It hardly matter what lies beneath because my work related things are mostly online accessed from Firefox web browser. So I thought of sharing only those few addons which really matter and I cannot work without.

• Which Browser should I use: Firefox or Chrome?

#1. Buffer

Post social status updates or share links without distraction.

No matter what website you are browsing or which kind of article you are reading, you may feel like sharing it with friends on social network. Opening application or website in other tab and then posting about it would be a lengthy task (and distracting too!). Instead, Buffer can be used in such situation which lets you share article / page you are reading or any quote or almost anything from any page.

I use it because I want t avoid distraction of logging and seeing timeline. But Buffer is more than that it can schedule posting updates too in such a way that your friends don’t feel spammed. Get Buffer for Firefox.

#2. Flashgot

How many times you wanted to download YouTube video or any streaming content?

This is an essential task and at some point, everyone feels the need for it. Flashgot is an awesome addon which can capture any streaming media on page. It automatically detects if there is audio, video or flash media on page and then lets you download it.

To access and choose media to download, click on Flashgot icon on right bottom of Firefox window.

#3. LastPass

Can you remember username and password for 52 sites to login your account?

OK, Can you at least list down the sites you have registered account for yourself?

NO ( at least not me).

To avoid stressing the memory, most people will keep same username and password for every site but that’s wrong and threat to security.

How about keeping all these password and login details in safety vault and take out when needed. LastPass is one such addon. It can store passwords in cloud in encrypted form and automatically fills login details when required.

In addition, it can generate unique passwords which are hard to crack. Another good thing is that it can remember and auto fill usual form details like Name, Address, Email ID which are generally required while signing up. Great time saver indeed!

• Steal Stored Passwords from Firefox

#4. Pocket

Bookmark from Web browser and read it later from any device anywhere even without Internet.

During work time, you may come across an interesting article but it is 3 page long and you cannot afford spending so much time. Pocket comes in handy in such situation which can bookmark the page for reading later.

It is more than just a bookmark. I have installed Pocket app on my Android smartphone which is in sync with desktop. This facilitates reading those articles anywhere in my spare time. Additionally, reading is pleasure on phone app as Pocket strips down unnecessary things and presents in a nice format.

#5. Lazarus

Recover deleted text or lost form details in one click.

You spend 20 minutes filling every detail on this registration form but suddenly something goes wrong.

Either internet connection went off while submitting or browser stopped responding or computer system crashed.

To avoid filling up every detail again or writing manually, it is possible to recover text and form data in Firefox.

All these situations are unpredictable and losing form data or long written email paragraphs is a high risk so, I keep installed Lazarus on Firefox.

Life saver indeed!

Finishing up

Being a webmaster, I use some more addons which are related to SEO and Web development. Among them two most important are Firebug and SEO Quake.

• Speed Up Firefox like Chrome

Is there anything else essential task done on regular basis you can think of?

Share the addon you cannot live without if it is not on the list.

The post 5 Firefox Addons I cannot Live without. Especially #3 is Must Install appeared first on Blogsolute.

The recently added ‘rich’ Notifications functionality in Google Chrome is perhaps the best feature of any browser ever! For those unknown, Google has introduced a new way for apps and extensions to display desktop notifications in a streamlined fashion — even when the browser is not running with options to dismiss it or perform extra actions.

This new rich notification in Chrome system shares striking similarities with Android’s notification system. Notifications are presented in almost the same manner with two quick actions along with clear, mute and preferences buttons.

With this functionality still in its infancy, the number of Chrome extensions that have added support for notifications is a bit low. And with the gigantic Chrome store containing several thousand extensions and apps, it’s totally difficult to find them.

Thankfully, we at Blogsolute had been working hard, sweating our pants under the strong sun to handpick the best extensions for you:

1. Fruumo Notifier for Facebook

The internet is incomplete without Facebook and so is the Chrome store, where Facebook has the maximum number of third-party extensions. Fruumo brings notifications from Facebook directly to your desktop even when Facebook is not opened. Fruumo currently only supports Facebook, but plans to bring in more services soon according to the developer.

