Section 5.7. Where to Learn More
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5.7. Where to Learn MoreAdvanced Firefox information can be found in a lot of places. Blogzilla, a blog about Mozilla, hasn't been very active lately, but the archives contain a wealth of good stuff. If you want to keep up with new features as they are added to Firefox, make it a point to visit "Unofficial changelogs for Firefox releases," a volunteer effort to synthesize the lists of changes in new versions of the browser.
5.7.1. SearchingThe first place to go for more information about searching in Firefox is Mozilla Update, where you can find extensions that will take Firefox's already great searching abilities in new and interesting directions. I've also written several posts on The Open Source Weblog about various search tools and tricks for Firefox that you'll probably find useful. If you're feeling ambitious, Mycroft's QuickStart page will tell you how to create your own search plug-in that you can contribute to the Firefox community. It's really not that hard. Finally, a Google query on "firefox search" produces a lot of hits pointing to interesting work in this area.
5.7.2. Live BookmarksMozilla has a nice informational page about Live Bookmarks that gives an overview of the technology and how to use it. Ben Goodger, the man behind Firefox, has posted his own thoughts on the feature on his blog.
5.7.3. ExtensionsFor more on Firefox extensions, take a look at Chapter 4, where you'll find information on several great extensions as well as pointers on where to look for more. IE View is developed at Mozdev.org. The site offers a very low-volume mailing list about the extension, but that's about it (which isn't surprising for such a simple extension). FlashBlock's home page is also pretty bare, but that's OKyou install it, it blocks Flash. What more do you need? Adblock's home page is intentionally grayed out to look like a blocked ad, which is cute but annoying. There's an FAQ page and a good forum that sees a lot of activity, which is no surprisea lot of people hate ads, and Adblock does a good job of blocking them. Some people have exported their block lists and made them available on the Web, which can be helpful. There's even a collaborative effort under way by hundreds of folks to compile the ultimate Adblock list. Keep in mind that those lists may block things that you'd like to see, so be careful applying them. NukeAnything was developed by Ted Mielczarek, but the only thing on his web site is an installer for the software. There are some useful comments that you may find helpful in the discussions about NukeAnything at Mozilla Update and the Mozdev.org Extension Room. TextZoom is pretty simple, so its home page is pretty bare, but there are a few comments at Mozilla Update that are useful.
5.7.3.1 Other extensionsThere are several other extensions that I would have liked to cover in this chapter, but either I didn't have room for them or I thought they were a bit too specialized. I'll mention them here as ideas for further investigation. If you're a web developer, you should check out an extension named (surprise) Web Developer. It has everything you need to do your job, in one small package. Once you have that extension, you should also look at three further ones: Html Validator (with Tidy), EditCSS, and ColorZilla. All are available in the Developer Tools area of Mozilla Update. If you can't tell what these extensions do from their names, you probably don't need them. I'm generally paranoid when it comes to the Net, and an extension named SwitchProxy can come in handy if you want to hide your trail online. It's a bit advanced, but careful reading of the documentation at the extension's home page should allow anyone to use it effectively. You can find SwitchProxy in the Privacy and Security section of Mozilla Update. Finally, if you'd like to keep up with the extensions I'm using, playing with, or just trying, check out "My List of Installed Firefox Extensions" on my web site. There are several that you might find interesting that I just didn't have space in this book to discuss.
5.7.4. SecurityThe best place to go for information about Mozilla and Firefox security is, not surprisingly, the Security Center at Mozilla.org. There you'll find alerts, announcements, tips, and more. One of my other writing gigs is as a columnist for SecurityFocus, the leading web site for professional security information. I wrote a column in June of 2004 that is still accurate today: "Time to Dump Internet Explorer." Check it out if you want to read a bit more about security in IE and in Firefox. Noted columnist Nicholas Petreley has written an excellent analysis of the security differences between Windows and Linux; although not explicitly about Firefox, many of his conclusions about the open source operating system Linux apply equally to the open source web browser Firefox. It's long, but it's worth the read. David A. Wheeler performed a similarly broad analysis in "Why Open Source Software / Free Software (OSS/FS)? Look at the Numbers!" Again, while not specifically about Firefox, his conclusions and his impressing marshalling of evidence make his paper required readingespecially the section about security.
5.7.5. Advanced ConfigurationAn older Mozilla extension (which appears to be no longer under active development) compiled what was then a complete list (53 printed pages!) of Mozilla preferences at "Documented Preferences." The list hasn't been updated since late 2003, but many of the preferences listed on that page apply to Firefox, and the explanations of the options are often excellent. mozillaZine's "About:config entries" provides a long list of preferences and their meanings, while its "User.js file" has a page or so of entries you can make to prefs.js or user.js. For an enormous discussion of various "about:" entries that you can use, their advantages and disadvantages, and the best methods for using them, see the 24-page discussion at mozillaZine on "Firefox Tuning." TweakFactor has also published a great articlethe "Firefox Tweak Guide"with settings that you can change if you want to speed up your web browsing with Firefox. "Customizing Mozilla" on the Mozilla web site contains suggestions for customizing the Firefox UI and web pages. In spite of the fact that the URL has "unix" in it, the tips work on virtually every operating system. For more from the Mozilla web site, see "Tips & Tricks." Jon Hicks's "Tweaking Firefox with CSS" is an excellent blog posting that covers some clever, advanced tricks that users can perform with userChrome.css and userContent.css, and Daniel Cazzulino provides more tips on his blog in "Extreme browser customization." Pratik Solanki also provides some useful information in "Hidden Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird Prefs," but it's hosted on the ultra-annoying Geocities web site, so grit your teeth. "Daihard's userChrome.css" focuses on changes you can make to Firefox's user interface. mozillaZine's "UserChrome.css Element Names/IDs" is a brief page listing key element names in Firefox that can be used as CSS selectors; if you have no idea what that means, don't bother going to that page! Another good way to find examples you can use for your own tweaks is to search Google (or your favorite search engine) for userChrome.css or userContent.css, although I can tell you that many of the results you'll get for userContent.css have to do with blocking ads. Personally, I think Adblock is far easier to use, so I'd stick with that. The ChromEdit extension's home page doesn't have much on it, but you can view a list of known bugs and enter any new ones that you encounter. Finally, here's something fun. Enter about:mozilla into Firefox's Location Bar and press Enter. Want to know what that means? Read about it at mozillaZine's "New Chapter in The Book of Mozilla." Finally, if you want to learn more about the notorious Hampsterdance, Wikipedia has a great short piece on it.
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