Hack a Day » firefox hacks

Custom shortcuts from Firefox address bar

Mike Szczys — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 20:00:11 +0000

We picked up a great Firefox bookmark tip from [Colin]. He wanted an easier way to look up bug numbers on the launchpad bug tracker. Because the url is always the same with the bug number at the end of the address, he replaced the final portion of the url with %s. Now, when he types the keyword followed by the bug number in the address bar the bug page loads right up.

We don’t do all that many bug searches but it’s immediately obvious that this can be useful in a lot of ways. In the photo above you can see we’ve set up a shortcut to the tag pages for hackaday.com. Now we just type “hack” with the tag we want after it. Add this to your bookmarks and try typing “hack firefox” into the address bar.

Posted in firefox hacks

Firefox CSS hack: change navigation icons

Mike Szczys — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 22:25:29 +0000

Why settle for the standard home icon on your browser? If your home button brings you to hackaday.com, why not make the icon reflect that destination? This hack is quick and simple. We’ll take you through it using Firefox 3 and the default theme with standard sized icons.

We start by using our favorite graphics program to make an icon that is 24×24 pixels, and then saved is as a PNG file without compression.

To use the new image as a home icon, we edited a Cascading Style Sheet which is stored in the file classic.jar. On Ubuntu 9.04, this was found in /usr/lib/firefox-3.0.13/chrome/ but the file will be located elsewhere on other operating systems. We made a backup of classic.jar and then unzipped the contents (JARs are basically the same as zip files).

In the unzipped archive, we navigated to the folder /skin/classic/browser/ and opened browser.css using a text editor. This is where the magic happens and although we only changed the home button icon, there’s a lot more possibilities you should look into. We changed the #home-button entry so that the image URL pointed to our new file using the file:/// format. Here’s what ours looked like after the change:

#home-button {
 list-style-image: url("file:///path_to_our_icon/hackaday-icon.png");
}

We saved this file, then zipped up the file structure back into a file called classic.jar and copied it to the same location we originally found it. A quick restart of Firefox showed the new icon. Let us know your other Firefox tweaks in the comments!

Update: [Colby] pointed out that this type of CSS change should be made in the “userChrome.css” file. He’s right and here’s how:

Find your user profile directory and go to the “chrome” sub-directory inside of it. Create the file “userChrome.css”; there may already be an example file that you can just rename. The important bit of this CSS file is the namespace line that tells Firefox how to use it. Here is what ours looks like:

@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* set default namespace to XUL */

#home-button {
 list-style-image: url("file:///path_to_our_icon/hackaday-icon.png") !important;
}

In order to get Firefox to listen to our new icon we had to had the “!important” keyword. Now just restart firefox and bask in the glory of your new home icon.

Posted in firefox hacks

Lightweight Webkit based browsers

Brett Haddock — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 16:30:21 +0000

With netbooks being slim and mostly utilitarian, it seems a bit contradictory to use a standard and somewhat bulky web browser with them. After all, we’re trimming down the operating system to perform faster on these little devices, so why not thin out the focal point of the netbook: the browser. Firefox, Chrome, or Safari may be well and great for a full powered desktop or laptop, so how about something a bit more trimmed? Enter the lightweight Webkit based browsers: Arora and Midori.

Arora and Midori are relative newcomers to the browser wars, but each offers a great alternative to Firefox, especially for netbooks. They’re both based on the opensource Webkit project, which is the same engine used by Chrome and Safari, so pages load quickly. Flash is supported and fully enabled in both with video playback working just as well as other browsers. The main advantage is the loading speed of the browser itself. On an ASUS Eee PC with Ubuntu, Firefox takes a few seconds to load, where Arora and Midori load in under a second.

These projects are maturing pretty quickly, and some great features come out with each version. For our money though, Arora takes the cake, and has replaced Firefox as my browser of choice for my netbook. It’s quicker, offers a somewhat similar feature to Firefox’s “awesome bar”, has a privacy mode, and is generally a little bit faster than Midori.

Posted in downloads hacks, firefox hacks, netbook hacks

Securing your data

Eliot — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 22:21:58 +0000

Lifehacker has published an overview of some of the many ways you can secure your data. The post was prompted by recently released browser vulnerabilities: first IE, then Firefox. They cover techniques far beyond just browser security, like how to properly wipe your iPhone. They mention disk encryption go-to TrueCrypt along with password management tools like KeePass. They also suggest using temporary credit cards to mitigate the impact of fraud.

