Category Archives: Browser

Goro page when making google your default search provider

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’ve been setting up a few old computers with new installs of XP.

The biggest issue with using internet explorer 8 at the moment is that if you reside outside the USA, microsoft will not let you select google as a default search provider.

The next step is to do a google search for:

google default search provider

And the top item is:

http://www.google.com/homepage/search/

Ie: google “seems” helpful enough to do what Microsoft refuses to do.

But there is a problem:

You go to the page, click on the button that says: “make google my search provider”, then go through the steps to complete the action.

You now feel warm and fuzzy, because the search box at the top right says google…

But when you try to search, you get:

goro1

At first glance, I thought I made a mistake, but a closer look shows that Goro is actually part of Google.

So now I’m thinking: did Google somehow stuff up their attempt to change the default search provider away from Bing?

Or is Google trying to force people to switch to a google account?

I tried to login to my google account, and the search provider box then gives me:

goro2

So its now obvious that google have shot themselves in the foot (and Microsoft can breath a tiny sigh of relief… with the unfolding disaster otherwise know as Windows 8, Microsoft need all the help they can get!).

So what do I do? IE8 (as far as I can see) no longer allows you to manually setup your own search provider by entering the appropriate URL… so thats no longer an option.

The eventual (ugly) solution is:

Go to control panel, and temporarily change your “Regional and Language Options” in Control panel… from English (Australia) to English (Untied States 🙂 ) . Then, when you tell IE8 that you want to find more providers, you are given a much wider choice, including Google.

Its starting to feel like Google is getting too big, and are heading down the same path as Microsoft… Lots of big plans, but forgetting to take enough care to dot the “i” and cross the “t”

problems with firefox rapid release development

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’m starting to get annoyed with the firefox rapid release development cycle.

I’ve known about it for a few months now, and when I first heard about it, it seemed like a good idea.

But then, as I’ve gone through version 4, then 5, and now v6.0, I’m finding more and more add-ons are breaking…

Back when I evaluated all the major browsers, looking for one that I would adopt as my main browser, the main reason I chose firefox was that it had a large number of add-ons, which allowed me to do things that no other browser (including firefox), could do out of the box.

Now, about half of my plugins are disabled, as they are incompatible, and firefox is becoming increasingly annoying to use… it feels like useful aspects are “falling off”.

The version numbering means that firefox no longer needs to support older version… so more effort can go into future development.

Thats great in theory, and users probably don’t care about having firefox V26.0 in 5 years time, but they do care about usability and stability.

For me, firefox is losing useability, and if it gets any worse, I’ll need to have another look around, and see what I can switch to.

The last time I looked, I remember:

  • Chrome didn’t have all the functionality I wanted (and virtually no plugins to add that functionality).
  • IE lost a lot of the configurability that I wanted (I think its a lot better now)
  • Opera had some compatibility issues.
  • Maxthon and various others had a whole range of issues.

I even tried firefox on my android phone for a while, but eventually decided that the speed of the built-in android browser overshadowed any benefit of using firefox sync, and the nicer firefox UI.

Where is view source gone in Firefox 6 ?

Computer Aid Posted on by

I recently upgraded to Firefox 6

And soon afterwards, I was wanting to look at the HTML source for a web page, and I tried to do what I normally do:

view -> page source

But its not there anymore!

A quick search of the menus didn’t find it, so I initially gave up & used internet explorer.

About a day later I decided: Right! It has to be somewhere!

I then found 3 different ways of viewing the page source code:

  • right-click on a “empty” part of the page, and then select: view page source. Its quick, but doesn’t work of some parts of a web page.
  • Ctrl U (like the previous technique: its quick, but doesn’t work if you have the cursor in a text input field)
  • tools -> web developer -> page source

I still like the old view -> source

Maybe in firefox 7? or in firefox 96.5? 🙂

downloading files using Prestashop

Computer Aid Posted on by

I’m in the process of creating an online shop for Computer Aid.

I’m looking at selling software and at some point, also selling hardware.

Hostgator gives me a very large choice of online shop software.

Lets see, I can choose:

  • os commerce
  • prestashop
  • zen cart
  • cubecart
  • opencart
  • magento
  • tomatocart
  • phpcoin

After reading some reviews, it seems that Prestashop V1.3.1 is the easiest to setup.

At this stage, I don’t want to waste time evaluating 8 different shop apps.

I make a big assumption: most shop apps have similar features & they are all stable… its just the user interfaces that will be different (with some being more complex than others).

Boy was I wrong!

After spending some time setting up Prestashop (change currency to Australian Dollar, upload my logo, etc), I create a “product” to sell: I upload the “Complete Keyfinder” file that I currently have for sale in my software section, setup a price, setup some payment options, then do a test purchase.

Everything goes well until I try downloading CompleteKeyfinder…

I get prompted to download it as a text file… I proceed with the download, and I end up with a file called “CompleteKeyfinder.txt”.

By renaming it to CompleteKeyfinder.exe, I find it works normally, but its not what a customer would want.

I try a few variations, and find that this problem only happens with Firefox, and only with .exe files.

