Alternative Browsers for Linux

All I can say right now is wow. Having been a long time user of Firefox, it's been a while since I last used a different browser under Linux... well... because there really weren't any better alternatives for a long time.

However, since webkit-gtk has been stabilizing lately, I decided to check out a couple of alternative browsers that were mentioned in the Linux Browser Shootout - namely Midori and Epiphany. I already tried Chrome (Chromium) a while ago and was quite impressed. What I really liked about Chrome was a) that it was blazingly fast, and b) that it did a great job of importing my Firefox preferences and bookmarks. There are still a few other issues with Chrome though. For example, some Flash functionality does not work properly. I'm sure that will be sorted out eventually.

So anyway, on to the good stuff. Most people are familiar with Epiphany (formerly Galeon) when it used the Gecko rendering engine (from the Mozilla project). Epiphany is the official browser of the Gnome desktop, if I'm not mistaken. Back when it was based on Gecko, it was good but just seemed like a less featured version of Mozilla or Firefox. Ever since they changed the default rendering engine to WebKit, it has been blazingly fast. Epiphany still suffers from having too few preference settings for the 'advanced' user. Also, when in full screen mode (which I tend to use frequently while browsing on my EEE 701) there is an annoying button at the top-right that says 'Leave Fullscreen', and it doesn't go away (until you leave fullscreen), which becomes bothersome when trying to actually view / click something that is underneath the button. Epiphany accomplished its goal of providing a very simple and easy-to-use browser for the Gnome desktop, but it really lacks appeal for advanced users.

Next, I tried Midori - and was really impressed. Not only was it fast (using the webkit-gtk engine), but it also had a few more settings that Epiphany was missing. Furthermore, it didn't have an annoying 'Leave Fullscreen' button to get in the way of things. There are a couple of issues I've found with it still, such as random cursor placement in a text area after pressing End / Left / Right / Down, etc, but I'm sure those will get ironed out eventually too.

I'm actually writing this entry using Midori, and have to say that it's very responsive and feels extremely light-weight. There is practically zero load time when going through GMail or Slashdot. Considering the Midori project has had less time to reach maturity than either Firefox or Epiphany, and has had less manpower, I would have to give it the best review overall.

Now, I am a huge fan of Firefox - Mozilla and its contributions to the Linux community have been fantastic over the years - but I have to admit that the webkit-gtk engine will probably take the GNU/Linux Desktop Browser crown once mature whether that is in Chromium, Midori or (with little likelihood) Epiphany.

EEE and Firefox Full Screen

I found that this little hack for your ~/.mozilla/firefox/[profile]/chrome/userChrome.css file greatly improved the usability of Firefox on the EEE PC. It makes the bookmarks toolbar, as well as the menubar (File, Edit, etc) visible from full screen mode simply by moving the mouse up to the top of the screen. When the mouse is moved away, all toolbars are autohidden, giving you that great full screen browsing ability!

#navigator-toolbox:hover > #PersonalToolbar,
#navigator-toolbox:hover > #toolbar-menubar
{
visibility: visible !important;
}

Many thanks to sewpafly for the above chrome fragment!

There is one shortcoming of this that I've already noticed. Namely, when I move the mouse up to the top of the screen, and then above a tab to close it, all of the toolbars autohide before I can close the tab. Normally, this is no problem for closing a tab (Ctrl+w), but for closing other tabs, no shortcut key exists yet, so it's only possible to do by mouse :P

This reminds me of two shortcut key proposals that I had way back when:

1) Ctrl+Shift+w - close all other tabs
2) Ctrl+Shift+PgUp/PgDown - move tab right / left

Those are both 'borrowed' from the Gnome Terminal, but I think they apply quite well to Firefox too.

Sidereel Firefox Search Plugin

Following the really easy template at Digital Alchemy, I've written a small Firefox search plugin for Sidereel, a probably not so legal site where you can watch lots of cool movies and TV shows for free. Download the plugin (really just an xml file) by right-clicking here and selecting 'Save Target As...' or 'Save Link As...' and save it in your searchplugins folder.

The searchplugins folder can be found on Linux systems simply with

find ~/.mozilla/firefox -name 'searchplugins'
For example, running the above command on my Linux system gives:

/home/[username]/.mozilla/firefox/[userprofile]/searchplugins

For Mac users, it's probably something like

/Users/[username]/.mozilla/firefox/[userprofile]/searchplugins

I'm guessing that on windows its something like

C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\[userprofile]\searchplugins

Note (at least for linux): the searchplugins folder is not created automatically. You must either create it manually, or download an existing search plugin (e.g. Wikipedia).

You will need to restart Firefox for the plugin to be detected.

Firefox Keyboard Shortcut for CloseOtherTabs

Do you ever find yourself surfing the net with several tabs open and suddenly experiencing an overwhelming urge to un-clutter your browser?

I certainly do. The most frustrating part about it all is that one is forced to select some tab, right-click, and then select 'Close Other Tabs'.

The Default keyboard shortcuts in the en-US version of Firefox are somewhat backward in my opinion. Practically every window manager has its own 'Close Window' shortcut key. In Windows it's Alt+F4, like it is in Gnome.

So why does Firefox need to duplicate a function that the window manager most certainly has? Firefox has its own built-in 'Close Window' shortcut which is 'Ctrl+Shift+w'. This key combination would be much better suited for 'Close Other Tabs'.

I hope that they at least make a Preferences section in Firefox 3.0 so that people can customize the shortcut keys.