[photo: Rija 2.0]

Posted in firefox hacks, iphone hacks, pcs hacks, security hacks

Firefox addon makes pirating music easier

Nick Caiello — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 11:00:04 +0000

The Amazon MP3 Store may have the lowest prices on DRM free music, but for some people 79 cents for a song is just too much, especially when [john] and the folks at pirates-of-the-amazon.com can help you get that song for free. Pirates of the Amazon is a slick Firefox addon that inserts a “download 4 free” button next to the “add to cart” button in the Amazon MP3 Store. After clicking on the button, the addon refers users to a thepiratebay.org search page with bittorrent download links for the song or album. While there is no question that this makes getting your music easier, by using this addon you do run the risk of violating copyright laws, depending on which country you live in.

There isn’t much here that hasn’t been thrown into Greasemonkey scripts in the past and we wonder if they’re marketing this to anyone at all. People who absolutely love using Amazon but hate buying stuff perhaps? They cite a couple interesting projects in their about section: Amazon Noir robotically abused the “Search Inside” feature to reconstruct entire books. OU Library searches your local library to see if it has the Amazon book you’re looking for.

Posted in downloads hacks, firefox hacks, news

Faster browsing with RAM disks

Eliot — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 03:14:03 +0000

A coworker approached us today wondering if they could get a performance boost using Samsung’s newly announced 256GB SSD. Most of their work is done in browser, so we said “no”. They’d only see benefit if they were reading/writing large files. Their system has plenty of RAM, and we decided to take a different approach. By creating a filesystem in RAM, you can read and write files much faster than on a typical hard drive. We decided to put the browser’s file cache into RAM.

We installed the Espérance DV preference pane in OSX to facilitate RAM disk creation. It’s really simple to setup. Just select how much space you want to dedicate to the disk and create it. You can have Espérance DV recreate the RAM disk on start and even have it automatically restore from a disk image. There is a check box for moving Safari’s Web Cache to the RAM disk, which creates the necessary symlink. You can also use it to speed up Xcode builds. Moving Firefox’s cache is fairly simple:

$ rm -r ~/Library/Caches/Firefox $ ln -s /Volumes/RamDisk/Firefox ~/Library/Caches/Firefox

Since the browser isn’t having to hit the hard disk on every page load anymore, the performance is much snappier. Xbench says our random reads from RAM are now 86.19MB/sec instead of 0.61MB/sec when the cache was on the hard drive.

We immediately began looking for ways to get the entire OS into RAM; Tin Hat is a version of Linux that does that.

We’re very happy with the results of our RAM disk browser upgrade. Let us know in the comments if you’ve had a similar experience doing this in Windows.

Posted in downloads hacks, firefox hacks, lifehacks, macs hacks

Chrome and Firefox showing JavaScript improvements

Eliot — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 23:00:34 +0000

With new betas for both Firefox and Chrome being released, CNET decided to find out how good their JavaScript performance was. Both browsers got a performance boost with Firefox slightly edging out Chrome. You have to turn on TraceMonkey, Firefox’s new Javascript engine in 3.1b1, to get the improvement. We never thought Google was that serious about building a new browser. They just want wanted Firefox to get their act together and suck less. It seems to be working.

[via Lifehacker]

Posted in downloads hacks, firefox hacks, news

Ubiquity, a browser command line

Eliot — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 03:30:00 +0000

During the last day the web has been abuzz about Mozilla Labs’ Ubiquity. It’s an addon for Firefox that can help you streamline how you get things done on the web. In the example above, they show constructing an email with a map and reviews using mostly keyboard driven input. The addon is quick to install and we think you’ll find it saving you a lot of time on tasks you’d normally hit the search box for. In the popup, you can do quick Wikipedia lookups, define words, translate, perform calculations, and many other operations. You can email a page to someone by just typing three words. The best part is: anyone can write a command that will expand Ubiquity’s function. Greasemonkey helped fix broken websites and we think Ubiquity will help make interactions between sites much easier. We can’t wait to see what clever uses people come up with.

IBM sees influx in zero-day exploits

Benjamin Eckel — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:56:00 +0000

IBM’s X-Force security team has released a mid-year report(PDF) stating that the number of zero-day exploits is growing at an alarming rate. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a zero-day exploit is a program that is created and implemented within 24 hours of the disclosure of a security flaw. These exploits usually affect users before they even know the vulnerability exists and long before a patch is made available. The researchers also found that many of these exploits were targeted at browser plug-ins, which most users utilize on a daily basis.

[Kris Lamb], X-Force operations manager, is blaming the problem on a lack of a unified process for disclosing vulnerabilities. He also claims that the long-held practice of publishing example code of vulnerabilities should be frowned upon.