I try a different online shop, and there is no problem downloading .exe files.

So it looks like a fault with PrestaShop, and no short-term solution, without modifying php files.

I’m not interested in customising an unfamiliar application… I’d much prefer to install something that works without having to jump through hoops.

So the next shop software that I’ll be trying is: Tomatocart. Its based on the very popular OS Commerce, so it should be a lot more stable.

To be continued…

Strange Firefox behaviour: fixing add-on corruption.

Computer Aid Posted on by

I had Firefox suddenly start to behave strangely:

I would see strange looking tabs, and many blank pages, instead of websites… and the occasional “page not found” message.

Yet IE8 was working fine.

I disabled all the plugins, and FF would then start working normally again.

After a bit of trial and error, I eventually found that the problem was with the tab kit plus add-on.

But the add-on was working fine on another similar PC…

So I thought: maybe tab kit plus has some corrupt data, so I’ll uninstall it, restart FF, then re-install tab kit plus.

Well, it didn’t seem to have any effect.

After some research, I found that this can sometimes happen to Firefox, and the only way out, is to create a new profile.

Since creating a new profile, means you will lose all the bookmarks, plugins, etc from the old profile, I made a backup of the bookmarks:

bookmarks -> organise bookmarks -> import and backup -> backup -> select where to save the backup (and its name).

I then shutdown firefox (restart your PC if you want to be sure).

Then from a command prompt (cmd), I enter:

firefox -ProfileManager

The window that pops up allows you to create a new profile (create profile button), and I also delete the old corrupt profile (delete profile button).

I then Exit, and start firefox normally, and I get an “out of the box” firefox.

I then import the favorites, and re-install the plugins, and the problem is gone.

An interesting side effect of this is:

With the new profile, Firefox seems much faster (even with all the add-ons and bookmarks back to normal!)… I wonder if Firefox needs a “cleanup” function / add-on, to maintain its performance?

streetview blocked by flashblock add-on

Computer Aid Posted on by

A short while ago, I suddenly noticed that google streetview stopped working.

There was no error messages, and the page would just continue to show the google map.

After some searching I discovered that streetview uses flash, and a recent change by google has caused my browsers flash blocker (flashblock) to stop streetview.

Luckily, the solution is very simple:

go to firefox tools -> add-ons -> extensions -> flashblock -> options -> whitelist

just add the following to the whitelist:

http://maps.google.com/

http://maps.google.com.au/

http://maps.google.co.uk/

and any other country code that google has used to streetmap.

Flash Player cookie (LSO) problems in your browser

Computer Aid Posted on by

Adobe’s Flash player is now very common (reports are that 90% – 99% of all browsers on the internet have flash player installed).

So, security and privacy concerns are now starting to appear with Flash Player.

In particular, are Flash “super cookies”, also known as Local Shared Objects (LSO).

Compared to normal browser cookies, these objects can store a huge amounts of data… the objects are not cleared, and can be used to “re-create” normal cookies that you thought you removed…

As far as I can see, it just takes a Flash security flaw to enable virus writers to create websites that will infect your PC via LSO… and then keep re-infecting it.

So I’ve decided to play it safe and install a firefox plugin called: BetterPrivacy

This will not block LSO from being installed, but it does remove them once you exit the Firefox.

You can get BetterPrivacy from: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/

Review of the tab mix plus add-on for firefox

Computer Aid Posted on by

The Tab Mix Plus add-on for firefox is what I now use instead of the, now incompatible, tab kit.

Tab Mix Plus has so many features and options, that I decided to do some screen-shots to show how I like to configure it for the best browsing experience.

As a premise, I like to remove the tab close button (on the right of each tab), as I find it easier to close a tab by just double-clicking on the tab.

I also like to remove the “add a new tab” button, since I arrange tab mix plus to automatically open new tabs for just about anything except for plain clicks on links (if I want to open a normal link in a new tab, I right-click, then select “open link in new tab”)… So I don’t need an “add new tab” button.

Here is how I have setup the various options (tools -> addons -> extensions -> tab mix plus -> options).

The change here is: Force to open in new tab: links to other sites, and enable single window mode.

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There are a few changes here: open other tabs next to current one, untick “change opening order”. Then open tabs from: tick all 5 boxes.

.

The only change I make here is to untick address bar, as I might want to open a few windows & dont want any to gain “focus”.

.

I find it less annoying by unticking “warn me when closing multiple tabs”.

I also like: when closing tab, focus left tab.

I make no changes under the “tab merging” tab.

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I find it useful to increase the max number of closed tabs to remember to 40 or 50

And I like the predictability of ctrl-tab navigation by un-ticking ctrl-tab navigates tabs in the most recently used order.

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Here I untick “new tab button” and “all tabs button”, as well as change “when tabs don’t fit width” to “multi-row”.

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I make quite a few changes here. Click highlight current tab. Untick close tab button. Tab width 22 to 250. Tick “tab width fits to tab title” and “use bookmark name as tab title” (since I use short names in my bookmarks).

