Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with firefox and resolved

Restore deleted usernames and passwords to Firefox?

sockpup — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 16:11:03 -0800

I errantly deleted all of my saved usernames and passwords from Firefox. Is there any way to get them back? I wasn't paying attention and clicked "remove all" instead of "remove". Mac OS 10.5. Firefox 3.5.3.

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btw, this isn't for preference or anything, just the fact that the Canadian government is outdated and require an older version in order to access a secure site.

auto-name saved webpages

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 06:41:08 -0800

Is there a way of saving a web-page from a web-browser, using a name from a source outside of the web-page? I want to save several web-pages to a folder, and I would like a semi-automatic naming convention. Previously, I have been manually saving each web-page by hitting ctrl-s, and entering sequential numbers. I am analyzing these pages using a loop, so this convention makes it quite easy to loop through all files in the folder (I am doing this analysis using a few VBA macros in excel).

One mild complication is that some of these web-pages will all have the same default name if I use the actual prompted name, so re-naming after saving is not an option as it would overwrite files.

I haven't been able to figure out how to go about doing this within firefox on windows xp, so any pointers would be greatly appreciated. Suggestions using alternative browsers/OSs are fine as I use mac and linux also.

Problem Viewing Flash

JABof72 — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:19:22 -0800

Flash Player 10 doesn't work all the time. YouTube and most other sites work fine, including embedded Flash. Certain sites, such as Chow.com, their Flash Demos load, then nothing. I run into this not too often, but would like to know how to fix it. BTW, using latest version of Firefox. Thanks!

Firefox + RSS is making me crazy

taubman — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 19:39:16 -0800

Taming Firefox mouse behavior... After a recent firefox upgrade on my Mac (now running 3.5.2), Firefox now insists on (nearly) instantly showing me the URL for bookmarks in bookmarks toolbar whenever I hover my mouse over one of them. I find this to be really distracting and irritating, especially when im mousing down the list for one of my RSS bookmarks. I'd really like to shut this off, or have it happen with a bit more of a delay when I hover over a bookmark. Any ideas on how to change this behavior?

Why do links to Flickr photos kill my Firefox?

Drasher — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 19:37:48 -0800

Why do links to Flickr photos kill my Firefox? When someone posts an entry in AskMe that refers to a photo on Flickr, I am forced to copy the link, open IE, and look at the picture from there. I have searched AskMe and Google, I have tried disabling Adblock settings... I just don't get it. If/when Firefox dies because of one of these links, I restart, it comes up and I select "Restore Previous Session", and I need to close the offending tab before it fully loads otherwise it will kill Firefox again.
(I am currently running Firefox 3.0.13)

Manipulating web form defaults

a womble is an active kind of sloth — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 07:37:29 -0800

Is it possible to have a web browser plugin/macro that will untick boxes on a webpage by default? I am helping with a college club, and part of the job involves registering people for races. The difficulty is that the website that almost all race organizers use, checks boxes for all club members by default for every race. So if two people want to register for a race, I need to untick 50 boxes for every race.

I was wondering if there existed some type of plugin for firefox that could be used to untick these boxes. I usually use windows xp, but if answers are dependent on using Mac/Linux they would be also welcome as I sometimes use these OSes.

Package problem with firefox in xubuntu

knapah — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 10:47:18 -0800

Firefox has died on me after an update in xubuntu, help! I used the update manager earlier to update firefox (and a variety of other things) but received the following error message and consequently firefox will not work.

E: /var/cache/apt/archives/firefox-3.0_3.0.12+build1+nobinonly-0ubuntu0.8.10.1_i386.deb: short read in buffer_copy (backend dpkg-deb during `./usr/lib/firefox-3.0.12/components/libbrowsercomps.so')

I tried reinstalling through synaptic, which didn't work. Then completely removed it, installed it fresh. Still no joy. The "Broken" section of synaptic now has firefox, and firefox-3.0-branding in it.

Anyone know how can I get firefox working again? And less importantly, what went wrong?

And if it's relevant I'm running xubuntu on an Acer Aspire One. I am also a total linux noob.

Firefox font troubles.

beautifulcheese — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 12:17:34 -0800

Firefox (3.5) keeps changing the fonts on me. I need larger than average fonts to see clearly and it keeps resetting back to no minimum size and checking the "allow sites to use their own fonts" box. How do I fix this? It first only did this each time I started the browser but if I reset them to my chosen options it would stay no matter how many tabs I opened. Now each time I open a tab it resets back to default and I end up with tiny fonts that I strain to see.

Also any idea on what an optimum font/font size would be for a 21" widescreen monitor so that I don't have to lean into the screen to see. Not sure if that can be figured out without having my eyes though.

