Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with firefox and extension

Help solve the mystery of the missing extension.

cirrostratus — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 16:10:07 -0800

After reformatting my old reliable xp machine I lost a very useful firefox extension. How can I track it down again? I've been unable to find the extension on either Google or Firefox's website, mostly because I can't remember what it was called.

Basically, all the extension did was let you draw a rectangle on a page and then every link within that rectangle would open in a new tab.

Firefox normally lets you highlight things and open them in new tabs but this extension was better because it let you draw a rectangle instead of highlighting.

Any ideas what this extension was called?

Alternatives to Sage Too?

Doofus Magoo — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 18:57:05 -0800

Are there any good alternatives to the Sage Too Firefox extension? I've been using Sage and Sage Too for RSS feeds for several years now. Having recently reinstalled Firefox, I was planning to install Sage Too until the EULA appeared (reproduced below in its entirety):

Anyone using any type of ad blocker is prohibited from installing and using this add-on.

What's a good alternative to Sage Too? I'm probably more interested in a Firefox extension than reading them via a website, but other than that I'm pretty flexible.

Script/extension to display third-party shipping costs on Amazon?

IndigoRain — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 01:27:07 -0800

I am looking for a Greasemonkey script or Firefox add-on that will show me the shipping cost for Amazon third-party items in search results. Example: I found a bottle of Aloe Vera gel for $10.37. Thinking there had to be a better deal, I scrolled down the search results page and found a larger bottle for $8.79, making it look like the better deal. Once I clicked into the second link, the price instead was $8.79 + $8.22 shipping, making the first bottle the actual better deal.

I want a script that will get that $8.22 shipping cost (you can see where it is displayed on the page here - just above the shopping cart button) and at least display it on search results pages, if not add it in to the original cost. If this isn't possible I would also welcome a script that simply indicates on the search results page whether a product is a third-party item (indicated at the above link by the text "Ships from and sold by CosmeticMall.com") or shipped directly from Amazon.

Failing the existence of this script, I don't know javascript, so is this something I could do myself using the Platypus extension?

I found the Amazon TotalUsed 2.0 script but it doesn't work. Unfortunately, even if it did work, I'm not sure if it would only display shipping costs for items shipped by Amazon using their standard shipping prices, or also be able to retrieve third-party shipping costs.

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?

iCal Data Recognition for Firefox?

sjuhawk31 — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 07:31:12 -0800

Is there a Firefox extension that makes it play with iCal like Mail does in Leopard? One of my absolute favorite things about OS X Leopard is the data recognition in Mail that allows you to hover over dates and make iCal events out of them. Is there an extension for the 'fox that lets you do the same thing?

firefox isolation extension

dbooster — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 01:33:15 -0800

I'm looking for an extension that on any web page will allow you to click on a frame and black out everything else on the page, kind of like Pages 09 does when you go to full screen mode. One of the nice features of Safari on the iphone is that double tapping on any frame will zoom in, filling the window with just that frame. On my iMac zooming in would be unneeded, but blacking out everything except that frame would be fantastic. Anyone know of any that does anything similar?

Is there any version of the Search marker Firefox extension for 3.0?

V-Turn — Wed, 21 May 2008 09:57:57 -0800

Search Marker is no longer maintained. Does anybody know if a similar extension that is still alive? As this extension is not compatible with Firefox, I have three options :
1. stop using it
2. hack it so that Firefox thinks it is compatible with 3.0 (I have no idea if that's going to work or not)
3. get a replacement

I was wondering if the Metafilter crowd could help with #3!

Thank you.

paragraph width in firefox

primer_dimer — Fri, 08 Feb 2008 04:50:59 -0800

Is there a plugin/extension/script for Firefox that automatically resizes text columns to make them a comfortable width to read? I spend a lot of time reading large blocks of text on the web, and I find myself constantly resizing the browser window (firefox) in order to make a particular block of text a comfortable reading width (the oft-quoted 80 characters). Does anyone know of an extension or greasemonkey script that will do this automatically, as I switch between tabs?

How do I open certain sites in IETab?

Rabulah — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 07:36:27 -0800

I use Firefox. I want to be able to open certain sites in IETab/Internet Explorer automatically. I can do this quite easily if they are bookmarked, but I want to be able to do it every time I come across a link to the site. Example 1] I'm browsing the web, and I come across a link to foo.com. Normally, when I click the link to foo.com, it will open in a normal Firefox tab. I want to be able to just click the link to foo.com, and have it open in IETab/Internet Explorer automatically, without having to right click and choose "Open in IETab", or copy the URL from the address bar and paste it into Internet Explorer.

