Google Toolbar 7 works well in Firefox 5, especially considering that the new Firefox version didn’t make too many important extension-related changes.

Firefox’s faster release cycle, inspired by Google Chrome, has an important downside: extension developers need to update their extensions more frequently and update the list of Firefox versions that are supported. Mozilla alleviated this problem by automatically marking almost 4,000 extensions as compatible with Firefox 5, but Google Toolbar is not hosted by Mozilla and it’s downloaded from Google’s servers.

“The most noticeable difference is probably WebP. An open standard image format that was released with some fanfare by Google last year. We thought it was about time to replace the 20 year old JPEG format with something more modern. Overall, WebP produces images with less artifacts and crisper details, even though the image takes less space,” says Opera’s Audun Mathias Øygard.

Here’s an image from BBC’s site in Opera 11.01 (JPEG) and Opera 11.10 (WebP):

Opera’s tests showed that there’s an important speed improvement: “about 22% less data transferred compared between old and new Opera Turbo”. For example, BBC’s science page uses 724.1 KB, instead of 1111 KB, in the old version of Opera Turbo.

There are two browsers that support WebP: Chrome and Opera 11.10, but Opera’s team found a great way to use it. It’s important to mention that WebP is based on WebM/VP8, a video format open sourced by Google.

{ via FavBrowser }

So to over come this problem you can use the below function to replace it with Quotes again.

function iereplaceInnerHTML(obj, convertToLowerCase) {
 var zz = obj.innerHTML
     ,z = zz.match(/<\/?\w+((\s+\w+(\s*=\s*(?:".*?"|'.*?'|[^'">\s]+))?)+\s*|\s*)\/?>/g);

  if (z){
    for (var i=0;i]/g;
      z[i] = z[i]
              .replace(/(])/g
              , replacer = function(){
                  var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
                  return '="'+(convertToLowerCase ? args[2].toLowerCase() : args[2])+'"'+args[3];
                };
          z[i] = z[i].replace(y[j],y[j].replace(replaceRE,replacer));
          j++;
        }
       }
       zz = zz.replace(zSaved,z[i]);
     }
   }
  zz = zz.replace("colSpan=","colspan=");
  return zz;
 }

Usage :

iereplaceInnerHTML(document.getElementById('test'),'');

“Safari Reader removes annoying ads and other visual distractions from online articles. So you get the whole story and nothing but the story. It works like this: As you browse the web, Safari detects if you’re on a web page with an article. Click the Reader icon in the Smart Address Field, and the article appears instantly in one continuous, clutter-free view. You see every page of the article — whether two or twenty. Onscreen controls let you email, print, and zoom.”

The feature works well, but the “Reader” option is not always available. It’s quite difficult to detect news articles and to extract their content, so Safari’s heuristics are far from perfect. Safari Reader is especially useful for sites that split articles into multiple pages to increase the number of page views. Some of these sites offer a printer-friendly version of the article, but that’s usually difficult to read.

If you’re using Google Chrome, there’s an extension called Readability Redux which offers similar features. Firefox users can install the Readability extension. Both extensions are based on the Readability project, whose goal is to make “reading on the Web more enjoyable by removing the clutter around what you’re reading”.

Compress Graphics of site using PNG and not GIF for Transparent

For Transparent we can use PNG formats and for NON Transparent we can use JPG formats

PNGs were designed to be a superior replacement for the Graphic Interchange Format (GIF). GIFs are limited to 256 colors (8-bit color palette), one level of transparency, and the Lempel-Ziv-Welch (LZW) compression algorithm that was patented by UNISYS. In most cases, PNG files from the same source images are smaller than corresponding GIFs. PNGs use the “deflate” compression algorithm, which is 10 to 30% more efficient than LZW compression.

By design PNGs have some advantages over GIF images. PNGs offer more choices in color depths than GIFs, including 8-bit (256 colors), 24-bit (8 bits per channel), and 48-bit (16 bits per channel) truecolor allowing for greater color precision and smoother transitions. When you add an alpha channel, PNGs allow for up to 64 bits per channel. PNGs can have index color transparency (one color) or alpha transparency (multiple levels) useful for smooth shadow transitions over other images. In summary, the advantages of PNGs over GIFs are:

• Alpha channels (multilevel transparency)
• Variable bit depths
• Cross-platform gamma and color correction
• Two-dimensional interlacing
• More efficient lossless compression (LZ77 vs. LZ78+)

Using image sprites

If you use a lot of background images in CSS, it’s a good practice to put all the images you need in one big canvas. You can then set background-position in CSS to get the image you want from the big image. The advantage here is that instead of having to make numerous HTTP requests on a page, the browser only needs to make one request for the big image and thus speeding up load time. Some people usually create a sprite for images of the same purpose, for example, a sprite for navigation images, a sprite for logo images, a sprite for footer images, etc, but there is no reason why you can’t create combine all images, be it navigation, icons or footer, in one single sprite.

