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Firefox provides elaborate Privacy protection measures with its built-in preferences. These preferences allow you to control settings to decide how and when you get exposed to the online intruders and you can set these settings as per your convenience and requirements. However, if you want an enhanced protection, you need to some .xpi installation. .xpi files are popularly known as Firefox Addon in common terminology and are a breeze to install. You can check our post on How to install xpi firefox addons.

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How to increase online privacy by installing xpi Firefox addons

Check out these Firefox addons, which basically allow you to browse Internet through Proxy Servers, thus hiding your identity and IP address from intruders.

FoxyProxy: Updated May 5, 2008 | 23,741 weekly downloads | 1,316,586 total downloads

A hugely popular Firefox Extension. FoxyProxy is an advanced proxy management tool that completely replaces Firefox’s limited proxying capabilities. This xpi installation allows you to switch an internet connection automatically across one or more proxy servers based on URL patterns. Put simply, FoxyProxy automates the manual process of editing Firefox’s Connection Settings dialog.

This has a feature rich interface but it also adds to its complexity.

PhProxy: Updated April 18, 2008 | 3,795 weekly downloads | 200,802 total downloads

PhProxy acts as a protective screener between the user and the Internet. The PhProxy server downloads the contents of the web page into its memory, and then displays it to the user, which means that only the server’s IP is logged, and not the user’s.

Torbutton: Updated August 13, 2007 | 17,873 weekly downloads | 1,661,118 total downloads

Perfect for those who use one proxy or none at all. In my case this is Privoxy. No need to use FoxyProxy, which is excellent itself but only if one is really using multiple proxies and want to create black/white lists.

I love Firefox. And the single most important factor is its Open Source Architecture, which allows third party developers to develop Firefox addons, which seamless integrate with Firefox to give you huge versatility.

My latest find is InterClue, the nice Firefox Addon, which is a smart way to browse Internet so as to cut your time spent as well as your bandwidth uses.

InterClue allows you to browse Internet faster. It gives you a smart snapshot of a link, if you hover your mouse over it. I find it far better than a similar product Snap. Snap was a headache. It really added to the clutter on a web page, and I found it to be really annoying to browse a page having Snap enabled on it.

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But InterClue is much better. If you unintentionally hover your mouse over a link, it just pops up a small icon besides the link. And when you hover the mouse over that icon, then only the snapshot screen is opened. Far better than Snap.

Besides this, InterClue gives you much more information than Snap. It also gives information about the meta data of the page. See the screenshot, to know the power of InterClue.

Interclue can give you:

• A text content summary
• A small snapshot of the page
• Sizes and dates of linked files
• Usefule stats and metadata
• Next actions - save, email…
• And more. Check the options!

Despite its powerful features, many people don’t like InterClue, because they think that it obstructs their vision.

But I liked it.

Firefox Skins, they fascinate me.

This is the beauty of an Open Source software like Firefox browser, that there are thousands of independent developers like you and me, who develop their own source codes, which can be seamlessly integrated with the main program. And this feature gives the flexibility to the main software to suit every requirement and taste.

With the release of Firefox 3 RC1, more and more developers are concentrating on creating firefox addons specially mozilla Firefox 3 skins.

Here I am listing three of the recently created (updated) fire fox 3 skins (also known as firefox 3 themes), which I fell in love. Hope you may also be linking them.

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 Phoenity Modern

Updated May 22, 2008 | 4,010 weekly downloads | 908,907 total downloads

It is based on the extremely popular SeaMonkey Modern Firefox theme. There are a lot of other versions available on the Modern Theme. I specially liked the soft touch and smoother buttons on this firefox skin. However this skin is only for Firefox 3 RC1 and NOT compatible with Firefox 2.0.0.x and Nightly Builds.

 Metal Lion - Andromeda

Updated May 21, 2008 | 8,809 weekly downloads | 33,560 total downloads

Clean, professional firefox 3 theme that uses ‘native’ backgrounds, which are typically based on the OS theme in use. In the latest update for Firefox 3 RC1, new images for bookmarks, sidebar/findbar close buttons and Bookmark Organizer navigation have been added.

 Nautipolis for Firefox

Updated May 25, 2008 | 2,833 weekly downloads | 655,623 total downloads

Based on icons from art.gnome.org, this forefix 3 theme includes support for personas, stumbleupon, chatzilla, download manager, TabMixPlus, fission/fusion, forecastfox, googlebar, googlepreview and many other features. I like its elegance and refineness.

Use them, you might fall in love with these latest Mozilla firefox 3 skins.

What are Mozilla Firefox Skins

Mozilla Firefox is the preferred browser for millions today, despite the release of strong competitors like IE7 and Safari. The one most important aspect of Mozilla Firefox, which makes it the preferred browser of “informed netizens” is its open source nature.

This allows it to seamlessly integrate thousands of small applications and utilities, called Firefox Extensions, which are developed by independent small developers and teams of them.