Example 2] I do a Foo.com search from the Firefox search bar. I want the search tab to open in IETab/Internet Explorer automatically.

I have been using IE View Lite, which will load the site in IE after half a second, but Firefox still starts to load foo.com before IE View Lite takes over, which I don't want. I want Firefox to never load foo.com AT ALL.

How can I get this functionality? Example 2 is the more pressing problem, if that makes any difference.

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?

Hacking Firefox's Send Link command?

Cool Papa Bell — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 13:51:38 -0800

How do you add an email address and subject line entry to Firefox's "Send Link" context menu command? 99 percent of the time, I'm emailing myself for future reference. It'd be easier if the email address and subject line were pre-populated for me. Is there an easy way to do this, or an extension that does this?

Firefox extension to control HTML forms?

Blazecock Pileon — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 07:19:20 -0800

Can a user install an extension, preference or script to have Firefox manipulate an HTML form element on loading, e.g., having a SELECT's default OPTION set when visiting a certain page. If a user visits a webpage that, for example, requests selecting a drop-down menu containing different server names, I'd like to have the user be able to set his or her default server and then have the pull-down menu set upon each visit.

I don't have the option of doing this server-side, or setting cookie variables, since I don't administrate the web server or application.

Thanks for any advice!

How do I get rid of the menu bar in Mozilla Firefox?

Goblindegook — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 17:24:06 -0800

Help me streamline my Mozilla Firefox interface by hiding the menu bar in a small toolbar button. Having recently installed Firefox 2.0 on my Windows computers, I decided to do some spring cleaning around the interface and try to make the most of my screen real estate. I've successfully put away most of the buttons and widgets I don't use, and fit everything into a single strip, but one item in particular has been giving me trouble: the menu bar.

I know I can disable individual menu items by tweaking the userChrome.css file in my profile directory, but because I still need to access some of them from time to time, I don't want them to disappear completely. Ideally, there should be an extension that allows me to hide all the menus behind one or more toolbar buttons, in a way similar to the new collapsible IE7 menu bar.

I searched the Mozilla extension repository to no avail, so I was wondering if anyone here has heard of anything vaguely matching my description before I call off the search and try to do some coding of my own.

(Older Mozilla extensions are okay. They don't have to be compatible with Firefox 2.0 if I can get them to work with Nightly Tester Tools.)

Highlight and click?

zardoz — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 20:21:50 -0800

I'm looking for a simple plug-in/extension for Firefox that will allow me to highlight a URL's address on a webpage (simple text that isn't hyperlinked), then right-click and load that page on a new tab. Does this exist?

Online bookmarks

Harry — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 08:27:27 -0800

Is there an easy, transparent way to store your bookmarks online? I've just recently began using my dual-booted Linux more often, and I'm getting increasingly frustrated by having two sets of Firefox bookmarks.

I have used del.icio.us in the past, and it's nice to play with. However, it's not usable enough for me to replace the 'old-fashioned' bookmarks. I do not want to log into a webpage, and add links via web forms, and I don't particularly care about other people's links most of the time. Furthermore, plain old folders are usually enough for me, and I don't really require tags.

Really, I want something not too far from the current Firefox system. The perfect extension would do something like this: ask me to log in once (but puhleaaze store my credentials for future use), populate my Bookmarks folder, store any new bookmarks I might add. Does something like this exist?

Help make A Special Thing even more special.

tegoo — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 10:49:48 -0800

How can I make Firefox use a unique custom css whenever I visit a particular website? I love the forums at A Special Thing. I can't handle the whole white text on a black background of it all. I want to small up the text, go black on white, and make it a little less I'm-reading-a-web-forum-on-my-lunch-break-yeah-lunch-break.

Firefox clipboard demon

prostyle — Fri, 06 Jan 2006 10:19:21 -0800

Help me exorcise FireFox's obsession with my clipboard! Firefox seems to input "keyword:(clipboardcontents)" whenever I double-wheel-click on blank space on any page. What's the deal? It took me quite a bit of troubleshooting to even figure out that this was going on, I'd have portions of comments copied and all of the sudden be taken to pictures of detainee torture or some random political website. Sometimes I would be redirected to files with no extensions... really quite random. I have never even used the "keyword:" functionality in the address bar, so it was doubly baffling to discover that was occuring.

