Firefox me up

Mozilla Firefox

Image via Wikipedia

I then tried upgrading to the recent beta of Firefox 3, but none of my extensions worked there, so back to my buggy Firefox again.

What about your Firefox – unstable. What did you do?

Testing vodpod extension for firefox

2805 Vishakapatnam – Secunderabad Janmabhoomi Express headed by LGD 22592 WAP-4, speeds through Chiluvur station on the Vijayawada – Tenali section at well over 100Kmph.


from www.vimeo.com posted with vodpod


Seems to work pretty well… – Vimeo boasts having HD-video service, so I thought I might check that out :-)

Horny fox is bad for traffic


An alert sent out by the Danish Forest and Nature Agency warns danish drivers that the next couple of months will have more fox crossing roads than usual. Many of the foxes that loose their lives are young and inexperienced and haven’t learned all the dangers and threats that we humans are. Sadly the alert is only in danish: Advarsel til bilisterne: Øget risiko for påkørsel af ræve

So to answer your question – why am I writing about foxes running wild? Well, mostly because I immediately came to think of my own little firefox reading this. I too run across some roads on the internet – and the bad things that can happen to you out there are not as obvious as a 14-wheeler truck. Phishing, spoofing, illegit cookies and on and on are daily threats on the internet. So, what ways are there to protect Firefox from all the bad traffic out there?
I’ve been looking at this extension for firefox:

Google Safe Browsing is an extension to Firefox that alerts you if a web page that you visit appears to be asking for your personal or financial information under false pretences. This type of attack, known as phishing or spoofing, is becoming more sophisticated, widespread and dangerous.

Google Safe Browsing for Firefox

…any more suggestions for enhancing privacy and safe browsing?

[Image from Wild Nature Images]

Update:
Version 3 of Firefox will (among others) have these security features:

  • One-click site information. Want to know more about the site you’re visiting? Click the site’s icon in the location bar to see who owns it. Identify information is prominently displayed and easier than ever to understand.
  • Malware protection. Firefox 3 warns you if you arrive at a web site that is known to install viruses, spyware, trojans, or other dangerous software (known as malware). You can see what the warning looks like by clicking here.
  • Web forgery protection enhanced. Now when you visit a page that’s suspected of being a forgery, you’re shown a special page instead of the contents of the page with a warning. Click here to see what it looks like.
  • Easier to understand SSL errors. The errors presented when an invalid SSL certificate is encountered have been clarified to make it easier to understand what the problem is.
  • Out-of-date add-on protection. Firefox 3 now automatically checks add-on and plugin versions and disables older, insecure versions.
  • Secure add-on updates. Add-on update security has been improved by disallowing add-ons that use an insecure update mechanism.
  • Anti-virus integration. Firefox 3 now informs anti-virus software when executable files are downloaded.
  • Windows Vista parental controls support. Firefox 3 supports the Vista system-wide parental control setting for disabling file downloads.

Read more here: Firefox 3 for developers

Monetizing Firefox Extensions

I pull in a steady stream of trafic of people looking for a way to export firefox extensions. The solutions is of course more extensions (go have a read :-) ). That’s all good and well, but I’ve been thinking on ways to monetize that type of trafic. The problem is that these particulatr searchers have a quite well defined need: exporting their extensions. No need to offer them a Google referral programme like this:

I’ve been trying with adsense units too, but they don’t convert either. I’m not into prOn or poker – and so I decided to try affiliating for a hosting company I’ve been looking at: AN Hosting. They have pretty cheap hosting and they support the wordpress community (woot). There’s one click wordpress installation and so on and so forth. I figured that people searching for firefox extensions would be more prone to be interrested in cheap web hosting than people browsing for say Foosball tutorials.

The sign up is easy and there’s a long range of banners, buttons and links for the affiliate marketer to frolic in. Go have a look at their affiliate program (oh – and that’s an affiliate link too :-) )

Anyways – here’s the banner from AN Hosting – not too pretty, but cheap it is:

How to export firefox extensions

Using different computers at work and at home prompts me to look for a way to export firefox extensions from one computer to another. Currently I am using 30+ extensions @ work, but I’ve only gotten around to install a handfull @ home.

Now two extensions will let you export/backup your extensions (FEBE) and even package your extensions in .xpi files for easy sharing with others (CLEO) – go have fun :-)

If you need proof that it works go see my firefox extensions. Here I also made a test package of my favorite firefox extensions for you to download.

History:

UPDATE 3:Ashley left wonderful information, linkting to a couple of extensions that will backup firefox themes and extensions.

Update 2: I’ve started to map all extensions and possible solutions to export firefox extensions on this page.

Update: MozBackup only supports backup for predifined extensions… The site invites users to ask for other extensions to be imported, but there’s quite a gap between the existing list to my list.

The solution would be some kind of export function for extensions. Googling leads me here , but I’d rather have a list of urls to the various extensions’ locations and then install them from their sources.
Anyhows MozBackup seems to be the best option at the moment, but as it is a program running on my laptop, I’m not too keen on that solution.

(actually, I found MozBackup via this site – which is in turkish, I think)