Note Tab

FunkyHelix — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:40:00 -0800

I'm looking for a Firefox add-on that would open a note pad into a new tab. I tend to write in a program called Notetab Plus. But I'll write a couple minutes, my mind wanders, and then I'm checking e-mail and surfing the web. Eventually I save my work and close out the writing program because I get irrationally annoyed at running a browser and another program.

What I'd like is just a plain note pad add-on that would throw up a tab to type away in. Then I could go do something else and come back to the writing. I think I'd be more productive.

I know I could just open something like Google docs in a tab and then protect the tab. But I don't want Google docs. I just want a little notepad. A big blank tab that I can just write in.

I've tried searching through the add-ons, but I'm not seeing anything like this. Maybe you know of an add-on, though, or something like it?

Minor but annoying Firefox problem

N2O1138 — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 23:08:49 -0800

I'm using Firefox 3.5 (on Leopard). Whenever I re-open FF, it remembers my tabs as it should, but there's a catch. All of them will "load" forever without actually doing anything unless I go to the location bar of each and hit enter. Hitting "Reload all tabs" doesn't work, instead it makes them all go blank. Also, until I switch to another tab and back, the URL of the first tab doesn't even appear. At first I thought the Fast Dial extension was causing this, but I disabled it and still have the problem. However, the problem seems to go away when I disable TMP and enable Tab Kit (so it seems it's TMP-related). I would simply use Tab Kit, but there are a few things in TMP that "I just can't live without."

I also just switched from TMP's session restore to the Session Restore extension to fix another minor problem (which it did), but that didn't help this one.

Problems with Firefox 3.5

brighton — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 08:53:48 -0800

I have found a couple of things on web pages which don't appear correctly for me in Firefox 3.5. Help me work out why. The two in question are:

http://www.youtube.com/html5 : The video controls don't work, nothing plays. The rest of the page is fine.

The Google Latitude widget on my iGoogle page won't load my friends. If I expand it the friends list on the left of the screen is empty apart from the words "loading friends". The rest of the iGoogle page seems fine.

Both these things work perfectly in Safari 4, and I *think* the Latitude widget worked in Firefox 3.0.11, the last version I used before I updated. I've check with all add-ons and plug-ins removed, disabled and enabled (I hardly use any and there were no compatibility issue when I updated to 3.5). I am using a Macbook running OS X 10.5.7 and if I click "About Mozilla Firefox" it gives me the folowing: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.5; en-US; rv:1.9.1) Gecko/20090624 Firefox/3.5

Sorry for the lack of any other pertinent info that might help. I'm clueless about this sort of thing.

Suppress right-click menu on a web site

maxwelton — Sat, 30 May 2009 02:50:40 -0800

Is there a way to disable the right-click menu on a particular web page I visit that isn't managed by me? I play a solitaire game on a particular web site fairly often. It's not a Flash game, nor is it a Java applet, I suspect it's simply JavaScript.

The game allows you to use both left and right clicks, each performing different actions, but every time you right-click the normal browser right-click menu appears...very annoying in this context.

Is there a way for me to tell my browser I don't want the right-click menu to appear on this one particular page (or its domain, if that's easier)? I have greasemonkey installed, so a GM script would be ideal, but I haven't been able to locate one.

I'm on Windows, using FF. Thanks mucho for any ideas. (I could possibly write my own script if pointed in the right direction.)

Autofill for the Lazy

decathecting — Tue, 12 May 2009 21:49:21 -0800

How do I get Firefox to autofill fields automatically? I use Firefox on both a mac and a PC. Safari for mac has a great feature where, when you use a certain key combo (I think it's Apple+Option+A, but I'm not sure), the computer fills in fields with information you've given them. Name, address, phone, DOB, etc. I'd like something like this product, for Firefox for mac and PC.

What do I need to do to get this feature? Is there an add-on or Greasemonkey script or something? Help me type my extremely long address fewer times a day.

Bonus points if there's a way the system can store multiple sets of information, so that I can decide whether I want my many online purchases shipped to home or work, etc. I'm willing to consider other browsers if they have better ways of dealing with this.

Auto login not working?

Meatbomb — Fri, 08 May 2009 08:05:24 -0800

Something new about FF / noscript / adblock? Suddenly I am never automatically logging in to my usual sites. I haven't changed any settings, but I do allow the (frequent) noscript and adblock auto updates to happen.

Within the last week or so, suddenly I am constantly having to login to places - even with asking FF to remember the password, checking the "automatically log me in" boxes on forums, etc. etc. This behaviour is kind of a pain in the ass.

Any ideas you can think of that might be causing this?

Forget-Me-Not

geekyguy — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 10:06:24 -0800

Firefox Forget-Me-Not: My browser no longer seems to remember me. When I launch Firefox 3.0.9 I am no longer automatically logged into the sites I have set to load on open. I usually have 25+ tabs open at a time and have Firefox set to 'Show my windows and tabs from last time'.