2. Checker Plus for Gmail

As you must have already guessed, Checker Plus is an extension that notifies you about incoming emails from your Gmail accounts with options to mark as read, archive, delete, reply, star and mark as spam directly from the notification. And it even reads aloud the email summary if you’re away from your computer.

3. Notifier for Twitter

Apart from being a fully fledged Twitter client as an extension for Chrome, Notifier for Twitter displays notifications whenever you’ve new tweets, mentions or direct messages.

4. Keep

With offline support, location and time based reminders and even an Android app, Google Keep is the best note keeping app ever. Period. Quickly save, access and organize the information you want with Google Keep. Create a text note, add a photo, or type up a quick list.

5. Feedly Checker

Feedly, a pretty old RSS service, shot into limelight after Google Reader’s shutdown was announced. It has an incredibly designed web interface and app for Android. If you’re looking for a RSS reader service, I’d strongly recommend Feedly. This extension shows new and unread items in your Feedly along with quick options to save an article for later or mark as read.

6. Android Desktop Notifications

This app allows you to receive Android notifications in your browser. In order to use this app you also need to download and install an app for your Android phone or tablet.

After installing the app on the phone, it randomly generates a code. Enter the code in the settings of this Chrome extension to start receiving notifications.

7. Krome

Krome is another great alternative to Android Desktop Notifications that does more than Android Desktop Notifications. Apart from displaying normal notifications, it even lets you quickly reply to text messages directly from your computer as well as displays app icons on desktop.

8. Quote notifier

Quote notifier delivers inspiring quotes twice every day. It’s a very basic app that shows quotes, nothing else.

9. dA Message Notifier

For those who’re active users at DeviantArt, this extension is for you. dA message notifier will track your message counts for you and notify you when new messages appear in your deviantART Message Center.

10. reddit companion

Reddit companion is a Reddit extension for Chrome that adds a toolbar to Reddit links with options to quickly vote, save and view comments on posts. Along with this, it also displays notifications for new messages (orangereds) as they happen.

11. twitchtv notifier

twitch.tv is “the ESPN of gaming”. It’s a live streaming video platform that lets users watch live streams of gaming tournaments, personal streams of individual players and gaming related talks.

With twitchtv notifier, you can follow your favorite streams and games without having to follow them on twitch.tv. This extension will notify you whenever your favorites go live.

This list ends here. Unfortunately, there aren’t many extensions for Chrome who’ve added support for this excellent new functionality. If you think that we missed any extension, do let us know by dropping in a comment.

The post Rich Notifications in Chrome is the Best Feature Ever! Here are 11 Extensions that Support it appeared first on Blogsolute.

I am with Firefox because it has been a long time and I am comfortable with the plugins available for it. Well, reasons alone cannot stand against facts. So let’s find out why is Firefox consuming too much of your system RAM / Memory.

First of all, let’s check how much memory my Firefox V 20.0 is consuming right now with 3 open tabs including Gmail, WordPress and a webpage.

So, we have a clear picture here and a reason to panic! But before we do that, we need to find out what exactly is going on with Firefox. As we know that sometimes things meant to benefit us can also harm us if not given proper attention. The most ignored but crucial element that goes unnoticed are Addons.

Even in my case, I have been installing Firefox Addons from time to time for testing purposes but eventually forgot about them as I didn’t use them actively or rather didn’t care about it. Till now, there was no way to find which Firefox Addon uses More Memory and causes Firefox to lag at start up and while working with multiple tabs.

Now you can get details of memory consumption for each of the installed and active Addons. The funny part is that a problem caused by an Addon can be solved by another Addon. I got this Firefox extension named about:addons-memory which helps to find memory usage by Addons and hence helping in reducing overall Firefox memory usage.

Identify and Remove Memory savvy Addons

Install about:addons-memory Addon in Firefox, there is no need to restart your browser. Now, open a new tab and on the address bar type / paste about:addons-memory and hit Enter. On the page you will find all the installed addons and their memory usage.

