Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with browsing

Can I make Firefox 3.5 ignore my visits to certain domains?

joshrholloway — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 12:19:49 -0800

Can I make Firefox 3.5 never remember history (but still save cookies and cache pages) for certain domains automatically but remember history normally for everything else? Basically I'm looking for a seamless and automatic way for Firefox 3.5 to simply not save history information when I am browsing on certain domains that I specify, but act normally on all others. For example, if I could enter a domain filter like *.facebook.com*, it would never save any history info from Facebook, any Facebook subdomains, or any Facebook pages. However, I don't want it to affect cookies or caching. Is there an extension or a hack I can do to make this happen?

How can I use a computer securely and privately

Not Supplied — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:33:37 -0800

How can a competent but not technical geek person browse internet as securely and privately as possible, keep files private on a pc etc? Linux distro? specifics - Hi. I'd like to be able to use my computer as securely and privately as possible and am prepared to do more than average to get there, but don't want to become highly skilled at security. Is it possible to develop a straightforward plan to follow? I'd like to keep things as clean and simple as possible, without exessive time spent troubleshooting/tweaking. That said, I am as good as the next person at using computers understanding concepts etc.

I hope you get a sense that I'm not immoral or illegal...however I do browse a wide range of things, and don't trust the gov etc not to put 1+1=3.

The issues I thought of were:
Browsing securely and privately - how can I set up a computer to do this? I'm prepared to put a linux partition on my (pc) laptop - I've used Ubuntu before..can this be set up well or maybe theres a distro specifically designed for this. It would be handy if it had all internet mod cons like audio, flash pdf etc. It would also be handy if say it could save files to a data drive shared with windows partition.

Can it be set up to leave no traces on the pc? Similarly, could I store files in a hidden encrypted format?

Can I make my computer as secure as possible against being cracked over the net or by someone present? Yeh, I do think it's possible someone could try!

ISP - I can't hide from my ISP presumably...are there ones that specialise in privacy, that won't share your information at the drop of a hat? In the UK?

My practises - how can I make them tight, so there are no obvious holes in security from how I'm using the machine.

Using public wifi - is this a good alternative if you don't want an ISP storing your history? How to use it to best advantage.

And also anything I haven't thought of.

Cheers!

internet self-discipline

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 07:39:25 -0800

Is there a way to ensure that firefox can only access specific sites for a specified period of time? I need to use the internet for my research but I find it easy to get distracted. Usually when I work, I try to be somewhere that has no internet connection, but some of my work requires me to browse through papers and references online.

I looked at answers to previous questions, such as this and people suggested OpenDNS and LeechBlock. I'm more interested in specifying five sites that I can have access to for a fixed amount of time (and ideally in a password protected way) rather than a list of things I want to block. Perhaps this is possible in OpenDNS - from looking at their website I couldn't tell.

I'm using firefox on windows.Thanks.

Instant font info when browsing

SurrenderMonkey — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 10:48:42 -0800

Has anyone heard of a firefox plugin or other software that displays current fontnames in your browser? Wouldn't it be wonderful to hover your mouse over a typeface and instantly get info about it (when possible)? Does something like this exist?

How can torrenting and browsing co-exist on my Mac?

AmbroseChapel — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:48:20 -0800

How can torrenting and browsing co-exist on my Mac? I'm currently using Azureus/Vuze 4.0.0.4, Firefox 3.04 and the Mac is Tiger, 10.4.11.

No matter what settings I tweak, web browsing is slow and unreliable while I'm downloading in Azureus.

Most infuriatingly, I get this effect where a page starts to load, but stalls, for instance I can see the title in the title bar, the correct background will load for the page, and even some of the content, but then it stalls, seemingly on anything which involves another server. For instance a page might load partially, then I'll see the status bar say it's hitting Google Analytics, and the page load stalls there. Ping times are very slow and there's an appreciable lag between Firefox saying "looking up [domain]" and "waiting for [domain]". I believe the more seeds the file has the worse it gets.

In the past I've adjusted the Azureus maximum download speed, number of simultaneous connections, and I have a memory that with a previous OS I reduced the MTU size, but none of that seems to help.

I don't mind the torrents being slower if it means I can browse quickly.

Internet 101 for someone over the age of 8.

giraffe — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 12:52:36 -0800

Internet safety for beginners. Where do I find a simple guide to print out for my techno-phobe father? My father keeps getting Trojans on his work computer, and I can't seem to figure out what he is doing. I set him up with Firefox and Noscript. The OS and anti-virus are up to date. We use a firewall. I run Spybot whenever I can distract him for a little bit of time. I can't watch over his shoulder all day -- we're supposed to be working, after all!

So I suspect he's just doing some good old fashioned bad browsing. Unfortunately, I am a terrible teacher and I have no patience. Can you direct me to a guide to safe browsing that a 64-year-old computer-phobe would understand?

Serious bonus points if it comes in printer-friendly format. "I can't read it on the screen!" for any text longer than a paragraph is a big complaint around here.

Identifying forums on specific subjects

zaebiz — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 13:48:31 -0800

What is your formula for finding the most active online forums for discussions about very specific subjects? Benchmark subjects to test your formula out are - solar electricity, icecream lovers, driving a taxi, the Weimar Republic, analysing dreams. The forums needn't be dedicated to the particular subject but they should be the sort of forum for which information about the subject is abundant.

No new news?

mcarthey — Tue, 06 May 2008 22:51:35 -0800

Help make news and daily trivia more interesting! Given that I spend probably too much time browsing around and looking at useless bits of information, I was wondering if I could put my time to better use while still being entertained.
I enjoy knowing about the news, but don't enjoy reading newspaper articles. Even with the internet, we seem to still be stuck reading newspaper articles for information (even if they are online). Is there a better way?
I'm basically looking for something that encapsulates daily events in a fun and interesting way that would make for interesting browsing while still being informative.
To start off, I'll provide my own link: 10x10
(Please note, that while the interface is something different, it still, unfortunately, links right back to the newspaper articles.)

What could possibly cause MySpace to kill my internet connection?

cheero — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 20:30:53 -0800

What could possibly MySpace to kill my internet connection? Hi all,

Before anything, I fully understand the unfortunate and stupid nature of this problem because it deals with MySpace but I've had this problem for two years and NO ONE seems to know whats wrong with it.

Secondly, I would love to hear anything other than 'lolz, its cos MySpace sucks!' -- Yes, I'm with you on the MySpace hate, but here is my issue.

I have my music on MySpace and I receive between 15-20 new messages/comments per day from fans around the world who take the time to listen to my music so I want to be respectful and respond to all of them. The issue is that whenever I view more than 2-3 profiles/accounts, my internet connection completely dies (I'm unfortunately with bastards from Comcast because Verzion FiOS is not available in my area). Whats really weird about this issue is that only my web browsing works, but mIRC and AIM work just fine.

What could be the cause of this extremely stupid and unbelievably annoying problem? Could some software be causing this problem? I use Firefox and have tested this out on Opera, Flock and IE and the same thing happens. If I simply click on more than 2-3 accounts, internet web browsing connection dies and I am forced to unplug my router (Netgear FVS 114) from the wall, wait 5 minutes and plug it back in again.

I've called Comcast and of course, they never know anything so I wasted time talking to them.

If anyone has any solutions I really would love to hear it, I seriously feel bad not being able to interact with my fans who take time to check out my work and I can't even respond to them without wanting to punch a hole in the wall because of this annoying problem.

I thank you all very much in advance.

Streamlining RSS/Web Browsing?

WCityMike — Mon, 19 Nov 2007 11:47:38 -0800

I'm looking to streamline my process of browsing RSS feeds and websites. The way I do it now ...

I am subscribed to feeds via Google Reader. I browse through them using the keyboard: 'k' for the next item if I'm uninterested and 'v' to open the item in a new tab if I'm interested. Then I go through the opened tabs. If I'm too backlogged to pay attention to them, I bookmark all open tabs via Firefox's "Bookmark All Tabs".

When I do go through the tabs, if it's a lengthy read I nonetheless want to pay attention to, I may file longer reads into a folder marked, appropriately enough, "Longer Reads"; otherwise, I take action on them if appropriate. If they represent something I need to do, I use a bookmarklet to shunt the URL into Remember the Milk as a task.

If it's something I want to blog, I usually post it to my del.icio.us account using the del.icio.us complete firefox extension. (del.icio.us then sends a daily post of what I've put in that day to my blog.) If something really cheeses me off or is something I think is really great, I open MarsEdit (a Mac OS X blogging application) and climb onto my soapbox.

Obviously, this is recreational and not obligatory, so it's not something I'm feeling under the gun about. I'm nonetheless wondering if it can be done more efficiently; if there are Firefox extensions, Greasemonkey scripts, cross-platform apps, or features I've not noticed or am ignoring that could be used to make the process described above even more streamlined and quick.

The one caveat is that I'm looking for a more universal accessibility. A Mac OS X application might be great, but wouldn't work on my Windows thumb drive. That's why above I suggested extensions, Greasemonkey userscripts, or features of these webapps I may have missed: they can be accessed using any OS.

Also, I do definitely understand that one way of streamlining would be to cut down the number of feeds I browse. Still, I'm at a number I like right now. I do periodically weed through and prune, though.

Also, how do you browse-and-blog?

