Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with firefox and computers

I can't stay logged in to any websites

peep — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 18:17:42 -0800

Suddenly today, I can't stay logged into anything - Google, Facebook, Metafilter, Twitter, Flickr, etc. I've run through a bunch of possibilities, but could the power cutting out last night have done something? I'm using Firefox, and I've already uninstalled and reinstalled it. Privacy settings allow cookies and I don't have it set to clear history when closing a window. And obviously I've tried many times to log into different sites, making sure I click "remember me." I've never had this problem before today. Last night the power went out for about 20 seconds and my computer shut down, but all was otherwise fine this morning. I've restarted and it's in regular (not safe) mode. Any ideas?

installing older firefoxes

mannequito — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:54:18 -0800

I need to put an older version (2.x) of Firefox onto my computer. I am using the latest Kubuntu version (Karmic, still in beta for a few more days). How do I do this? I was able to download a tar.gz file of Firefox 2.0.0.20 but, beyond extracting, I can't get anywhere with it.

Is there a repository I can add that still supplies older versions? Or is there a way to get the one I already downloaded installed?

btw, this isn't for preference or anything, just the fact that the Canadian government is outdated and require an older version in order to access a secure site.

Firefox, Adobe and tiffs, oh my!

pasici — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 10:11:02 -0800

How do I tell Firefox to use the Adobe Acrobat plug in to view tiff files? For my work, I get sent a lot of CD-ROMs that contain tiff files. I would like to set my Firefox settings so that I automatically open and view these tiff files with Firefox's Adobe Acrobat plug in, but I cannot for the life of me figure out how to tell Firefox to do that using the Applications settings in the Tool/Options menu. The only option the Applications settings gives me is Adobe, not the plug in. It says I can browse for other applications, but I can't figure out how to browse for the plug ins. Any help immensely appreciated.

block casalemedia popunders

KRS — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:58:39 -0800

How do I block popunder ads from Casalemedia? I'm using Firefox with Adblock Plus, but this SOB sends its ads from a URL like http://b.casalemedia.com/, except that the letter after http:// keeps changing, and the next ad will probably be from a URL like http://H.casalemedia.com/.

Can I enter a partial URL, such as casalemedia.com, into the Adblock Plus block-list, or enter a wild card for the ever-changing letter?

Facebook, delicious and flickr not loading!

carofowler — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 12:30:12 -0800

My facebook, delicious and flickr aren't working, but all other sites are fine. What's wrong and how do I fix it? I have been trying for over a week to use my facebook account unsuccessfully.

I use Firefox 3.0.5 on a MacBook although I have also tried on Safari 3.1.2.

Usually, I am able to sign in and arrive at the home page successfully. Then, when I try to go into any other page, the page won't load and I get a "failed to open page" error or "page load error - connection interrupted" or something of the sort.

Clicking on links in my email to posted pictures or messages also doesn't work and the page will not load. I have tried deleting all facebook cookies, all cookies, restarting Firefox, restarting the computer and nothing has worked.

My account is working fine on other computers, but since it doesn't happen with any other site, this must be an issue with Facebook AND my computer.

Also, my delicious account won't load either. I tired on Safari and the home page loaded but none of the other pages and I get "connection interrupted" as well.

When I try logging into flickr (through the Yahoo! sign in page, which is where flickr redirects you when you click to sign in) i get sent to a blank page: https://login.yahoo.com/config/login_verify2?

These sites work fine when I sign in through other computers and all other sites and the internet in general are working fine on my computer. I have also tried deleting cookies for these. For delicious it works and allows me to enter the home page, but then I still can't access any of the other pages.

Does anyone know what is going on and how I can fix it?

Thanks!

No, really, it's still the same computer!

