Here is how the browser interface looks after you have installed the bookmark menu extension:

As you can see, it’s much better, as all the folders are moved to a separate button. Thus use this extension and permanently hide the bookmarks toolbar in Firefox.(also read: How to create a customized toolbar for Firefox)

There aren’t much options available, apart from searching the bookmarks using keywords. Middle clicking a bookmark opens it in the background and “Open all bookmarks in tabs” feature is added in subsequent sub folders.

Techie-Buzz Verdict

The extension is good and helpful if you bookmark a lot of pages and want an easy option to access the bookmarks without using the toolbar. However, the same can be achieved using the Firefox hot key (Ctrl+B) which displays all your bookmarks in the sidebar.

Techie-Buzz Rating: 3/5 (Average).

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• Tools to synchronize bookmarks between browsers

This is a hassle. Thankfully there is an add-on that can save us from this drill. The Copy Plain Text extension for Firefox removes all the layout and formatting when you copy text from a webpage. Once installed, the add-on will give you an option of copy as plain text when you right-click on a piece of text.

You can also customize the options for the add-on and select whether to trim spaces around text, remove extra spaces and/or remove extra empty lines.

Techie-Buzz Verdict:

Copy Plain Text is a wonderful text tool that can save you a lot of time when copying from a webpage. It takes less than a minute to install and the fact that it is such a light-weight yet value-adding add-on, makes it even better.

[Via HowToGeek]

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about-config

When was the last time you planned on changing some settings on your Firefox and got scared away by this screen?

Well, Firefox is a totally customizable browser and these options are there for a reason. The build available for download has many settings set to a basic level for all system types, but if your hardware can take it, I recommend tweaking Firefox.

about-config-settings

However, Firefox tweaks and settings found on the ‘about:config’ make little or no-sense to first time visitors to the page unless of course, you are really smart.

Configuration Mania is a Firefox add-on to make things easy.

configuration-mania

Configuration Mania allows us to change settings in an organized manner. The different settings from ‘about:config’ have been divided into five easy sections namely: Browser, Security, Network, UI and Debug. Each section has sub sections and drop-down menus to make almost all the ‘about:config’ settings self-explanatory.

Techie Buzz Verdict

The add-on makes configuring Firefox much easier and a lot more comprehensive than before. It does not override any ‘about:config’ behavior which is still completely accessible. With a wide range of settings to play around with, the add-on will let Firefox beginners tweak Firefox easily and in an enhanced way. This add-on will also enlighten the user about the changes being made to the browser, unlike changing settings with ‘about:config. Although, all those tutorials giving out ways to speed up Firefox will not be completely applicable through the add-on, it will always be possible through ‘about:config’.

Techie Buzz Rating : 4.5/5 ( Excellent )

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Jetpack-Gallery

According to the Jetpack website, :

The Jetpack Gallery is a community for developers and add-on users: Users get innovative add-ons that add functionality to Firefox, while developers receive valuable feedback and visibility in the Jetpack community.

The Jetpak gallery features a properly customized and organized add-on gallery where add-ons are tagged and categorized by author, reviews, popularity and alike. Also, Jetpack featured add-ons will install without a browser restart.

The site includes a Jetpack search and sections like popular tags ratings and bar indicators, top downloads, top contributors and similar ones. A section at the end offers developers an easy way to upload their creations as well. Mozilla Jetpack has made Firefox add-on development easier. The launch of the Jetpack Gallery narrows the bridge between the Jetpack developers and add-on users.

You might also like:

• Mozilla Jetpack 0.6 Release
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• Develop Your Own Firefox Add-ons With Jetpack
• Web Open Font Format in Mozilla Firefox 3.6

Firefox_3.6_beta_2

Firefox 3.6 features a new and improved rendering engine, a better JavaScript performance, full-screen videos, support for WOFF and a lot more. You can see more on Firefox 3.6 beta 1 in this earlier post.

The fixes in Firefox 3.6 beta 2 include:

• Better support for mobile devices, specially on Windows CE.
• Better support for WOFF on Linux and Solaris, bug fix of some characters not showing on these platforms.
• Undo support for Personas.
• Some minor UI fixes, like broken text in dialogues, windows and components being displaced on certain actions, etc.
• Fix for full-screen mode, Mac problem of missing window title on returning from full-screen mode.
• Resolving problems with lost focus of component windows.
• Resolving maximize and restore window size.

