My Firefox

So I needed a browser. I already had Mozilla, Netscape, Konqueror, and Galleon (or whatever Gnome's browser is). I didn't like any of them. I googled a bit and everybody seemed to rave about Firefox. So I got hold of it. And it was the nicest browser yet, but nothing to really rave about, it seemed. I certainly didn't see what all the fuss was about.

Until I installed Portable Firefox on a USB key and was able to run it at work on Windows XP. . .

I'm used to having a better user experience on my Linux machine than I do on Windows - It's the nature of the beast. So Firefox was just another part of "Linux is better than Windows" at home. But when I got the exact same experience with Firefox on a machine that had only had a particularly sucky flavour of IE . . . (We can't touch ANY of the settings - security reasons. So it hides our Favourites if we don't use them enough; it doesn't remember our passwords; we can't install popup blockers. . . )

Firefox on Windows blew me away, it really did.

Why?

Well, some folks say that FF's best feature is it's small, unbloated size. I don't.
Some say FF's success is down to its better security. I don't.
Bill Gates says FF is no better than IE. If he was only using a vanilla Firefox install, I can understand where he's coming from.

Firefox is made so damn good by its community, and their ability to easily customize and extend it.

Because I can change Firefox and add features to it, it's streets ahead of any other browser. The popup blocker, RSS aggregator, PNG support. . . they're just icing. The customizability is the cake.

So, what do I do to customize a vanilla Firefox?

• Firstly, I hack the built-in functionality.
  • I edit the userChrome and userContent files.
    • userChrome:
      • To make the built-in searchbar a decent size:
        #search-container, #searchbar {
        -moz-box-flex: 400 !important;
        }
      • To make the default background white, instead of boring grey:
        menubar, toolbox, toolbar, .tabbrowser-tabs {
        background-color: #FFFFFF !important;
        }
      • To get rid of blinking text!
        user_pref("browser.blink_allowed", false);
    • userContent:
      • To stop too-small text on my high-res Linux monitor:
        input {
        font-size: 15px !important;
        }
        textarea {
        font-size: 15px !important;
        }
      • To stop me having to adblock everything myself, I use Neil Jenkins' Adblock ruleset
  • Then, I install the nice white Qute theme (Yes, I like white apps)
  • The searchbar gets the deadwood cut out and a few new places to search. I have available:
    • Google.com
    • Linux Google
    • Wikipedia
    • Ebay UK
  • I add some Live Bookmarks (Bookmark entries that update via RSS feeds so they're always current) such as Slashdot, LinuxQuestions, Groklaw, The BOFH, BBC News. . .
  • To get Java and Flash plugins working, I create links in the global plugins directory (/usr/lib/MozillaFirefox/plugins/) to the files javaplugin_oji.so and libflashplayer.so
  • Finally, I go to about:config and make a few changes:
    • I set ui.key.generalAccessKey to zero - this stops web pages breaking my shortcut keys by defining their own, which I hate.
    • I change network.http.pipelining to "true" and increase the network.http.pipelining.maxrequests to the maximum (8) - this means that instead of downloading the HTML file, then the first image file it references, then the second, etc; it downloads multiple files at the same time.
• Now, it's time to add in some extra functionality:
  • Install All-in-one mouse gestures, to make the mouse more than just a point-and-click tool. Go back a dozen pages at once, open and navigate between new tabs, view source, all directly with the mouse.
  • Install Adblocker to stop all those blasted banner ads
  • Install GreaseMonkey to allow me to change how web pages are rendered - such as stopping links being able to open new pages.
  • Install Platypus because I can't program GreaseMonkey unaided. This allows me to cut out swathes of web pages I don't want to see, or to move parts around if I so wish.
  • Install Duplicate Tab which allows me to duplicate the current tab's active site and history in a new window or tab, like IE does when you open a new window. Only with tabs, and it's optional rather than compulsory.

Once I've done all this, I have Firefox the way I like it. I shall now bore you with some screenshots:

• My Firefox - favicon-supporting bookmarks proudly on-show
  
• My full-width searchbar - Ctrl-Up and -Down allows keyboard selection of search engines, BTW, and Ctrl-K switches the cursor TO the searchbar.
  
• My live bookmarks
  
• All-in-one mouse gestures showing a scrollable history
  
• An example of a page with Adblocker and Greasemonkey doing their thing:
  
  As compared to when they AREN'T doing their thing: