Mozilla Question

[OnyxCougar]

Ok, so I'm at home and I DL'ed Mozilla Firebird and Thunderbird. I really wanna give this a shot. So I'm going through my settings, trying to get acclimated, and I see this:

Open external links in new windows or tabs

If another program wants to display a web page in the default browser, Mozilla Firebird will reuse an existing window by default, which means that it will navigate from a page you might be reading. To stop this, add the following code to your user.js file:
// Stop reusing active windows:
user_pref("advanced.system.supportDDEExec", false);

What about new tabs instead of windows then? If you prefer tabs instead of windows, you must also install Tabbrowser Extensions, a very powerful extension that enhances the functionality of the tabbed browsing. After installing the extension, follow these instructions (make sure you didn't forget to add the above code to your user.js file):

1. Make sure you didn't forget to add the above code to your user.js file.
2. Select Tools > Options > Extensions, select Tabbrowser Extensions and click Settings.
3. Expand the Category list and select the topmost sub-item (it's supposed to read Advanced Tabbed Browsing but the Category list is too narrow).
4. In the Window Mode drop-down listbox, select Use multiple browsers only when I open them.

Done! Now any link opened by an external program, such as your e-mail client, will open in new tabs.

Well, it didn't work. I closed the browser and reopened, just in case, (because the whole toolbar customization taught me to close and restart the browser when you change something). Still nothing. When I click on my cellar subscription notification, it replaces my home page, not opens a new tab. Which I really really want it to do.

Any suggestions?

[Tobiasly]

Try removing the code from your user.js file, and instead click the "Enable/Disable DDE support by needs automatically" under TBE's Advanced settings.

You are clicking a link in another program, and not inside Firebird, right?

This works perfectly for me, so I know it's possible.

[Undertoad]

Moz/Firebird users exclusive:

http://mab.mozdev.org/

Search Amazon with this cool tool.

Click on "Start MAB Now" in the upper-right-hand area of the page.

If you like it, you can install it to your Tools button with a single click from the Installation page.

[OnyxCougar]

Originally posted by Tobiasly
Try removing the code from your user.js file, and instead click the "Enable/Disable DDE support by needs automatically" under TBE's Advanced settings.

You are clicking a link in another program, and not inside Firebird, right?

This works perfectly for me, so I know it's possible.

It's working for me at work. I'll try it at home and let you know.

[OnyxCougar]

Doesn't work at home, which is pissin me off.

edit: I just futzed with it some more, it does work now.

[Elspode]

Okay...someone tell me why this browser everyone seems to have to fight with is an improvement over IE or Netscape?

I'm not arguing, I'm actually interested in hearing the advantages.

[elSicomoro]

--It is essentially NS, only more stable
--Tabbed browsing
--Junk mail interceptor
--Pop-up blocker
--Uses "themes", which give it a unique look.

I love it...very rarely do I use IE at home anymore.

[Undertoad]

It's only going to get better. I started using Mozilla in 1999, although I didn't convert to Mozilla Mail until just recently. The browser has come a very long way since then. IE, meanwhile, has almost stood pat... no innovation, just security patches and legal mumbo jumbo.

[xoxoxoBruce]

What is tabbed browsing?

I got this one, fellas.

[Undertoad]

This page explains it all.

[Undertoad]

Uhhhh sorry.

Dickhead.

Anyway, basically the benefit is that you're more capable of multitasking, and you spend less time fucking around and more time reading.

Tabbed browsing is only useful if you find yourself having more than one browser window open at a time. Actually, that's not true. It's useful if you only use one, because then you're probably not reading everything you want to for fear of losing your place.

It starts like this: you see three stories on the CNN front page you want to read. Right click on one of them...



And click "Open Link in New Tab". A new tab is opened, sorta like this:



So now you've got a few pages open. You click to another one



But the others are still available. <b>All in a single window!</b>

Then, when you're done reading one page, you can go to the next.

It also allows you to open a link that has, say, maybe a lot of pictures, and let it load while you read what you're currently reading. The icon will change in the tab when it's done loading, and you know that it's ready to read. This is extremely convenient.

The page Tony linked is one that I was going to link as well, so go ahead and check that out. (For me, it would be right-clicking on it and opening it in a new tab.) Honestly, once you use it, it's a feature you can't live without. I highly recommend you switch from whatever you're using now and get with something that's faster, more secure, more standards-compliant and <b>designed to be pleasant to use</b>. The popup blocking is what originally got me using Mozilla (that, and it was the only decent fucking browser on the shitty OS desktop platform know as Linux). Tons of features since then have kept me here. I only use IE to do my timecard at work, and only then because I'm too lazy to install the JRE so it'll work in Mozilla.

Do yourself a favor and switch.

[Torrere]

The reason that people are messing around with Mozilla's settings and sometimes having trouble with it is that you can actually do a lot of cool stuff in Mozilla, much more than you're going to find in the defaults. On two occasions, I've browsed the list of extensions and thought "hey that's cool!" and installed a few. I should do that again soon. One of my favorites was Nuke Image, to remove that annoying blinking green-and-red banner ad when it showed up.

IE feels like it's hardly seen anything new since the back button.

There is so much cool stuff going on with Mozilla. For some time (until I switched to firebird, and support didn't exist for a long time), I used the Mouse Gestures extension. One of the things I really liked about it was that I could [with a mouse button held down] scribble the cursor over a bunch of links, then make a gesture with the mouse and it would open all of the links I had scribbled over in new tabs in the background, This was fun for browsing forums where there were a few new posts in several different threads.

Reading forums is so much better with tabs. You open all of the threads with new posts in tabs, then click around and read them. Researching something or another with Google is the same story.

[OnyxCougar]

I've been using Crazy Browser, which is IE with a skin and tabbed browsing and pop-up blocker. Mozilla looks like Netscape with tabbed browsing and popup blocker, but Tony assures me it's not NS, so I'll believe him. At any rate, tabbed browsing, whether it's CB or Mozilla it THE way to go.