Before

Here is the “Progress Bar” showing in the “Status Bar” while a webpage is loading…nice if you like having the “Status Bar” displayed. But what if you prefer to have the “Status Bar” hidden?

After

Once you have installed the extension, the “Progress Bar” will display on any tabs that are currently loading leaving you free to completely hide the “Status Bar” if you desire.

Note: There are no options to have to worry with for this extension…just install and go.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a way to move Status Bar functionality to your tabs, then the Tab Progress Bar extension will make a nice addition to your Firefox Browser. If you want to hide the Status Bar until you need it, check out our article on how to Auto-Hide the Status Bar in Firefox.

Links

Download the Tab Progress Bar extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Note: PageZipper is available as an extension for Firefox and as a bookmarklet for your other browsers (very nice).

Setup

Once you have installed the extension, there are no options for you to have to worry about. Simply add the Toolbar Button to the location that best suits your needs.

Toolbar Button in place…time to say goodbye to those “Next” links!

PageZipper in Action

To test PageZipper out, we decided to go to Photobucket and look for pictures of horses. As you can see, there were at least 14 pages of pictures ready to go through. To activate PageZipper, click on the Toolbar Button and get ready to enjoy yourself.

Notice the very smooth transition between pages 1 and 2 as one page scrolls so nicely into another (terrific).

Still going oh so nicely at page 11! Beautiful non-stop scrolling without all the irritating “Next” links!

Conclusion

If you get frustrated with always having to click on “Next” just to view collections of pictures or read an entire article, then you are going to love PageZipper.

Links

Download the PageZipper extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Download the PageZipper extension OR bookmarklet (PageZipper Homepage)

Before

There it is…the same old “Status Bar” that just seems to hang around taking up space. Time to grab that extension and install it…

After

Once you have installed the extension and restarted Firefox you will quickly see that the “Status Bar” is totally hidden (nice!).

Options

Ok, so what about the options for autoHideStatusbar? In the “Preferences Area” you can enable/disable autoHideStatusbar, determine when (and how) the “Status Bar” appears, and select/deselect direct settings for the “Status Bar” itself.

Note: For our browser we chose “always” for “hovering a link?” and selected the “Floating statusbar” option.

If you have a particular website where you would like to have the “Status Bar” always display, then you can add the URL here in the “AHS Filters Area”.

To delete a website address all that you have to do is quickly double click that address and then click “OK” when the message window appears.

autoHideStatusbar in Action

Here is the “Status Bar” displaying while the How-To Geek website is loading…

And the “Status Bar” displaying the address when we hovered the mouse over a link…

Take a close look at the bottom of the browser. Holding the mouse at that position relative to the edge activated the “Floating statusbar” option mentioned above. Why activate it? To gain easy access to the “autoHideStatusbar Icon” (or other icons if present).

While the “Status Bar” is displaying you can temporarily deactivate autoHideStatusbar by clicking on the “autoHideStatusbar Icon”. Green for active and Red for non-active…

Conclusion

If you find yourself wanting the Status Bar to be an “on-demand” feature only, then you are definitely going to enjoy having this extension added to your browser.

Links

Download the autoHideStatusbar extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Download the autoHideStatusbar extension (Extension Homepage)

Before

Here is our regular horizontal “Bookmarks Toolbar”…not bad, but how about something different?

Setup

Once you have installed the extension and restarted Firefox, you will notice two things immediately… First, the regular “Bookmarks Toolbar” has disappeared. Second, take a close look at the left side of your browser…see that nice collapsible sidebar waiting for you?

With a simple click of your mouse your new “Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar” appears and is ready to go.

Note: You can easily adjust the width of the toolbar to best suit your personal preferences.

Options

If you decide that you would like to do a little bit of tweaking to your new “Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar”, these are the options that are available.

You can easily switch the toolbar to the right side of your browser, decide which mode (closed, opened, or previous state) that you want your toolbar to open in, enable or disable auto-hiding, and set custom time limits for your auto-hiding and opening options.

Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar in Action

To access your bookmarks click on the folder to see the individual bookmarks and then select the one that you would like to open.

Note: Individual bookmarks not in folders open automatically when clicked on.

And just like that you are ready to enjoy all of that “Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar” goodness.

Conclusion

If you have a wide screen and are wanting to regain some extra vertical real-estate, then the Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar just might be the extension that you have been waiting for.

Links

Download the Vertical Bookmarks Toolbar extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

The Aero Peek Tabs

If you simply hover your mouse over the Firefox button in the Windows 7 taskbar, you’ll see a list of all the open tabs. This works best if you only have a few tabs open—too many, and it’ll just stop showing them.

Enhanced Ctrl+Tab (optional) 

The really awesome new feature is an enhanced Ctrl+Tab, but you’ll have to turn it on with a simple tweak if you want to use it. Once you’ve done that (detailed below), you can simply hit the shortcut key combination to flip between the tabs. Note that it only activates if you have 3 or more tabs open.

Enhanced Ctrl+Shift+Tab, with Tab Search

Ever wanted to be able to just start typing in the name of a tab in order to switch to it? Once you’ve enabled the Ctrl+Tab setting, you can use Ctrl+Shift+Tab to pull up this alternate tab switching interface, and then start typing in the name of a tab to filter it down.

For example, if I typed in “tiny” into the textbox in the above screenshot, you would only see the TinyHacker tab on the dialog.

Enable or Disable Ctrl+Tab Enhancements

This one isn’t enabled by default (at this point), but you can enable or disable it by typing in about:config into the address bar, and then filtering for the following key:

browser.ctrlTab.previews

You can simply double-click the key to change it between true and false.

If you want to also be able to activate the new tab switcher with the button on the right-hand side of the tab bar:

You can open up about:config and filter for this key, making sure to enable it:

browser.allTabs.previews

Enable or Disable Taskbar Aero Peek Enhancements

This one is enabled by default in my testing, but if you want to disable it you can type about:config into the address bar, and then filter for the following key:

browser.taskbar.previews.enable

Just like above, double-click to change between true and false.

Note: the article originally went out without proof-reading, but this should be correct now.

Download the Beta!

All the usual conditions apply, it’s a beta, it will break everything and drink all your coffee, etc.

Download Firefox 3.6 Beta 1 from mozilla.org

The Problem – Real Player

The problem is RealPlayer which can be a lot of extra bloat to deal with just to watch the occasional RM file or online content. While it may not be as adware ridden as it was a few years ago, it’s far more than you need just to watch play some online content.

Of course it still likes to leave advertisement popups on your desktop, which is completely unacceptable from any program.

Real Alternative

Real Alternative is completely ad free and allows you to play RealMedia files (.ra .rm .rmvb .ram .rpm .rv .rp .rt .rnx .smi .smil) without having to install the bloated RealPlayer. It installs the right plugins to support RM content that is embedded in Web pages. It also comes bundled with Media Player Classic which you can use on your desktop for playing RM files.

After installing, you can go through and set it up according to your preferences.

If you find a site that requires RealPlayer to watch embedded content right click and select Real Player.

It opens up with Media Player Classic to watch the video.

This is definitely a lot better solution than dealing with the huge bloated annoyance of RealPlayer.

Download Real Alternative

Before

Here is our browser with the “Menu Bar” showing full-time. Nice, but what if we could have a “built-in” on/off switch for the “Menu Bar”?

After

Installing the extension is quick and easy…and there are no options for you to worry with. As soon as you restart Firefox the “Menu Bar” is already hidden as shown below (nice!).

So what do you do when you need that occasional access to the “Menu Bar”? Just hit the left or right “Alt Key”…it acts just like a toggle switch. The “Menu Bar’ will also auto-hide whenever you click inside the webpage or outside of the browser itself. Sweet and simple!

Conclusion

The Hide Menubar extension lets you enjoy having the Menu Bar there when you need but keeps it out of your way when you do not. Enjoy!