When I visit a site, like Metafilter, I am no longer automatically logged in. Instead, when I click the [Login] link, my username and password are already there so I haven't lost my saved passwords, just the automatic passing of that information from one session to another.

Incidentally, my browser crashes fairly regularly, at a rate of 3 crashes in a 2 day period. I figure it is due to the high number of tabs I run with. Yes, it is annoying but as long as the browser remembers me, I have been able to live with it.

The laptop in question is a dual 2ghz 64-bit Windows Vista Home Premium with 4g RAM. The browser in question is Firefox 3.0.9 running the following add-ons:
Delicious Bookmarks
Evernote Web Clipper
Forecastfox
Greasemonkey
Microsoft .NET Framework Assistant
RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin
Skype Extension for Firefox

A Warning for My Forgetfulness -- on Firefox

bluefly — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 12:43:58 -0800

Is there a way to get Firefox to warn me or ask me if I'm sure about closing a tab or navigating away from a webpage? I don't want the warnings to always happen because then I will just learn to ignore them. But maybe when I get to a page that I don't want to close willy-nilly, there would be a way to tell Firefox to warn me before I navigate away. Does a Greasemonkey script exist for this? I want it because I often listen to music streaming through a little flash player on a webpage, and I always unthinkingly leave the page.

Thanks.

Is there a way to kill the "story comments" section on CBC.ca?

Decimask — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 18:35:21 -0800

Every time I scroll too far down on a CBC.ca news story, I feel a piece of my humanity being chewed off by the mire that is the CBC reader comments section. I wasn't able to find a greasemonkey script to hide or expurgate them, at least not one that mentioned the CBC specifically. Any suggestions? The brain bleach is chewing up my budget.

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.

Bloggersfilter, need your wisdom!

spacefire — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 13:48:46 -0800

Disqus blog post comments number doesn't show up in Firefox anymore. HTML/CSS gurus please please help! My wife's is having issues with her blog at Budget Bride Blog
On the first page, the comments link at the bottom of each post does not show the number of comments. However, if you move on to the second page, the number of comments shows up. So obviously there's something wrong with the HTML of the first page. I checked the links to Disqus on both pages and they look exactly the same. We're stumped.

Note that this is only a Firefox issue. The number of comments shows up in Internet Explorer and Safari.

How to add Google search engine back to Firefox?

rintako — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 13:50:40 -0800

I deleted the Google search engine from my Firefox search engine bar. How do I add it back? You know the bar beside the address bar in Firefox? I removed Google and went to the search-engine page to search for Google."com" since my results were showing up as Google."ca

What happened was there was no Google search engine! Now I'm stuck with yahoo. Please tell me how I can add Google back to the bar. I miss it. Thanks.

Stop Firefox from opening iTunes

yarrow — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 13:05:34 -0800

Is there a way to stop Firefox from launching iTunes? There are some links to iPhone apps that, when you click on them, trigger the opening of the iTunes store and thus iTunes itself. Is there a way to block this behavior? I generally don't have iTunes open and don't want it open because it slows down my computer. Yet I'll sometimes follow a link where an app is mentioned and wind up having to wait out the opening and closing of iTunes. Seems to me I should be able to tell Firefox I don't want that to happen, but I can't figure out how. (I haven't even really been able to figure out syntax that would let me know that a link is going to do this - it's not like they end in .itunes or something.)

This is using Firefox 3 and Windows XP.

One click button to open up multiple tabs at once?

nam3d — Tue, 17 Feb 2009 17:21:34 -0800

One click button to open up multiple tabs at once (firefox)? I have seven websites which I visit each morning to get my daily news. For each section of news (Local, UK, Technology, Business, World, Media, Gossip) I use a different news source.

Here is my current list (make of it what you think).

Local - The News & Star (local newspaper)
UK - The Times
Technology - The Independent
Business - BBC News
World - The New York Times
Media - Media Guardian
Gossip - The Sun

What I would like to do is simply press one button (a simple bookmark) on my Firefox bookmark toolbar and have each website section open up in a new tab.

Is there a way of doing this either by using a Firefox plugin or some coding.

Thanks,

William

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!

Can I disable a firefox addon at the command-line?

your mildly obsessive average geek — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 20:10:05 -0800

I have an Thinkpad X61 that I use both at work and home. Internet at work requires a proxy while at home I have WiFi. Switching browser settings is no problem thanks to the awesome Connection Manager software that ships with the Thinkpad. But now things have become a bit complicated. I had to install FoxyProxy because some sites needed a different connection which the regular proxy couldn't handle. Now when I connect to the internet at home, I have to remember to disable foxyproxy otherwise the Internet doesn't work. Is there a way to disable the foxyproxy extension via the command line so that I can automate this process? Google isn't helping. FWIW, I have AutoIt and Autohotkey installed although I'm not really a programmer.