Also: click “customize styles” button, and for the current tab, I change the background colour to a light yellow.

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Here, the closed tabs button is effectively an “undo closed tab” button, and you just need to click on the customize button, and drag the closed tabs button to the right of the “home” icon on the toolbar.

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I make no changes to the mouse gestures tab (I don’t use mouse gestures).

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On the mouse clicking tab, I make the following changes (close tab by double-clicking on it, and open a new tab by double clicking on a blank section of the tab bar.

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I make no changes to the “menu” section.

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Although Tab Mix will usually prompt you after it is installed, I usually check that “use firefoxes built-in session restore feature” is ticked.

As you can see, there is a lot that can be customised, with Tab Mix Plus. But if you want to get the most out of your browsing with FireFox, then its worth installing and customising Tab Mix Plus.

Top Firefox add-ons (3.6 update)

Computer Aid Posted on by

Since my previous review of add-ons for Firefox 3.5x, the newer Firefox 3.6.x has made some add-ons unusable, and other add-ons have appeared on the scene.

So I have decided to update my list of top Firefox add-ons.

First, to get the add-ons, you need to start Firefox, then go: tools -> add-ons

From the add-on window (which I have resized to full screen height), click on the “get add-ons” button, then enter the add-on name in the “search all add-ons” box.

  • Tab Mix Plus  is an excellent replacement for “Tab Kit” (which is no longer compatible with FF3.6, and doesn’t seem to be updated any more). Tab Mix Plus has a huge set of configurable items, some of which replace a handful of other add-ons that I once used. I’ll be providing a review, and some configuration hints in a later post.
  • Adblock Plus abp blocks annoying advertising. Just remember that some websites rely on advertising to survive… so if you use Adblock Plus, you should feel a certain level of guilt… but not too much 🙂
  • Close Tab By Double Click. This add-on can be removed, as the same functionality is provided by “tab mix plus”.
  • Flashblock flashblock blocks flash objects, yet lets you re-enable the flash objects with just a click. Great for blocking ads that Adblock Plus cannot block. Also good for making a “busy” website look easier on the eyes.
  • Menu Editor. puzzle I’ve only used this to change the right-click on a link action to: popup a menu that has the option: “Open Link in New Tab” option at the top of the menu.
  • QuickDrag: puzzle when you highlight a few words on a page, then drag the words a few pixels away, a new tab opens with the search results on those works (ie no need to copy and paste them into google). If you highlight and drag a url (eg: computer-aid.com.au ), then that url is opened in a new tab.
  • Remove New Tab Button. This add-on can be removed, as the same functionality is provided by “tab mix plus”.
  • SearchStatus searchstatus will display some ranking information about each site you visit. Once installed, I “move” it to the menu bar (at the top of the window). By right-clicking on the “q” logo, I select “highlight nofollow links” so all nofollow links show up as pink. I also enable pagerank, alexa, compete, mozrank.
  • Split Browser splitbrowserworks well on widescreen monitors. You can view 2 websites side-by-side, and I often enable the “sychronously scroll” option when comparing 2 versions of the same website.
  • Tab History Menu . I find I don’t use this add-on much.
  • Tab Kit. This add-on can be removed, as the same functionality is provided by “tab mix plus”.
  • TabRenamizer. This add-on can be removed, as the same functionality is provided by “tab mix plus”
  • Undo Closed Tabs Button. This add-on can be removed, as the same functionality is provided by “tab mix plus”.

alot toolbar problems

Computer Aid Posted on by

It seems to me that 3rd party browser toolbars cause more problems than they are worth.

For the vast majority of people, they appear mysteriously, and its assumed that you just have to live with these annoying, space-sapping invaders.

And it seems that every man and his dog, now have browser toolbars to “enhance” (more likely cripple) your browser.

Even Google have a toolbar (but at least its vaguely useful to a small number of people).

Some antivirus software have the ability to block your homepage from being changed. I think they should do something similar to block new toolbars from being installed.

Anyway, in my travels, I have found the alot toolbar to be the most problematic.

In one case, it was intermittently stopping URLs in emails from actually opening the page they were meant to.

Uninstalling alot fixed that problem.

At least most modern browsers now have the ability to easily disable toolbars.

Firefox navigates to reported attack site c.ppcxml.net

Computer Aid Posted on by

Another infected PC. This time, Windows XP also got corrupted.

So, as well as removing the infection, I also need to do a repair install of Windows.

But after all that, clicking on any google results (using Firefox) brings up a Firefox “reported attack site”… looking at the url, it seems I get redirected to c.ppcxml.net … regardless of which link I click on.

I quickly find the solution:

Use windows explorer to navigate to something like:

C:Program FilesMozilla Firefoxextensions{CAFEEFAC-0016-0000-0017-ABCDEFFEDCBA}chromecontentffjcext

Note that there might be more than 1 folder that starts with “{CAFEEFAC-“… you might need to look at all of them.

I ended up renaming any file that ends in .XUL (I changed the extension from .XUL to .LUX).

You might need to try a few combinations, as its a fairly important file for Firefox.