[via Liquidmatrix]

Best Firefox 3 extensions

Eliot — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:30:00 +0000

We generally try to limit the number of extensions we install for security, performance, and because we use a lot of different systems. That’s not to say there aren’t a lot of interesting addons out there and Mozilla has recently announced the winners of their Extend Firefox 3 Contest. Lifehacker has a full rundown of each of the winners. Nothing really stands out in our eyes (although we might try Last.fm’s toolbar).

The three extensions we always end up installing are Firebug, Greasemonkey, and Flashblock. What are yours?

Black Hat 2008: What’s next for Firefox security

Kimberly Lau — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 01:30:00 +0000

Mozilla security chief [Window Snyder] made some surprising announcements about Firefox Next, Mozilla’s next major browser overhaul. In her chat at the Black Hat security conference, she introduced three new initiatives that focused on threat modeling, training, and vulnerability metrics. For the threat modeling initiative, she’s hired Matasano Security consultants to review Firefox’s code for weaknesses and recommend mitigation tactics to protect the browser from hacker attacks. This isn’t inherently unusual; what is abnormal is that the information, once the work is done, will be revealed to the public. The training initiative will have IOActive trainers working with Mozilla engineers on secure computer programming practices. At the end, according to [Snyder], online versions of the classes will be released to the public, along with the class materials. The last initiative revolves around security metrics, and is already in progress. Essentially, the project will ideally take the focus off of patch-counting and provide a better assessment of security and vulnerability issues. [Snyder] says “We’re in the early phase, working on incorporating feedback from the rest of the industry.” She also reveals some more Firefox developments, including possibly incorporating NoScript into the core browser and implementing protected mode, but they’re still a long way from becoming standard features.

About:config hacks for Firefox 3

Kimberly Lau — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Blogs DNA has some great suggestions for tweaking the Firefox 3 about:config file. Customize Firefox 3 to your particular preferences with hacks to reduce the number of auto-complete list in your URL bar, extend spell check to forms, and disable blinking text. All it takes is a few simple modifications to the about:config file. By editing the about:config file, you can have a Firefox 3 that is faster, less bloated, and more tailored to your browsing habits. Do you have any suggestions for tweaks to Firefox 3?

[via Digg]

Making art with Javascript

Juan Aguilar — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 01:50:00 +0000

Mozilla coder [Aza] is connected to the past and the present: he wanted to celebrate the release of Firefox 3, but pines for the days when one could use small amounts of code to make compelling art. As a way of addressing both things, he has released ContextFree.js, a javascript port of [Chris Coyne]‘s Context Free Art. Users can visit Algorithm Ink, where they can draw various compelling designs with just a few lines of script. ContextFree.js compiles the scripts and turns them into visually arresting geometric designs. Users can also browse through designs made by others, easily save them as JPGs, or even modify them by adding their own bits of code. What’s more, it’s not out of the question to use this to generate random images on a website, creating a unique visual experience for every single visitor. You all know what we want to see, though: JavaScript gurus working some real magic with this. Better yet, said gurus can play around with the core open-source code and make something truly their own on the most fundamental level. Definitely check out the video above to get an idea of how easy this is.

[via Waxy]

IronKey USB key has military grade encryption

Juan Aguilar — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 05:30:00 +0000

Plenty of USB storage keys are on the market, but Ironkey is the first to use military level encryption. Sold in 1GB, 2GB, and 4GB sizes, the key features a processor called the Cryptochip, which uses Public Key Cryptography ciphers linked to an online account to create encryption keys on the hardware. A Federal Information Processing standard 140-2 compliant true random number generator on the Cryptochip ensure that encryption keys are extremely secure and totally random.

Ironkeys come in different sizes, but there are also three different versions, each with unique features. The basic version has a very James Bond-esque feature to destroy the data on it in case of an emergency. The personal version is loaded with Firefox 3 with various addons that make browsing encrypted and anonymous. The enterprise version is made to order with no specific price on the IronKey site, just a form to order one built to your specifications. All of them support Windows, OS X, and a large amount of Linux distros, and they all come in tamper proof and water resistant cases with a brushed metal finish. We tend to think this level of security is overkill for the average person, but people can’t seem to get with our freewheeling approach to security; remember, we leave our WLAN open.

[via LinuxDevices]

Firefox 3 vulnerability

Eliot — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:50:00 +0000

TippingPoint’s Zero Day Initiative reported a critical vulnerability affecting Firefox 3.0 yesterday. It includes the 2.0 versions as well. It’s unreleased and Mozilla is working on a fix already. Whatever the exploit is, it does require the user to visit a malicious site or click a link to executed. It came in 5 hours after the FF3 release, but since it affects previous versions, we wonder if the researcher was just sitting on it to be first. The Zero Day Initiative pays researchers for the exploits they submit.