Cricket — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 21:38:47 -0800

What is losing some of my identifying information from Firefox every time I reboot the computer? I'm running Firefox v. 2.0.0.12 on Windows Vista with a Vaio VGN-N230E laptop. Every time I reboot the computer (as for installation of certain updates), I find that I am no longer logged into some sites that normally remember me (Metafilter, for one), and financial pages that require verification beyond a password when you access them from a different computer think I'm on a new computer (this is the only one I use) and require me to jump through verification hoops (Chase has one that requires them to call me with a PIN, which was a problem when their verification system was down for nearly a month--I rely on being able to pay certain bills online).

Is there anything I can change about my computer settings so that I'm still me after a reboot? Is this a cookie issue? I have cookies set to only delete when they expire, and I looked in the cookie manager and found tons of cookies (though, come to think of it, none from websites I know are affected, and those should be leaving some, right?).

Keeping Firefox (or Internet Explorer) "always on top".

bamassippi — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 12:08:15 -0800

Keeping Firefox (or Internet Explorer) "always on top". So, I like to watch Hulu.com videos while I work, but I've yet to find way (or free extension) to allow me to keep a Firefox or Internet Explorer window always-on-top while I work.

Any suggestions?

How do i go all the way back?

JohnnyGunn — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 19:22:56 -0800

With Firefox 2.0 (did not happen on 1.5.) when I return to the previous page via the back button, I am always sent to the top of the previous page regardless of how far I had scrolled down prior to jumping to the next page. Can I set it to go back to the spot I had scrolled to and not to the top or am I stuck? (My current workaround is to use the add on script that creates a duplicate tab)

Help! My Web Browsers Are Giving Up!

adi — Thu, 26 Oct 2006 11:12:26 -0800

My web browsers (FF 2.0 and IE 7 on XP SP2) have stopped working (kinda). I have to click on links over and over again to get the browsers to respond. When they do finally go to the page, they usually load half of it and give up. This started while I was still on FF 1.5 but seems to have gotten worse. It takes a lot of going to Gmail to get it to "take." With my bookmarks, if I click on them directly nothing happens, but if i middle-click to open them in a new window sometimes it works, sometimes not. If I copy-paste the URL I want to go to and hit the "go" button 15 times really fast, it will go, but may only load half the page. This is happening on every "account" on my computer (I created another user account besides the admin account I always use on my PC and it had the same problem). It's happening in both IE and FF. I'd really like to avoid a total re-install of windows. Any ideas?

Help for a dummy

Postroad — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 10:11:24 -0800

I need help with a small code item which I had at IE but cannot get to work at Firefox Some time ago, a person helped me by putting this up for me to use. I would get properties of a photo and put in the two lines (pasted in each) and I would get a photo, a bit smaller than the origian and on my server, which I could paste to my site.

http://goodcrap.net/big/th.cgi

I also had http://phlap.net/small/th.cgi

This made a smaller photo from properties, abut the size of a thumbnail but not a thumb.
When I moved from IE browser to Firefox, only the first one (larger [pictures) worked. I would like to get the small one to work to save steps when posting to my site, but I have no tech background and so need not only the code (or whatever it is called) but also someone to write up the code so that I can copy and install.
thanks

Fixing laptop settings changed by feline random entry

PinkStainlessTail — Sun, 12 Mar 2006 17:07:29 -0800

Two parter about cats walking on computer keyboards and havoc their little toes wreak: 1) One of our cats has managed to hit a random set of strokes on my wife's laptop, such that now every time she clicks on a message in Gmail it opens as a popup. This is really and truly a popup, not just opening in a new window: there's no address bar and the first time it happened, she was actually blocked from viewing the e-mail by the popup blocker in firefox. All of this occured while she had Firefox open to the Gmail page, on a dell laptop running XP home SP2. Can't seem to find the setting to switch them back to just opening in the current tab. Anybody know?

2) In general, is there any application that will let you lock keyboard input with a few keystrokes, or maybe as part of a right click menu to prevent these cat based random entires in the future? (And, speaking preemptively, PawSense is out: I'm not paying twenty bucks for something I can't at least demo before hand.)