Disabled Addons will show no usage as you can see in the later section of the above image. This Addon also provides an option to minimize Firefox memory usage, all you need to do is just click on it. Unbelievably, it freed up nearly 50 MB of memory from Firefox. This depends on the number of tabs opened and their contents. The maximum memory freed in my case reached up to 150 MB. This Addon does not show memory usage in real time, so you need to refresh the page for fresh statistics.

To free up memory further, you can identify and remove / disable unused but active Addons. Keep in mind that useful plugins do take a lot of memory depending on the feature they are providing. Hence, it’s better to think carefully over removing all Addons just considering the Memory usage.  I will be happy to see a feature like this to be integrated within Firefox.

Download: About:addons-memory plugin

The post Why is Firefox Using too Much RAM Memory? appeared first on Blogsolute.

I won’t go into technicalities involving which browser has what Acid 3 Test score or Performance evaluation. Instead, I will focus on usability and features provided by the browser. If test results are only benchmark considered, Google Chrome is winner any day.

System Configuration

Firefox is always tagged as Resource Hungry and Heavy Browser. At some point, it is true but not completely. Firefox takes up more time to start up and you may observe delays in response if working on low configuration system. This is because Memory management system behind Firefox is completely different than Chrome. Chrome has different processes for each tab while Firefox runs under single process. Another reason could be leaky Addons installed.

If we sum up total memory consumption by each process of Chrome and compare with Firefox, Chrome will be heavier. But talking about starting time, Chrome is faster. So, in my opinion, Chrome is preferable on netbooks or computers which are low on resources.

Again, this Memory Management plays an important role. Just because Chrome has different Processes for each tab, closing of frozen tab is easier. You don’t have to restart complete browser just for the sake of one.

Extensions

Almost all essential ones are available for both browsers, if not by the same name then an alternative would be there. So, this shouldn’t become a decisive point but talking about other Applications, Chrome gallery rocks.

If you want some game or web application, Google Web Store has plenty of options with awesome interface to browse.

Restart-Less Extensions: This is the most loved feature of Chrome. You don’t have to restart browser in order to complete upgrade or new installation of any extension. Firefox has this feature but only on handful of addons.

Browsing Habits

Web Publishing: I am a Blogger and require opening Text Editor several times a day and let me tell you Firefox is very good at WYSIWYG editors as compared to Chrome.

Video Streaming: Especially YouTube I am taking into consideration and my experience says that Chrome is pretty faster in YouTube streaming. Maybe the Google products are optimized to work smoothly with each other but yes, that’s true.

Integrated RSS Reader: If you want to read or subscribe a feed on multiple readers, Chrome doesn’t give me that feature while Firefox has integrated RSS reader.

JavaScript Rendering: Just like YouTube, there are many websites like Facebook, Reddit or Twitter which uses Javascripts heavily loads faster on Chrome.

Translation: Google Chrome browser provides inline translation which means if foreign language detected, it automatically offers option to translate then and there without reloading. Since, Google toolbar discontinued, this isn’t the case with Firefox.

Reason why people might think of sticking with Firefox is the privacy concern. Chrome being the Google Product can steal our personal data. But let me tell you, by using Google Search and Gmail, they already have lot of personal information about us so, this shouldn’t become a reason.

Conclusion: Firefox is recommended for Development / Publishing stuffs while Chrome should be preferred for fast browsing and Video streaming.

In short, it isn’t easy for me to decide between Chrome and Firefox. You should probably judge your usage and decide on one of them while I continue to use both.

Which browser do you prefer and why?

The post Which Browser Should I Use on Windows: Firefox or Chrome appeared first on Blogsolute.

Incognito mode can be useful in many situations where you don’t want to get tracked. Situations where you don’t want your behavior to be recorded.

Here are few examples where incognito mode can be useful:

1. Login to Same Website With Different Account

Web services like Gmail or Facebook don’t allow directly to login multiple sessions from same web browser. But using incognito mode, you can login to same website with different account without losing current session.