Learn here how to create image sprite

Minify and Pack Your JS and CSS files

Instead of Using Multiple JS and CSS files while loading a website, use only one file of JS and one file for CSS, they are many tools that are available to achieve this.

Here is one of such tool

http://code.google.com/p/minify/

You can use this online tool to compress your Javascript files using the above algorithms.

Caching Files on Server

Here is a simple caching method you can use with .htaccess file. It simply sets the expiry header and cache control for browsers so the browser keeps certain components in its cache and retrieve them from the cache rather than making a new HTTP request every time.

#604800  = 1 week in seconds
<FilesMatch "\.(gif|jpg|jpeg|png)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=604800"
</FilesMatch>

#86400 = 1 day in seconds
<FilesMatch "\.(js|css)$">
Header set Cache-Control "max-age=86400"
</FilesMatch>

Multiple Domains

If your are targeting a high volume side, Then its always time for you to have a separate sub domain for all Images ,JS, CSS.

This will help you to load all the files at parallel

for example.

If your domain name is domain.com

then always use js.domain.com for all your javascript files

img.domain.com for all your images

css.domain.com for all your Style sheet files.

Benchmark and Test

Always benchmark, test and optimise more whenever possible. I use Firebug Network Monitoring Tool and YSlow for this purpose.

Notably, both the Opera and Safari web browsers beat Google’s own Chrome browser in the test. As you can see in the picture above, Opera is the clear leader, with only 78 failures (the closer to the center, the less errors). Safari came in second with 159 errors, with Chrome in third with 218 errors. Firefox is close behind with 259 errors, while Internet Explorer is the outlier with 463 errors.

These tests were run on Windows machines, with the latest released version of each browser. Using the web tool on my Mac, though, shows similar results (at least for Opera, Chrome, Safari, and Firefox — there is no IE for Mac anymore).

While much of the focus on JavaScript is about speed (that’s what the SunSpider test measures, for example), Sputnik is interesting because it focuses on conformity, making it more like the Acid3 test, which tests web standards compliance. Chrome, Safari, and Opera have all passed Acid3, with Firefox getting very close (94/100 for Firefox 3.6). IE, meanwhile, again lags behind with just 20/100 for IE8. And even the new IE9 preview only scores 55/100.

Speaking of IE9, I tried to run the Sputnik tool in the preview build of the new browser on Windows 7. Unfortunately, it completely shut down several times after getting up to about 50 failures after only a few hundred of the 5,000+ tests — not a good sign. But again, it’s just a very early preview release of the browser, and early SunSpider results for the browser have been good.

According to StatCounter The Top three browsers this year are  IE8, Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and IE 7.0

According to Stats IE 8.0 stands in first place around the world with 23%

Firefox 3.5 stands in second place with 19.95% over world

and finally IE 7.0 stands in third place with19.24%

So, IE doing well these days, But Firefox 3.6 is picking up with around 5%

Even Many Users except US are still using the updated browser IE 6.0.

The ability to customize Firefox with these plug-in extensions is what makes this open-source browser so special. However, there are so many available options for plugins, it’s tough to know what’s worth installing and what will be a complete waste of your time.

There are lists of Firefox plugins that have been created citing the best extensions for web developers or for a better YouTube experience. However, I wanted to create an everyday list of my best choices just for the ordinary online business owner.

Out of these, here are my top 10 Firefox extensions:

1. Adblock Plus. If you have ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on a site that often take longer to download than everything else on the page, install Adblock Plus and get rid of them. Right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu, and the banner won’t be downloaded again.

2. Colorful Tabs. This simple add-on makes a strong colorful appeal. It sets each tab to a different color and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appearance of the interface. After a long day of research when you have lots of browser windows open, this makes online page viewing easier on the eyes.

3. ColorZilla. ColorZilla puts an eyedropper icon in your status bar. Click it and you’ll get a crosshair cursor. As you run this over a Web page, the RGB values of the pixel under the crosshair will display in the status bar, both as three separate values and as a hex value (e.g., R:255, G:255, B:255 | #FFFFFF). I use this all the time if I’m trying to match colors; i.e. a font color to an the primary background on an image, for example.

4. GMail Manager. This Gmail notifier is great if you have multiple Gmail accounts. It allows you to receive new mail notifications along with viewing account details including unread messages, saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new mail snippets.

5. MeasureIt. After installing this extension, you’ll have a small ruler icon on the left side of your status bar. When you click on it, your browser window will fade out a little, and you’ll have a crosshair cursor. Drag the cursor over a section of the screen that you want to measure. Next to the box is its height and width, measured in pixels. I use this all the time when trying to measure the size of images. When you’re finished, just hit the Escape key to turn it off and return to normal viewing of the page.