Making a Firefox profile for my kid brother.

katyggls — Wed, 28 Dec 2005 07:51:21 -0800

Can I make a profile in Firefox that will only surf to sites on an approved list? Here's my situation. My brother is ten. I often have him over for the weekend and he loves playing on my computer and being on the internet. He frequents sites like Cartoon network and other kid stuff. While I'm always in the room with him when he's on the computer, accidents happen, and I'm wondering if there's a way I could set up a profile in Firefox for him that would only surf to sites on an approved list. Is there a way to do this? Preferably, I would like to do it without the aid of any software, but if I must, free is good. I won't use Internet Explorer. Also, it has to be local to just that profile; I don't want it to mess up any of my other profiles. Oh and I'm not that techie. I am basically internet savvy, but don't ask me to like hack my cable modem settings or anything. If this whole thing isn't possible without expert level knowledge, I can accept that.

Firefox stalls on certain sites and Opera 8 font-rendering bug

Frankieist — Sat, 17 Dec 2005 02:28:34 -0800

I'm having major problems with both Firefox (my browser of choice) and Opera 8. Firefox stalls consistently for a considerable amount of time (1 min - 5 mins) on specific sites (for instance del.icio.us/popular/) and Opera has a font-rendering bug on most sites (for instance, again, del.icio.us/popular/). Regarding the firefox problem (screenshot):
- oddly, during the time that firefox is not responding, the CPU usage is only between 0% and 2%.
- if, in the same session, I visit the site again or refresh it, it loads just fine. However, the problem can present itself for different sites multiple times in one session.
- I have Firefox 1.5, though I've had the problem since at least 1.0.4
- I've tried deleting my profile and creating a new one. No luck.
- I don't have any extensions installed, other than the Talkbalk one that comes with firefox.
- I've tried uninstalling the current version and reinstalling to a different directory. Again, no luck.

As far as the Opera 8 rendering bug is concerned (screenshot) , even when the website's css specifies a font that it should use to render the page, it will instead render the page with regular Bauer Bodoni LT in some instances and Bauer Bodoni LT RomanSC in others. It makes Opera completely unusable, since I can't tolerate reading long amounts of text in small caps. Maybe this will provide a clue: about a month ago wikipedia used to be displayed in Bauer Bodoni LT RomanSC, but now it shows up with a sans-serif font. Please help!

Gullible is not in the dictionary

ludwig_van — Tue, 29 Nov 2005 20:56:34 -0800

I'm using FireFox 1.07 for Windows XP. Previously, when I typed "dict [word]" into the address bar, FireFox would take me to the dictionary.com definition for [word]. Now typing in the same command just takes me to the first result of a Google search for "dict [word]," the same as if I typed anything into the address bar. Recently all my Firefox bookmarks disappeared as well. I haven't updated Firefox or changed anything that I know of. What happened, and how do I restore the old functionality?

Firefox extension problems

stupidsexyFlanders — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 10:12:10 -0800

All my firefox extensions in the Extensions window are greyed out, none of them work, and right clicking doesn't give me any workable options that are not greyed out. What's up? They used to work.

Thunderbird Defaults

salmacis — Wed, 05 Jan 2005 16:22:49 -0800

Using Firefox with Linux. When I click a "mailto:" link, it automatically opens Evolution. How do I tell it to use Thunderbird instead? I didn't find any obvious settings in either the preferences or about:config.

Printing .jpgs

selfnoise — Fri, 17 Dec 2004 10:03:19 -0800

Printing .JPG images from the internets- help! [mi] So, I have a large image in a tab in Firefox (in Windows XP). This image is scaled down to fit in the window. When I print it out in this form, it takes up a portion of the page. When I print it out zoomed in, it prints out larger than the page. I want this image, which is of 1 8.5by11 document, to print out taking up the whole page, but no more. How can I do this efficiently?

Mozilla's Firefox? Firefox's Mozilla?

ParisParamus — Thu, 28 Oct 2004 14:27:30 -0800

Firefox ~ Mozilla What is the relationship between Firefox and Mozilla? Is Firefox just the revised browser component of the suite of programs called Mozilla?