2. Browsing without Extensions

Incognito mode doesn’t load any installed extension unless you allow it. So, this is helpful if you want to reduce the load while browsing.

3. Visit Untrusted Webpages

Websites which you don’t trust or think that they may be harmful can be visited in incognito mode without worries. Incognito mode won’t use any data from normal mode like Facebook or Google account cookies. So, if you fear of clickjacking or any malicious activity on any website, open it in isolated environment like incognito mode.

4. Submit Confidential Form Data

Incognito mode can also be used in opposite way. If you don’t want the data (text form, cookie, history) filled up in forms to be saved on computer, Incognito mode is preferable. Make use of it while filling up personal / confidential details on sites like banking, trading, etc.

5. Find Information on Sensitive Topics

When you search for a specific keyword on Google, it is saved in your search history. This data can be used to auto-complete queries or show ads relevant to your topic. If you don’t want anyone to know what you were looking for on computer, use incognito mode.

6. Browsing During Work Hours

Mostly, browsing isn’t prohibited but visiting websites like Facebook or checking personal emails during work hours could be risky. Using Incognito mode, you can avoid complications of clearing history, saved passwords or cookies. Close the window and everything will disappear. Your boss won’t come to know anything about it, ever.

7. Search “Outside the Bubble”

A filter bubble is a situation in which a website algorithm selectively guesses what information a user would like to see based on information about the user (such as location, past click behaviour and search history). In Incognito mode, however, Websites like Google, Facebook and others won’t come to know who you are. So, results won’t be filtered according to your profile.

8. Test Your Website

If you are a webmaster developing a website or made new changes, incognito mode is good way to see the changes. It will give you the view of website as it will appear to a new user who isn’t logged in.

What other uses of Incognito mode you could think of?

The post 8 Cunning Uses of Incognito Mode You Never Thought Of appeared first on Blogsolute.

Internet Explorer

By default, Internet Explorer 10 is installed on Windows 8. It has both variants namely the desktop windows mode and Metro mode too. But at a time, only one mode can be activated. To open IE 10 in metro mode, you have to make it default web browser of Windows 8.

To do that, go to Start screen and type “default”. “Default Programs” will appear, click on it which opens a new window. Now, click on “Set your Default programs” which is a first option.

Find Internet Explorer in the list of programs given on left sidebar. Select it and click on “Select this program as default”.

On start screen, you will notice the change in the icon of Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer is now set to open in Metro mode only. To revert back, you will have to remove it as a default browser.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome too comes with two modes namely Desktop and Metro (Windows 8) mode and to access them you don’t have to set it as default browser. Modes can be changed anytime you want to.

Open Google Chrome and click on Settings icon (3 horizontal bars on top-right which was wrench in earlier versions). Click on “Relaunch Chrome in Windows 8 Mode” and browser will now restart in Metro mode.

To revert back to Desktop mode, repeat the same procedure.

Firefox

Mozilla released a preview version of Firefox Metro app but later deleted it from repository. It is not available for download at the moment (21 Nov 2012). When Final build of Firefox Metro version for Windows 8 is released, this article will be updated.

Opera

There is no news about Metro app for Opera Web browser but I expect it soon.

If you use some other web browser which already has its Metro version, do tell me by commenting so that it can be added to the article.

The post How To Open Web Browsers In Metro Mode In Windows 8 appeared first on Blogsolute.

1. Uninstall MyRally Program

Go to Control Panel >> Programs and Features; Select My Rally and uninstall it.

2. Remove My Rally Search Engine

Click on Chrome Settings icon (3 horizontal lines besides address bar, initially a wrench) and here, change the Search Engine to Google. Click on Manage Search engine button and delete My Rally.

Homepage or Specific page on startup can be changed easily (if you know) but when My Rally is installed, you can’t. That option suddenly gives an error saying “Some Settings are managed by your Administrator”.