Weird Lines in Firefox

edbyford — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 10:40:48 -0800

Strange lines/boxes appear in Firefox when scrolling or mousing over web items Firefox problem

Above is a picture of the problem I am having with Firefox. it seems that lines have started appearing when i mouse over certain objects (buttons, links, some pictures and when I type. For example, right now a line is appearing underneath this sentence. Also when I scroll down a page lines appear on the parts where I have scrolled past.

Has anyone come across this problem before? Any solutions?

I have tried turning on/off Caret Browsing.

I am running Win XP SP2 and Firefox v 2.0.0.8.

Is there an easy way to manage extensive amounts of .eps & .ai files (Adobe Illustrator) into a .pdf catalog format?

cheero — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 04:37:55 -0800

Is there an easy way to manage extensive amounts of .eps & .ai files (Adobe Illustrator) into a .pdf catalog format? I often buy vector pack cds that come with vast amounts of eps/ai files but there is almost always a single .pdf file that has a catalog of all the files in one for easy browsing. Is there a tool that does this automatically?

How does one commission a Firefox Extension/ Greasemonkey script?

Smarson — Thu, 06 Sep 2007 10:04:11 -0800

How does one go about hiring someone to create a specific Greasemonkey script or Firefox extension for them? As per a previous post, I'm in the market for a web browser with gray-scaling abilities (a la ghostzilla). Ghostfox wasn't the answer and searching through numerous Greasemonkey scripts and Firefox extensions yielded nada. So how does one go about commissioning a script or extension from the developer community? Anyone have experience contracting or being contracted to work on a such a project? What kind of fee is associated with this kind of labor? Does it matter that I would want this script/extension to be available to everyone?

Download secured content to read later?

tiamat — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 13:47:46 -0800

How can I download/cache web pages that require cookies and/or a login for later reading in Firefox (or IE). Is there a spider plugin for either browsers, or a stand alone program that will support authentication? I'm going away to somewhere I likely won't have internet access full time. I'd love to be able to download my livejournal friends page and some other pages for reading offline. Say, the root page plus 1 level of links deep, for articles and content not on the main page.

The hard part: many of the pages I want are password or login protected. NYT premium content, private livejournal pages, etc.

IE6 used to be able to do this, but it looks like they've dropped the feature in 7. I've tried HTTrack, Getright, Flashget and wget, but can't get around the cookies/login issue.

I think I need to do this from inside IE or Firefox, so that I can take advantage of pre-existing cookies, but I can't seem to find a way. Please help.

Otherwise, is there a way to use getright, flashget or some other caching-downloader to authenticate before downloading?

This is on Vista Ultimate with FF2 or IE7.

I'd even be willing to pay for software if it does a good job, so free is not a requirement.

How can I get a list of all files in a directory on a webserver?

newatom — Fri, 20 Apr 2007 08:09:28 -0800

I think the title explains it all: I'm looking to get a list of all files in a specific directory from a web server- www.site.com/docs/. The thing is, there's an index.htm file in that directory so if I browse to it, I just get the index file. Is there any way to find out the names of all files in that directory, scripting or otherwise? I don't have access to the system other than through the standard web interface(ie: no shell, etc.) Any ideas?

SoftwareFilter: help me find a good way to view Firefox pages offline for MacOSX.

rmm — Sun, 31 Dec 2006 12:58:50 -0800

SoftwareFilter: help me find a good way to view Firefox pages offline for MacOSX. Hi folks,

A long time ago, I used a great Mac app called Netscape History (which sadly I can't find - it was back in the day when people used Navigator). It was a handy application - it would download pages for offline viewing using a page's cache. Is there an equivalent of something now for MacOSX and Firefox that people use? This question previously kind of addressed the same problem, but again I'm looking for an automated thing for MacOS.

I'm trying out the DownThemAll extension, and it's handy, but not exactly what I'm looking for - I'd like an app that would automatically save the HTMLs and images from, let's say, x number of days. I've also got the Work Offline extension, and use that to browse through my history, but I'd really like an actual separate application that does this automatically, if possible. Sometimes the Work Offline extension works for some sites, sometimes not for others.

Any ideas? This is probably a pretty easy problem to solve - I'm obviously overlooking something here, so I appreciate the help.

Thanks!

Location Spoofing for Websites

dflemingdotorg — Thu, 05 Oct 2006 10:11:14 -0800

How can I spoof my location so ABC believes I am an american? So, ABC offers streaming of the latest episodes of their shows. Except they won't let me watch them in Canada. I was wondering if there was any way to trick their website into believing that I am an american, maybe through a proxy server? Has anyone tried this with any success?

Why reset a router?