These 190 fixes coming in less than 2 weeks proves that things are really moving fast at the Mozilla development front. With every beta release, we will move closer to a better Firefox.

You might also like:

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Mozilla communities are hosting parties all over the world to mark this occasion. As a part of the “Light the World with Firefox” campaign, they will be shining the Firefox logo from Tokyo to Rome, from Paris to San Francisco, and more. For information on the planned celebrations head over to www.spreadfirefox.com/5years/.

Firefox has certainly accomplished a lot. It has managed to snag nearly 25% market share, is available in more than 70 languages and has more than 70,000 extensions. Most importantly, it succeeded in breaking Microsoft’s slumber and forced them to improve Internet Explorer.

What about the next 5 years? Christopher Blizzard shared some of his ideas at hacks.mozilla.org:

We’ll continue to make competitive browser releases and improve people’s experiences on the web. We’ll continue to innovate on behalf of developers and bring those improvements to the standards space. And we’ll continue to grow our amazing global community of users, developers and activists.

Happy Birthday Firefox and thanks for promoting web standards and trying to fix the broken web.

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New Tab King is a powerhouse when it comes to features. Here are some of the stuff that New Tab King adds to your New Tab page:

• Most used websites list.
• List of recently closed tabs.
• Shortcuts to your favorite applications like Windows Media Player, Calculator or Notepad.
• To-Do List, which help you in getting things done.
• Personalized website recommendations based on your surfing habits.
• Search bar, which supports dozens of websites including Rapidshare, eBay, Facebook, Flickr and NY Times.

Although New Tab King requires minimal intervention on your part to get started, it provides plenty of configuration options for the advanced user. You can create search and applications shortcuts, build website exclusion lists and even change the page background.

Techie Buzz Verdict

Safari may have a more glamorous new tab page, but New Tab King takes the crown for being the most useful one. The latest beta of New Tab King also adds an Opera like thumbnail mode along with a cool looking (but rather pointless) analytics mode. New Tab King converts Firefox’s bland New Tab page into an awesome start page. Give it a try and let us know what you think.

[ Download New Tab King ]

Techie Buzz Rating: 4.5/5 (Excellent)

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Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project which makes it possible for anyone who knows standard web skills (HTML, Javascript, CSS) to make Firefox add-ons.

Mozilla-jetpack

Jetpack 0.6 has added two major APIs to its base.They are :

• Ability to add to and edit existing menus, which includes both system-specific menus and the right-click context menu on individual objects.
• A secure preferences system, which lets you select what secure fields you need to display in your UI, like user-name, password and alike.

Apart from these there are innumerable bug fixes. The blog also features video tutorials; on how to use the new APIs when creating your next add-on with Jetpack.

A more technical and detailed information is available at the blog here.

The download is available at this page.

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Mozilla-jetpack

[ The Jetpack is a Mozilla Labs project which allows people with knowledge of basic web-technologies like HTML, JavaScript and CSS to make Firefox add-ons. ]

Alexander’s add-on was named jetpack to CUDA. Clearly evident from the name, it uses the CUDA parallel computing architecture to perform complex calculations and computations a lot faster than the CPU. CUDA supports C, C++ and Fortran. This makes it a widely accepted architecture. CUDA enabled GPUs are present on .1 billion+ computers worldwide. The add-on will be a breakthrough in Firefox addon development and open doors to possibilities of richer design elements on web-pages.

The runner-ups creations included Google translate related add-ons, add-ons related to live editing of pages and many more.

You might also like:

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Google Wave Add-on for Firefox is a simple extension, which automatically checks your Wave account at a specified interval of time and notifies you if there are any unread wavelets. It sits quietly in the right hand corner of Firefox’s status bar and displays the number of currently unread wavelets. You can also get a quick preview of unread wavelets by hovering the mouse pointer over the status bar icon.

Techie Buzz Verdict

One of the major complaints against Wave has been that it is incredibly heavy. Having Wave always open in a background tab is a prospect that most users don’t relish. Google Wave Notifier allows you to close Google Wave when not required without missing out on any of the action.

Techie Buzz Verdict: 3/5 (Good)

[ Download Google Wave Add-on for Firefox ]

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