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The Third Fox
Jun. 17th, 2008 10:19 pmSo you've upgraded to Foxy Three and it's all lovely and shiny... But. You had some essential add-ins or extensions that you simply can't live without, and they don't work in FF3.
Well, all is not lost. Here are a few things to try.
[1] Go look for the latest versions yourself and manually update.
For instance, one of my favourites is Linky. Great tool, but it's not been updated in some two years. Its author may have abandoned it, but others haven't - this is one of the benefits of open source, of course. There's an updated version here, on the German owners club for the Smart Roadster sportscar, bizarrely enough. (There's something else I want, too.)
Similarly, my oldie-but-goodie version of BugMeNot wouldn't update, as apparently it didn't do secure updates. I manually grabbed v1.8, installed it and all's well - and indeed now it's updated itself to v2.0.
Definitely worth a shot.
[2] In some cases, you might need to change to a different extension which does the same job.
An indispensable tool for me was Google Browser Sync, which keeps a copy of all my bookmarks, passwords, browsing history and so on securely encrypted in my Google account. However, the search supergiant has, for inscrutable reasons of its own, decided not to continue with the project. GBS doesn't work in FF3 and never will.
So, it's time to switch. The Mozilla organization has its own cross-machine sync project, Weave, but it's still at version 0.1 which might be a tad immature for some.
All is not lost, though, for there is Foxmarks. Backed by famed developer of Lotus 1-2-3, Mitch Kapor, it's a third-party repository for bookmarks, complete with free sync tool. They have plans to use our collective favourites to build some kind of super search engine, so maybe in time they will be the Anti-Google.
[3] If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. If it still doesn't work, cheat.
Although Fox 2 and Fox 3 look very alike, under the skin, the differences are considerable. Some FF2 extensions just won't work with FF3. Some, however, get disabled just because they don't say they'll work with FF3.
As it happens, you can force FF3 to not check that addins are compatible. This may get some working. It's not a long-term solution, but it may bridge the gap for you.
[4] And finally...
One of the few things I really don't like about the Foxy Three is the full-page zoom function. I never liked it much in Opera, either. About twice a year, it's handy for trying to inspect some small illegible image; the rest of the time, it just makes pages look blocky and ugly, to me.
But you can turn it off: look under View | Zoom in the menus, and down at the end you'll find an option called "Zoom Text Only". This makes it work like FF2, Internet Explorer (eeeuw) and most other browsers.
Lifesaver for we old codgers with failing eyes who just want more readable text.
Well, all is not lost. Here are a few things to try.
[1] Go look for the latest versions yourself and manually update.
For instance, one of my favourites is Linky. Great tool, but it's not been updated in some two years. Its author may have abandoned it, but others haven't - this is one of the benefits of open source, of course. There's an updated version here, on the German owners club for the Smart Roadster sportscar, bizarrely enough. (There's something else I want, too.)
Similarly, my oldie-but-goodie version of BugMeNot wouldn't update, as apparently it didn't do secure updates. I manually grabbed v1.8, installed it and all's well - and indeed now it's updated itself to v2.0.
Definitely worth a shot.
[2] In some cases, you might need to change to a different extension which does the same job.
An indispensable tool for me was Google Browser Sync, which keeps a copy of all my bookmarks, passwords, browsing history and so on securely encrypted in my Google account. However, the search supergiant has, for inscrutable reasons of its own, decided not to continue with the project. GBS doesn't work in FF3 and never will.
So, it's time to switch. The Mozilla organization has its own cross-machine sync project, Weave, but it's still at version 0.1 which might be a tad immature for some.
All is not lost, though, for there is Foxmarks. Backed by famed developer of Lotus 1-2-3, Mitch Kapor, it's a third-party repository for bookmarks, complete with free sync tool. They have plans to use our collective favourites to build some kind of super search engine, so maybe in time they will be the Anti-Google.
[3] If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again. If it still doesn't work, cheat.
Although Fox 2 and Fox 3 look very alike, under the skin, the differences are considerable. Some FF2 extensions just won't work with FF3. Some, however, get disabled just because they don't say they'll work with FF3.
As it happens, you can force FF3 to not check that addins are compatible. This may get some working. It's not a long-term solution, but it may bridge the gap for you.
[4] And finally...
One of the few things I really don't like about the Foxy Three is the full-page zoom function. I never liked it much in Opera, either. About twice a year, it's handy for trying to inspect some small illegible image; the rest of the time, it just makes pages look blocky and ugly, to me.
But you can turn it off: look under View | Zoom in the menus, and down at the end you'll find an option called "Zoom Text Only". This makes it work like FF2, Internet Explorer (eeeuw) and most other browsers.
Lifesaver for we old codgers with failing eyes who just want more readable text.
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