Brian James — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 19:19:46 -0800

Why is my Internet connection better after resetting my router? My internet connection is through a cable modem, which is generally pretty good, but after several days--particularly if I've been doing lots of p2p downloading--web browsing gets sluggish. FireFox says at the bottom that it's "waiting for connection" longer than usual. This doesn't affect the bandwidth at all. Once a connection is made, everything pops up fine. It seems to have to do with making page requests, DNS lookups, that kind of thing. But after I restart my router (by unplugging the power), everything is much snappier.

I've got two questions. What, exactly, is happening to my router that is making it slow down after a while? Second, is there anything I can do about it short of getting a new router? And if I did buy a new one, what should I look for to see that it doesn't have the same issue?

How do I block the websites that kill all my time?

logovisual — Tue, 23 May 2006 19:17:47 -0800

For the sake of my productivity and my sanity, I need to block certain websites that eat up waaaaay too much of my time. I use Firefox (specifically, Deer Park) on a Mac. How can I do this? Oh, and there's a twist inside... I poked around the Extensions listing at the Mozilla site, but it's strangely impossible to find anything there (I searched the AskMefi archives about this, but couldn't find AdBlock, one of the original suggestions, on the Moz site... all they seemed to have was "AdBlock Plus," which didn't have a "Block Website" option that I could find).

But really, it'd be best to find some kind of program that would make me jump through a bunch of hoops if I ever wanted to unblock said sites again. Some programmer with dubious self-control must have invented this at some point -- maybe something that asked you multiple choice trivia questions or used an iSight to watch you do twenty jumping jacks or something? (These are slightly fanciful examples, but you get the gist...)

not so social bookmarking

bradn — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 08:38:56 -0800

Whats your favorite (social) bookmarking site? Please read details inside. I am enjoying Spurl.com as a bookmarking utility because I am able to access my bookmarks from anywhere. (sorry, I don't make much use of the "social" aspect, other than sharing my bookmarks).

The thing I really love about Spurl is the Spurl bar, which pops in on the sidebar just like Firefox's internal bookmarks. The thing I hate about the Spurl bar is it's kind of clunky, and could definitely benefit from some AJAX love.

I have tried "Another Del.icio.us Sidebar", but I prefer the folder structure to tags.

Are there any other bookmarking services out there with something similar to the Spurl bar?

Browsing the source fantastic

aspo — Wed, 15 Mar 2006 13:58:30 -0800

At work we use Bonsai and FishEye to browse our source control tree. Bonsai isn't that great of a product and FishEye costs a lot and is overkill for my needs, anyone know of any other good tools in this space? When we just had Bonsai I prefered just using the command line to browse our source. However work recently switched to FishEye and I can see the appeal of tools like this. In fact I like it enough that I'd like to use a simaler tool for personal (but non open source) products I work on by myself. Do people know of other good tools in this space? I'd like a web front end if possible, but an OSX only client would work if that's the only option.

I'd like it to be free or cheap and able to handle cvs, svn, and possibly perforce. Otherwise ease of use trumps feature requirements.

One IE Window at a Time

NYCnosh — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 09:25:25 -0800

Suddenly every time I open a new Internet Explorer (6.02) window, it shuts down all the other IE windows that are currently open. This stinks, and is something that only began about 3 or 4 days ago. It's so bad that when I select 'Open in New Window,' that also closes down the original window. What's going on and how can I fix this?

Adobe! The little car that's made out of clay!

LilBucner — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 21:03:30 -0800

Lately when I attempt to view web-based .pdf files, I get nothing but a blank screen. I am running Firefox 0.9.3 with Adobe Reader 7.0. Any suggestions?

Access to old Hustler magazines?

Gucky — Thu, 12 May 2005 09:45:00 -0800

I need, for sentimental reasons, a few old issues of Hustler magazine from the late 70s/early 80s. The problem? I'm not sure of the issue dates and it's not the kind of thing my local library carries. Where can I browse through old Hustlers? My dad was a photographer/prop artist/general go-to guy for "Hustler" from late 1977 until he went to "Slam" sometime around 1980. I'm apparently in various humor spreads and similar and I'd really like to get a hold of these. I mean, these are my baby pictures.

I know people sell them on eBay, but I don't want to systematically buy two years worth of Hustlers unless there's no other way.

Is there somewhere one can peruse these old gems? Is there a website with contents listed issue by issue?

I travel on business a bit, so if there's a store with them, there's a chance I could get there -- if it's in the States.

Short cut to "Printer Friendly Format" on news sites?

de void — Mon, 09 May 2005 10:17:09 -0800

I'm really tired of all the advertising and dancing crap that clutters up most news/magazine web articles. I find myself constantly searching for a "Printer Friendly Format" link so that I can read the article in a column wider than 1 inch and not paginated in such a way as to maximize ad views. Is there any utility, web site, firefox extension, something, that can take me to the "PFF" right away?