6. Quirk Search Status. Search Status allows you to see how any web site you visit is performing. When you land on a page, SearchStatus lets you view its Google PageRank, Google Category, Alexa popularity ranking, Compete.com ranking, SEOmoz Linkscape mozRank, Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and backward links from Google, Yahoo! and MSN. This combined search-related information means you can view not only the link importance of a site (according to Google and Linkscape), but also its traffic importance (according to Alexa and Compete), so providing a balanced view of site efficacy. I use this all the time to determine whether a site has enough traffic to warrant accepting a joint venture proposal.

7. Scrapbook. ScrapBook helps you to save Web pages and easily manage your saved collections. Major features are: saving web pages or snippets of a page, saving a web site, organizing the collection in the same way you do bookmarks, full text search and quick filtering search of the collection, and editing of your collected pages.

8. Session Manager. Session Manager helps you manage your Firefox tabs. If you visit the same sites every day, all you need do is open all the sites in separate tabs and/or windows, and then use Session Manager to save the session with a distinct name. Then, you simply go to Tools > Session Manager, pick your session, and all the windows and tabs open up just as you saved them. And, Session Manager tracks your sessions as you surf, and if Firefox (or your system) crashes, you can recover the selection of tabs you had open when it crashed.

9. Tabs Open Relative. Tabs Open Relative makes all new tabs open to the right of the current tab, rather than at the far right of the tab bar. This reduced a huge annoyance I had with how the Firefox browser worked.

10. XMarks. XMarks (formerly Foxmarks) provides seamless bookmark synchronization between your computers and browsers via their synchronization server. Your bookmark (and optionally password) data is securely stored and backed up on their servers and is available online, as well. After you install the add-on, click on the notification to set up Xmarks and start backing up and synchronizing your bookmarks. Install Xmarks on each computer you use, and it seamlessly integrates with your web browser and keeps your bookmarks safely backed up and in sync across all of your computers. Secure Password Sync is an optional Xmarks feature.

Note: To locate these, search for the plug-in extensions here: addons.mozilla.org

If you don’t currently use Firefox as your browser, perhaps this list will convince you to give it a try. I have liked my experience so much with Firefox that I won’t ever use any other browser.

About The Author
Online Business Coach and Internet Marketing Strategist Donna Gunter helps service business owners automate their Internet marketing. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to improve your visibility and get found online by claiming your Free gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketíng Toolkit, at: TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

Upgrade To Firefox 3.5.3

1. Open Mozilla Firefox and check its current version by navigating to Help->About Mozilla Firefox
Firefox-3.5.2 Detected
2. Download Firefox 3.5.3 and save firefox-3.5.3.tar.bz2 to your desktop. And close all windows of Firefox
Save Firefox-3.5.3.tar.bz2
3. Now this is important step. If you have Firefox version 3.5.1, 3.5.2 or any other version 3.5.x installed on your system then use the command below. If you have already Ubuntu’s version of Firefox then skip the following command

sudo rm /usr/bin/firefox && sudo dpkg-divert --rename --remove /usr/bin/firefox && sudo rm -r /opt/firefox

Reverting Back To Ubuntu’s Firefox

The command above will downgrade your current version of Mozilla Firefox to the Ubuntu’s default Firefox version which is necessary for all those who have upgraded their Firefox for at least once in past. After you will execute the above command, you will notice that your Firefox will be restored to its default version i-e Firefox 3.0.8 in Ubuntu 9.04.

Ubuntu’s Version of Firefox
4. Right-click on firefox-3.5.3.tar.bz2 and choose Cut/Copy
Cut Firefox-3.5.3.tar.bz2
5. Go to your home directory by navigating to Places->Home and paste it there
Open Home Folder
Paste Firefox-3.5.3.tar.bz2
6. Open Terminal by navigating to Applications->Accessories->Terminal and paste the following command

if [[ ! -f /usr/bin/firefox ]]; then sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install firefox; fi && if [[ -e ~/.mozilla ]]; then cp -R ~/.mozilla ~/.mozilla.backup; fi && sudo tar -jxvf firefox-3*.tar.bz2 -C /opt && rm firefox-3*.tar.bz2 && sudo mv /opt/firefox/plugins /opt/firefox/plugins.backup && sudo ln -s /usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins /opt/firefox/plugins && sudo dpkg-divert --divert /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu --rename /usr/bin/firefox && sudo ln -s /opt/firefox/firefox /usr/bin/firefox

Final Command To Install Firefox
7. After the above command will be executed completely, restart Mozilla Firefox
Firefox-3.5.3 Installed
8. You can now check its version by again navigating to Help->About Mozilla Firefox.. Now it will be version 3.5.3
Firefox-3.5.3 Updated

http://bytes.com/topic/html-css/answers/571528-scroll-bar-missing-ie6-due-issues-relative-positioning-css