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One such type of extension is Mozilla Firefox Skins, a.k.a. Firefox Themes. Skins for Mozilla firefox are custom graphical appearances (GUIs) that can be applied to Firefox in order to suit the different tastes of different user. Applying a skin changes the look and feel of Firefox — some skins merely make it more aesthetically pleasing, but others can rearrange elements of the interface, potentially making it easier to use.

Where to find Skins for Mozilla Firefox

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The biggest source where you can download latest Mozilla Firefox skins and Firefox themes is obviously the Mozilla Addon site, you can find hundreds of fire fox skins and themes. But this is not the end. There are lots of other websites, which allow you to download and use free skins for Mozila Fire Fox. Two of the most popular sites are Customize.org and Skinbase.org.

Which are my favorite Mozila Firefox Skins

I love them all. I have a passion for them. I don’t have any count of how many of them I have tried, but the five coolest foxfire skins, which I like most are the following.

Macfox II graphite - (Firefox skin Mac) This theme imitates the MacOS X user interface. It’s not perfect — let’s be honest, none of the Mac-ish themes are — but it comes very close.

Abstract Classic- Definitely try this one. It’s one of the best. It has a glassy look with bright blue buttons and shaded toolbars… awesome.

Cobalt - This one’s very similar to Abstract Classic, only with a few seemingly random differences. For example, the tabs are more rounded.

Vista Aero- This Firefox skin makes the browser look almost identical to Internet Explorer 7. If you’re new to Firefox or just like the IE7 look better, give this one a spin.

Blue Ice- An attractive theme with ice-blue buttons. I prefer themes with a bit more flare, but for those of you who like simple, clean themes, this one is perfect.

Firefox is known for its addons. They provide you the flexibility and customization, which makes foxfire a near-perfect browser (I know nothing is perfect). If you have not yet switched to Firefox, the preferred browser of millions, then .

But there are two sides of the coin. And foxfire addons are no exception.

If they make your life comfortable, they also make your browser window a cluttered space, with every new addition demanding its own space, leaving little for the actual web page.

How to get more desktop space

For this, follow these tips.

1. Hide all the unnecessary toolbars, which are not in use at present. You may not be willing to remove all the installed toolbars, but be honest, you certainly don’t need all of them simultaneously. Why not hide the unused one for now. If you need them later, you can unhide that. [e.g. your StubleUpon toolbar]
2. Customize the toolbars, and remove all the buttons, which you don’t use often. For customization, you can use View > Toolbars > Customization.
3. Merge the toolbars. This will save more space for you.
4. Use smaller icons for your buttons. This option in the form of a check box is available in the Customization window, which you got in step 2 above.
5. And finally, Use TinyMenu. This is a firefox extension, which rearranges the menu bar in a vertical drop down menu. The rest of the space in the menu bar can be used for merging other toolbars. TinyMenu is really useful. I love it.

How to take a screenshot

Taking Snapshots from the web pages is an activity, which I have to do often for my blog posts. And there are two applications, which I often use for it.

• ScreenGrab, the firefox extension for quick screenshots,
• SnagIt for detailed screenshots, where I have to tweak the image.

There is no doubt that SnagIt is probably the best screen shot software as on date. But it is not free and your have to purchase it. [Although recently there was a promotional scheme going on, where they were giving version 7 of SnagIt for free]

However recently, I have found yet another firefox extension, named as fireshot, which is much much better that ScreenGrab.

Fireshot, the firefox addon

Fireshot, is a firefox addon, which allows you to easily tweak the screen shot image.

…this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. It’s possible to choose whether entire web page or only visible part of this page should be captured. Screenshots can be saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.

[Click image to enlarge]

Definitely, worth giving a try.

Fire fox is the preferred browser of millions round the world.

And one of the reason of its vast popularity, specially amongst the high internet usage group, is its open source nature, which allows it to integrate the third party created software pieces in the forms of Fire fox addons.

These fire fox addons are generally tested by the Mozilla community and made available via a secured connection through Mozilla Add-ons site. But sometimes these addons are also provided by the third party directly. Some of these developers provide you the direct link, which install the installs firefox addon in your firefox browser, but sometimes the addon developer provide you a download link, which just downloads the addon to your PC without installing it. This downloaded file is in the form of an .xpi file (for firefox extension) and .jar file (for firefox themes).

How to install .xpi or .jar files

There are three methods.

1. Use File > Open and then browse the .xpi / .jar file.
2. Go to Tools menu > Addon, which will open the Addon window. Now drag the icon of the .xpi / .jar file in this window. This will start the installation procedure.
3. Create an install button in your Add-on manager window.

• Open a new tab.
• Enter about:config in the address
• Search for extensions.hideInstallButton and Double click it to change it to false
• This will make a Install button available to you in your Add-on window, which you can use to install any .xpi or .jar file.