So far, this is what I really notice: Opera 9 is very ver fast – both launching and retrieving web pages. And, compared with Firefox, it consumes only half the system resources; with equal numbers of tabs open, Firefox packs a wolloping 100,000KB, whereas Opera makes do with about 50,000KB (according to the Windows Task Manager -> Processes – Mem Usage).
But … on the downside, Opera still has huge display issues. Some web sites are not really usable – Google Mail would be the most glaring example. Boy, do they need to work on that back in Norway.
Filed under: Browsers, FireFox, Opera
12 November 2005 • 12:31 am
I’m a big fan of shortcuts. Sometimes you discover one by accident. OK, I could read through the Mozilla Help file and try and memorize a whole batch of them … but does anybody do that?
I stumbled across CTRL+E by accident. In Firefox, if you press this combination (or CTRL+K), your cursor focus shifts to the Search box at the top, next to the address bar (Google in my case). If text is in there, it is highlighted – so you’re ready to type in your query.
Because I discovered this accidentally, and was so delighted, I’m much more likely to remember it now. 
And as to another very useful (indispensable) shortcut: CTRL+W will close your current tab.
It must be easily 100 times a day I use that one.
Filed under: Browsers, FireFox
8 November 2005 • 4:02 am
I’d always wondered whether that would work … just saving a copy of the whole caboodle.
And it seems that indeed is the answer: Axlotl explains.
Cool. Just remember, if you’re on Windows, that you can’t have Firefox running while trying to zip up that profile folder.
Filed under: Browsers, FireFox
28 October 2005 • 9:22 am
No, I haven’t installed it.
I don’t need to – I’ve got my WP.com account.
OK, joking aside: I normally jump at anything that’s beta or, even better, alpha. But in this case … nah. It’s a case of protecting what you’ve got.
(This post was updated 29 October)
Read the rest of this entry »
Filed under: Browsers
22 October 2005 • 12:06 am
Hurrah!
Two of my favourite can’t-live-without Firefox extensions are now available again in the 1.5 beta version.
ColorZilla – version 0.8.3.1
MeasureIt – version 0.3.3
If you do any sort of web design at all, and haven’t tried these yet, run and grab them. They’re seriously good.
Filed under: Browsers, FireFox, Web Development
15 October 2005 • 4:11 am
I nearly freaked after my upgrade to Beta 2 … the Sessions extension was not supported. Eeeek!
I am lazy and organise nearly all my online work through the facility of … yep, browser sessions.
And then they were all inaccessible. I contemplated trawling through my browsing history; but that would only bring back the most recently visited sites.
Fortunately, the developer of the SessionSaver keeps carving away at it. Visiting the forum where all the news for this extension is discussed brought immense relief: a very recent (development) version had just been posted.
The forum page is: SessionSaver .2d: new (rewrite)
and the extension (dev version) can be downloaded here.
Oh joy of joys – it works, and works well!
And, what’s even better: the extension has been improved further. There is now (finally!) a way to save/export your sessions, and also import session files. This was sorely needed and I’m thrilled to have that feature. Now I can save session files for backup, and also transfer them to other machines.
Thank you, rue, thank you very much.
Now the functionality of SessionSaver is beginning to come a bit closer to what Opera’s inbuilt session management offers. I can’t really think of a better way of handling sessions than Opera does … as in many other respects, the Norwegian browser gnomes have got a good handle on ease of use and flexibility.
Filed under: Browsers, FireFox
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