The icon becomes animated if there is some content available for download on a website. You can click on ‘down arrow’ right of the icon and select the video/audio you want to download.

In case multiple-streams of same video (usually of different quality) are available it will show you an option to download any one of them. This feature is especially useful for quickly browsing through your videos in Low Quality mode but downloading the high quality video for later viewing.

Clicking on the chosen video will download that video to the default location.

Further the addon also make some commonly used tasks after video download easier. It gives user the option to get the raw URL of video which can be plugged into other softwares, to tweet the video to their twitter account, to convert the video after downloading & to secure the videos with the password on local drive. The last two options require two separate addons from the same developer.

As a last feature, the Downloader Helper also features a list of sites ,along with their ratings, from where free videos are availalble. You can get this list by clicking on the icon itself.

Download DownloadHelper Extension for Firefox

https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/3006

• GMail,
• Twitter,
• Mac OS X Address Book database

Following is Mozilla’s release note:

The Contacts add-on integrates with local and web-based address books to bring all of a user’s contact data into a single database, which can then be used by browser extensions or web content.  The user must grant permission before any content can be used by a website, and can choose exactly which fields and personal records to disclose.

Download Experimental Contacts Addon

Ctrl-[T] : It opens a new tab.

Ctrl-[D] : It bookmarks the page.

Ctrl-[L] : It takes you to the URL field to type in a new web address.

Ctrl-[K] : It takes you to the search box at the top right corner, where you can do your searches.

Ctrl-[+] : It increases font size.

Ctrl-[-] : It decreases font size.

Ctrl-[0] : It returns font to original size.

I know there are many more shortcuts present and this is not an exhaustive list. The shortcuts presented over here few of the most common one, and would be of regular use. Hopefully they would be of some help to you all. A detailed list of all the shortcuts can be found on the Firefox support page.

Click Here to view all the available keyboard shortcuts for Firefox

Certain new features

though firefox 3.6 has numerous new features whwn it came out like faster JavaScript rendering engine, improved start-up speeds and eye-candy such as preview panes in the default Ctrl+Tab scrolling. The beta version has tried to build over it. The start up from cold boot has gotten much faster , not a glaring delay as before. ( dowload here : download )

[via : digit]

My latest love is a firefox extension, a new kids on the block. This one’s called as TagMark. I always thought that firefox had a very powerful bookmark manager and with firefox 3 you could with no time bookmark a page using the quick bookmark star from right within the awesome bar.

Also, I am sure this will inculcate into firefox users the habit of quick bookmarking with the power of tags. Following is how the tagmark looks like when you hover your mouse over the star in the awesome bar.

Once you want to check all the pages you have tagged under one category, you just need to click “view tagmarks tag” under bookmarks menu.

Bookmarks->View TagMarks tags

Once you hit that you’ll get to a page like the one below:

Now all you need to do is select the tag to see all the bookmarks under it.

I hope in future there will be a feature of online synchronization. I am sure that will be of great help to many people like me.

When the color achieves richness, the form attains its fullness also. ~Paul Cezanne

We all know that Apple/Mac is more of a designers machine and for a long time Firefox targeted Windows/Linux users. Safari the official Mac browser (also available for windows) was one of the browsers in the market that supported color managed display of photos with embedded ICC profiles.

Good news for the Firefox fans is that this feature (color managed display of photo) is now available with the Firefox 3 version. Bad news however is that it’s disabled by default. Sometimes actions defy logic and having this feature disables is a classic example of this. I can’t understand why this feature is disable by default. Following are two images, first snapshot is taken using Internet Explorer 8 which does not support color managed display of photo and the second is snapshot of same photo on Firefox 3 for which I have enabled color managed display of photo.

You can enable this feature in Firefox 3 using two methods (Courtesy Rob Galbraith [1. Firefox 3, released today, supports colour managed web browsing]).

Method 1 (Manual Method)

1. Type about:config in Firefox 3′s address bar and press Return. The configuration settings will appear.
2. In the Filter field, type gfx. The list of settings will shorten to show just those related to graphics, ie gfx.
3. If the Value for gfx.color_management.enabled is False, double-click anywhere on that line to toggle the setting to True.
4. Quit and relaunch Firefox 3 and you’re in business. You can confirm that colour management is working by viewing the photos on this page. If all four quadrants of the first photo are a seamless match, then colour management in your copy of Firefox is up and running.

Method 2 (Using an extension)

Install the Color Management add-on Once installed, enabling and disabling colour management is as simple as checking a check-box and relaunching Firefox 3. The add-on, currently at v0.4, can be downloaded here (free registration required).

