config. This is how I do it: 1. Go to the about:config page via the location bar by t

Open Your Firefox Browser There are many things that Internet users want to keep private, ranging from what sites they visit to what information they enter into online forms. The reasons for this can vary, and in many cases they may be for a personal motive, for security, or something else entirely. Regardless of what drives the need, it is nice to be able to clear your tracks, so to speak, when you are done browsing. Firefox for Windows makes this very easy, allowing you to clear the private data of your choosing in a few quick and easy steps. First, open your Firefox browser. Select “Clear Private Data” From the Tools Menu Click on Tools in your Firefox menu located at the top of your browser. When the drop-down menu appears, scroll down and click on the Clear Private Data choice. Please note that you can use the following shortcut keys in lieu of clicking the menu choice: Ctrl+Shift+Delete Clear Private Data Dialog At this point, you will see the “Clear Private Data” dialog box over

Security problems with Microsoft’s dominant Internet Explorer browser helped pave the way for Mozilla Firefox to emerge as a perfect alternative for Web surfers. However, Firefox users should be aware that hackers can exploit software flaws and design features to launch drive-by attacks. Following are steps to disable various features in Mozilla Firefox. Note that some menu options may change between versions or may appear in different locations depending on the host operating system. You should adapt the steps below as appropriate. The following configuration changes, can disable various features and set up the browser to run in a secure state, limiting the damage from malware attacks. To get started, select Tools, then Options. firefox You will then see an Options window that has a row of categories along the top. The first category of interest is the General category. Under this section, for instance, you can set Firefox as your default browser. firefox Under the Privacy category, y

Ever been on PC where Internet Explorer was blocked? One solution would be to use a portable version of Firefox on a USB drive, or you can access a hidden browser in Microsoft HTML Help program if removable media is not an option. This was tested on Windows XP SP2 with Internet Explorer 6 and Internet Explorer 7. 1. Open calculator. You can do this quickly with Windows button+R on your keyboard, type calc in the run box, click OK. 2. In Microsoft Calculator go to Help -> Help Topics. 3. Now right click on the left hand side of the title bar and click on Jump To URL... 4. Type in the URL including the ‘http://’ and off you go. Repeat to visit other sites. Essentially this is Internet Explorer embedded inside of the HTML Help application. Adobe Flash isn’t working in my hidden browser, but a quick visit to Adobe took care of it. Take care and look for my post in the near future on how to block Internet Explorer from running on your Windows PC.

Firefox is one of the most popular browsers on the Internet because it was the first application that provided tab browsing, being regarded as the most powerful rival for the classic Internet Explorer. As you probably know, Firefox is a well developed browser that provides support for themes and extensions, tiny tools able to increase the functionality of the application. Some time ago, Google released Toolbar for Firefox, an interesting add-on for Mozilla’s browser meant to add a popup blocker for the program as well as quick access to Google’s services. If you didn’t know, Google owns a separate page to present the most interesting extensions selected by the company’s employees and able to enhance the performance of the products developed by the search giant. Although at this time there are only 4 Firefox extensions available, the search giant really wants to promote the add-ons to access the Google services faster. “Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously s

Firefox has been our browser of choice since it first appeared, and very good it is too, especially when it comes to security, it’s also pretty fast when first installed but it does have one big failing, and that’s a gradual slow down in boot up and page load over time It’s all down to your user profile databases becoming fragmented, it happens and there’s usually not a lot you can do about, or is there? If your copy of Firefox has become sluggish try this little utility, called SpeedyFox. Click the Speed Up My Firefox button and in less than two shakes it gives all of your profile folders a thorough shake up and spring clean. Startup can be up to three times faster, your browsing History will appear in the blink of an eye, and behind the scenes web pages that rely on cookies should load lickety-split.

Firefox may be my browser of choice but there are times when it is REALLY slow, so slow in fact that I am sorely tempted to defect to Opera or even gasp Safari! It’s sometimes even worse when you’re opening up Firefox. You click on that little Fox icon and it sits there thinking “hmmm….he wants me to start up…will I or won’t I? Let’s think about it for a few minutes”. Meanwhile you’re sitting there gnashing your teeth and flirting with the idea of walking on the wild side with Flock. But you don’t have to wail and despair any more! During a little stroll through SourceForge, I found an interesting program called Firefox Preloader which was short on technical details but long on prospects. It claims to be able to “improve Firefox’s start-up time”. Now at this point, you’re probably very cynical about anything that claims to be able to speed up Firefox. After all, a quick Google search on “optimizing Firefox” or “speed up Firefox” brings back countless hits (some of them totally useless)