3. Fix “Some Settings are managed by Administrator in Chrome”

I was seeing this error for the first time in Chrome settings even though I am logged in to Windows as Administrator. Tried running Chrome as Administrator but didn’t help.

This problem is actually because of a registry key.

Press Win+R key which opens Run window. Type regedit here and press Enter key.

Now, navigate to-  HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Policies\Google\Chrome\RestoreOnStartupURLs

On the right side, find a key which has value http://my.rally.io/ and delete it.

Just restarted Chrome browser and this worked fine for me. Let me know if the same procedure worked for you or faced any problem in any of the steps.

The post My Rally io: How To Remove It Completely From Chrome Browser appeared first on Blogsolute.

First and foremost, it’s a nightly build, so do not just make your mind to use it as your regular browser. You may face a lot of bugs while using Firefox Metro UI as this is the first release. So lets have a look at the new features and experience Firefox Modern UI got to offer.

Firefox Modern UI Interface

Home Page

Full screen page view

Single Right Click

Interface is neat, by default when you open any webpage you will be reading it in full screen. There are no menu bar and options present at the top of browser. To bring up additional options, you need to right click once on any blank section of page. To bring up tabs you need to right click again.

Scrolling Problem:

Current nightly does not support mouse scroll, that means you cannot go up/ down webpages by scrolling through mouse. So how to scroll up/ down webpages! Well, just Middle Click and drag the mouse up or down as you desire.

2. Consecutive Right Clicks

With this version you may find that when multiple tabs are opened, there is a small lag when the tabs appear. To temporarily solve this, disable the tab view. You can disable tab view from options at right hand top corner.

Firefox Modern UI Bottom Bar

Now you can directly jump to the download section from the download button. Settings icon gives you two choices. You can open a page in the normal desktop version if you wish. Also you have the option to search text within the webpage.

To search the page you can also use CTRL+F, I must mention that you will love the search box. It is totally different from all the other normal versions.

Other options that you have are zoom In & Out, though it didn’t work for me or may be I was doing something wrong.

You can also directly bookmark a page or pin it. That’s really handy feature to have.

Firefox Modern UI in Page Selection Clicks

This is another major thing that I liked in the new interface. Unlike the previous versions, you will find that when you select a text or link the right click options are totally different. Its rather a clean and compact menu instead of the long list.

Firefox Metro UI Download Manager

The downloads do not start in a separate download box, downloading style is now similar to Chrome’s default downloading i.e the bottom bar.

Download section can be accessed anytime with ease. When I was downloading files, it was a bit non responsive with missing file names. There was no speed or remaining time display for current download. The file names appeared on restarting the browser.

Firefox Metro UI Preferences

This menu is totally revamped and also made simpler compared to the normal Firefox desktop version. You can enable or disable features just with a click.

Get Started With Firefox Modern UI

After Installation you will find the nightly shortcut on your desktop. Open it, do not be surprised if the normal desktop version opens. Make it your default browser and choose Nightly to open web links when you are provided with the option. Now close it and visit your Start Screen, you will find the Nightly Tile there.

Conclusion

Personally, I really liked the modern UI. Its the first nightly, so we can expect a lot of inclusions and changes till the final version is out. At present its sleek but not smooth. Using Firefox with this interface is full of excitement that you might not want to resist. You can use it in parallel to your primary browser till stable versions arrive.

Do let us know your experience with Firefox Modern UI for Windows 8. What changes would you like in future versions?

Note- Metro UI and Modern UI are the same thing. Initially, Microsoft called their new interface in Windows 8 as Metro but then renamed it Modern UI to avoid any Trademark conflicts. So, In this post, wherever you find the word Modern or Metro, don’t get confused.

The post Mozilla Firefox Metro / Modern UI App For Windows 8 Review appeared first on Blogsolute.

Hacks which you will be performing wont directly affect speed of loading webpages because it still depends on your Internet connection speed. However, starting up, loading and overall operation of Firefox will be improved.

How To Speed Up Firefox

We being with external cleaning followed by naming changes in advance settings which is called internal optimization of Firefox.