Links

Download the Hide Menubar extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Before

As an example of a fixed area text box, we decided to take a quick look at the comment forms here at the How-To Geek website.

The text area before installing the extension…

Setup & Installation

All that you will need to do is install the extension and you are ready to start enjoying that custom sized text area goodness. There are no options or modifications to worry about.

Textarea++ in Action

Just for fun we grabbed onto the empty text area and gave it a quick “stretch”… You can make the text area as large as you need to before you start writing!

Here is what the scrollbar function will look like on those text areas if you are not wanting to stretch the text area out…

Note: The How-To Geek website’s comment forms do have a built in scrollbar function but the forms on many other websites do not.

Have a lot that you want to write and be able to clearly see at the same time? Not a problem! You can really stretch that text area out and enjoy scrollbar goodness too. Feel free to write to your heart’s content!

Conclusion

If you have been frustrated with under-sized text areas in web forms, then Textarea++ will definitely bring much needed relief to your browsing experience.

Links

Download the Textarea++ extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Note: Many of the buttons included in the extension also work for Thunderbird and Sunbird.

Newly Installed Browser

You have just finished setting up a fresh install of Firefox and got your favorite extensions added in, but what about some really helpful toolbar buttons?

Opening up the “Customize Toolbar Window” shows very few buttons to choose from… What if you could easily have over 100 new buttons to choose from? Sounds like a great idea!

Setup

Once you have the extension added to Firefox, the best thing to do is open the “Customize Toolbar Window” and take a look at the huge variety of buttons available there. You can find a little bit of everything included…

You may be surprised to know that there are options available for the extension. The options are settings that apply to certain buttons included in the set (i.e. News Client, Mail Client, and Toggle Buttons).

Creating a Custom Version

Ok, so the thought of extra toolbar buttons is great but perhaps you only want a small set to work with instead. Not a problem! The extension author has set up a process that allows you to pick and choose the exact buttons that you want and package them into a special custom-built version of the extension.

If you prefer this option, visit the author’s website (link provided at bottom of article) to start the custom extension process. Once you are there you will see two columns of buttons. Select the ones that you want or need and when you are ready click on the “Make It! Button”. Please note that it will take a few moments to compile your new custom extension…

Once your new custom extension is ready you will be provided with the download link. The file name will look similar to the one shown in the screenshot…if you desire choose a name that best suits your needs. Save your new extension to a convenient location and then you are ready to add it to Firefox.

Enjoying Those New Toolbar Buttons

There is nothing quite like having the perfect tools and buttons to get the job done while using Firefox.

Conclusion

The Toolbar Buttons extension provides the perfect way to add that wonderful bit of extra functionality to your Firefox browser.

Links

Download the Toolbar Buttons extension (Mozilla Add-ons)

Download the Toolbar Buttons extension (Extension Homepage)

Create Your own custom Toolbar Buttons extension (Extension Homepage)

Before

Here is our browser with the default “History Menu” displayed. There is not a lot that we can look at in detail is there? We need to be able to see more than just some of today’s browsing history…

But to do that means opening the “Library Window”. Not good…not good at all. Time to make all of that browser history easy to access from the “History Menu” itself!

Options

Once you have installed the History Submenus extension and restarted Firefox, you should take a quick look at the options. Adjust the number of items shown for each of the categories to best suit your personal needs. For the “Label” option, there are only two choices…”Date Format” or “Number Of Days Ago Format”.

History Submenus in Action

It is easy to see a big difference from the default “History Menu”. Not only do you get to look through the most recent day of history at the top, but you also get to browse through the history for past days specifically (very nice!). Here you can see the “Date Format” style…

The “Date Format” style with all of the active and empty sub-menus showing…

And the “History Menu” when it is set for the “Number Of Days Ago Format” style.

Conclusion

If you find yourself becoming frustrated with the default History Menu & Manager while trying to find a specific website/link, then the History Submenus extension will be a welcome addition to your browser.

Links

Download the History Submenus extension (Mozilla Add-ons)