The only reason I found that to be the case was because I had copied my previously abstract description of this problem, triggered the same behaviour and saw the Google page loaded up with a "Malformed Request" error and the address bar filled with "keyword: My ridiculously lengthy explanation...". Sad, I know. I've scanned for malware and other problems with AVG/HJT, but don't have anything of the nature afflicting my system.

Is this standard behaviour, or should I start removing my extensions one by one to discover the culprit?

I Want My, I Want My, I Want My Cmd-1 ...

WCityMike — Tue, 06 Dec 2005 14:02:31 -0800

How can I configure Firefox so that I can use Cmd-1 through Cmd-9 for bookmarks on my personal toolbar, identical to the behavior Safari uses? I am very desperately looking for a Firefox extension that will allow me to use Command-1 through Command-9 for the first nine bookmarks of my Personal Toolbar Folder, much as Safari allows me to do. Please, someone tell me the ability to do this is out there.

Yes, I am able to assign normal vanilla bookmarks through the keyconfig extension to the Command keys (if somewhat awkwardly), but I apparently cannot assign JavaScript bookmarklets using the same method, and that is greatly problematic for me.

I have a JavaScript bookmarklet I love that interacts with Cocoalicious to allow me to post to del.icio.us websites I enjoy and want to post to my "linklog" -- but I am also very very keyboard-centric, and hate having to mouse over to the bookmarklet in Firefox. (I know that there is a delicious extension that has a posting interface for Firefox, which is actually really pretty decent -- but the extension's keyboard support for posting appears to be broken on Mac OS X.)

Alternatively – in the event that no one can give me an answer to this, in case said extension just doesn’t exist – I seem to remember there being a way by which people could set up a sort of “developer pledge” or “developer bounty” thing on some website somewhere, where you could say, “I would be willing to pay $10 for a resolution to this problem,” and Joe Schmoe would chip in another $10, and Jane Schmoe another $20, and by the time you know it, Alfred J. Developer has a $200 incentive to develop said Firefox extension, in which case it might then get developed pretty darn quicker. Can anyone tell me what I'm thinking of?

Er, to press my luck, also alternatively, anyone know a way by which I could see if the whole language keyconfig uses to determine what to do upon keypresses is JavaScript in and of itself? Perhaps that’s why it won’t respond to JavaScript bookmarklets within the “Open Location” language.

(To pre-empt the “just go back to Safari” responses: I used to be a Safari die-hard, but only when it was coupled with the added functionality Saft gave it. I found the need to revert my system back to 10.3 when I noticed that 10.4 was bogging down my older system just too darn much; the only thing I really have missed from 10.4 has been the greater interconnectedness between the CLI and the GUI, and the ability to iSync my address book with my Motorola v330. Saft has marched onwards towards Panther, and I figure that Firefox will be extensible and upgradeable on 10.3 for far longer than Safari will, so I am trying to get myself to stay with Firefox.)

Blackenizer for Firefox?

monsterhero — Thu, 26 May 2005 12:06:23 -0800

Is there a greasemonkey extension or something for Firefox that will unobtrusively change websites so they have a black background with white text? Basically, I want everything to look like Maddox's site, for the same reasons he designs his site that way: "I've chosen a black background for most of my text because it's easier on the eyes than staring at a white screen. Think about it: your monitor is not a piece of paper, no matter how hard you try to make it one. Staring at a white background while you read is like staring at a light bulb (don't believe me? Try turning off the lights next time you use a word processor). Would you stare at a light bulb for hours at a time? Not if you want to keep your vision."

Content filter for Firefox?

TheDonF — Sun, 09 Jan 2005 08:28:25 -0800

Is there a Firefox extension that filters adult content a la IE's Content Advisor? I'm doing well at converting people to FF, but one colleague needs a content filter for his kids. Unless my Google-fu is badly broken, there doesn't seem to be one and, unless I'm very blind, FF doesn't have one by default. Mozilla update also brings blanks, but I can't believe that no-one's thought of building one yet.

Firefox settings

foxy_hedgehog — Tue, 28 Dec 2004 09:55:41 -0800

When I open a new window in Firefox, it opens to my home page. In Explorer, new windows opened to the same URL as the existing open window, which I much prefer. How can I change my settings so that Firefox will do the same and I'm not forced to trudge back to Explorer?

Firefox bookmarks

billsaysthis — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:37:16 -0800

FirefoxFilter: Is there any extension or option (even if it requires hand editing) that would allow me to have Bookmarks open in a new tab by default (instead of rightclicking and selecting this from the context menu)? I'm really surprised none of the tab extensions include this option.