One of the reason for slow starting up of Firefox could be while restoring session when it tries to load all tabs at a time. This takes too much time and resources so, Load Firefox tabs one by one progressively.

Firefox Cleaning

First and the most important – Clean all your browsing history! This minimum cleanup for browser to be provided from time to time. Extensive browsing history is comfortable, but after a few months, it really eats up lot of disk space.

Another action to take is remove unused plugins. Review the list of installed add-ons, maybe you’ll find something you no longer need.

Internal Firefox Optimization

OK, if you’ve got rid of the history and unnecessary plugins, we are ready to play with the advanced settings of Firefox. In order to protect against potential and unexpected problems, you should backup the configuration file- prefs.js and copy it to a safe place.

How to find this file? In various versions and system configurations can be saved in different places. Therefore, it is best to do it this way: at the same time press the Windows and R window will appear to run programs and folders. Type in %APPDATA% and click OK.

Navigate to mozilla/firefox/profiles/(folder)/ and here you will find prefs.js which stores all your Preferences. Copy it to some another directory say Desktop.

This file is kept safely because in case something goes wrong, you can always restore to same preference by copying back this configuration file.

Now you have to launch the browser and in the address bar, type about: config, and then confirm that you want to make modifications by clicking on “I’ll be careful I promise!”.

Next, you find the following entries (check them carefully so that you do not get confused!)

1. network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server – set the value to 8

Increasing the number of persistent connections will increase the speed of loading images.

2. network.http.pipelining – change to true

The change will increase the value of requests sent to the server, and thus increase the speed of loading pages from it.

3. network.http.pipelining.maxrequests – set the value to 8

Increase the value to avoid server load.

4. network.dns.disableIPv6 – change to true

This change will cause Firefox to stop logging in to servers that are misconfigured.

After making the changes, it is clear browsing history and restart your computer. The changes may not be visible immediately, but after a while you will notice a higher speed of the program.

Another thing you should try is SpeedyFox which optimizes Firefox databases and solves issues like slow response and startup time.

For x64 Users, It is recommended to use Firefox 64 Bit version – Waterfox which is far better in usability and performance. And then perform tweaks mentioned above to speed up Waterfox.

If for some reason you do not like it, or Firefox start behaving strangely, restore the file prefs.js.

Do you know other ways to speed up the Firefox like Chrome Browser? I’d love to try them out!

The post Speed Up Firefox Like Chrome appeared first on Blogsolute.

Chrome Canary is a way to test and use all the Newest features of Chrome Browser before anyone else. It is like Chromium (Beta Dev channel) but still different from them.

• Canary gets updated almost everyday, each and every feature under test is included in this release.
• It can run side by side of your stable Chrome browser.
• No interference with existing installation and still you get to test new features.
• Actually, a new yellow icon Chrome application is installed completely different from multicolored Chrome logo.

Why Chrome Canary

It is always a good idea to test a new feature before releasing to public or developers. Not all features leads to improvement but may also cause instability. So, by releasing Canary, Google knows how the set of new features are going.

“Chrome Canary offers the same set of precautions. The Canary build is less stable, but it will be used to test even more cutting-edge features than the developer’s build, which already tests new features before they are pushed to the beta build. If a change “kills” Chrome Canary, Google will block it from the developer build.” ~ As on Make Use of

Chrome Canary Performance Results

If we take HTML5 test, it beats every browser out there including Chrome Stable.

In peacekeeper test, which takes into account all factors in web browser test, scores are breathtaking.

Usability

As said on official page, it is not for faint heart as you may lose browsing data due to crashing. I haven’t used it for a long time now but people are using it even as their primary browser. So, I must say, it is worth a try.

Set Canary as Default Browser

If you get convinced enough to use it default browser for daily use, it is not directly possible to do so. You have to run a small registry hack to set Chrome Canary as default Web browser on Windows.

It is compatible with Windows and Mac as of now.

The post Chrome Canary: Newest Features of Chrome Browser Before Anyone Else appeared first on Blogsolute.