To my surprise even Opera 9.50 is not having this feature. I thought opera was the most complaint browser when it comes to abiding by standards.

]]> http://techreviews.in/firefox-3-equals-safari-in-color-management/feed/ 0 http://techreviews.in/glassify-your-firefox-3/ http://techreviews.in/glassify-your-firefox-3/#comments Tue, 10 Jun 2008 05:52:35 +0000 Vivek http://techreviews.in/?p=46

What is Art? It is the response of man’s creative soul to the call of the Real. ~ Rabindranath Tagore

I have always been someone who prefers looks over performance. Don’t get your imagination wild. I am talking about my Laptop . I have been playing around with RC 2 of Firefox 3 and have been trying to pimp it up for looks. Firefox 3 with it’s enhanced features like awesome bar and others deserves another post. This post is just about how to beautify your favourite browser.

There are ways to glassify your Firefox 3. Also, you can pimp it up with a Playboy Model or Photo of your kid(s). Following is how my Firefox 3 looks and I’ll take you through a step by step process of achieving the same (may be better depending on your creativity) effect. Click on the image to enlarge it.

I am assuming that you already have RC 2 release of Firefox 3.

Steps:

1. First, install the extension named AnyColor 0.1.3. This extesnion is in experimental phase and hence you’ll have to login to install it. For this you’ll have to create an account with mozilla.org.
2. Install the extension called Glasser 1.0.16. This extension is also in experimental phase, so stay logged into your mozilla account.
3. That’s all you need to install. Now restart your Firefox 3.
4. In the Tools menu, click Addons. Look for the AnyColor extension and click Options. You’ll see a small pop-up window titled AnyColor Preferences.
5. In the appearance window in the Header section give the location of your file that you want to see when you open a blank tab and the navigation area. I have used the picture of Holy Vallance. You can also change the footer.

Tip: Use an image which has vibrant colors.

There are various options to play around with in AnyColor extension. Showoff your Firefox, by dropping a link in the comments.

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What a chimera then is man! What a novelty! What a monster, what a chaos, what a contradiction, what a prodigy! Judge of all things, feeble earthworm, depository of truth, a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and the shame of the universe. ~ Blaise Pascal quotes

Firefox 3 release gets closer with the release of Firefox 3 RC2 released today. WIth major UI enhancement and security tweaks, firefox is one of the most advanced browser. With a strong open source support, Firefox 3 RC2 is available in over 45 languages.

The new version includes malware protection, anti-virus integration, Vista parental controls, web forgery protection page, better protection against cross-site JSON data leaks and much more.

In terms of performance, Firefox 3.0 promises better speed, by bringing improvements to the JavaScript engine, a reduced amount of memory used (after hundreds of leaks have been fixed), and better reliability (with user bookmarks, cookies and preferences stored in a secure database format) preventing data loss and system crashes.

RC2 has some bug fixes over RC1 is all set to recieve feedback for a quick rollout of final release.

Take back the Web[1. Firefox Punch Line]

I have stopped counting how many posts I have done on Firefox on my various blogs and various group services. Firefox is almost my favorite browser. I say almost because I love Opera too and Flock. Opera is something that’s the most W3 compliant browser. But the flexibility you get with Firefox and Flock in terms of extensibility using extensions is something that makes open source browsers much more lucrative.

Scrapping from Wiki on Firefox:

Mozilla Firefox (abbreviated officially as Fx, but also commonly as FF), is a web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite, managed by the Mozilla Corporation. Firefox had 17.76% of the recorded usage share of web browsers as of April 2008, making it the second-most popular browser in current use worldwide after Internet Explorer.[2. Firefox wiki]

Firefox 3 is probably the most awaited version of Firefox. There have been 5 Beta releases of Firefox 3 and couple of days back Firefox 3 RC1 has been released.

For those who don’t know what RC (Release Candidate) stands for, following is the definition of Release Candidate:

The term release candidate refers to a version with potential to be a final product, ready to release unless fatal bugs emerge. In this stage, the product features all designed functionalities and no known showstopper-class bugs. At this phase the product is usually code complete.[3. Release Candidate Wiki]

You can download the latest copy of Firefox RC 1 from:

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-beta.html

It would also be a great idea to check the What’s New in Firefox 3 and known issues along with release notes. Also ensure that you don’t flirt with the existing Firefox 2 profile.

If you have not tried the extension feature of Firefox, then the post by Scott Nesbitt would be a good place to begin.

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