firefox

Unbelieveable – they did it again… Microsoft really seems to have massive problems when it comes down to “what users need” and “how to implement it”.

Latest example I just learned of – the .net click-once thingy bitty extension that is installed AUTOMATICALLY and WITHOUT any knowledge of the user for Firefox.

In a MSDN blog entry, MS explains how to remove it. I have not yet tried it – but the extension clearly sits there, also on my box. I disabled it for the time being…. and again, this was a “bye, bye, Microsoft!” nail in the coffin designed for Windows….

For a long time, I was encountering problems with Firefox on Windows. Especially on Ajax-sites, but also on various other sites, Firefox all of a sudden seemed to load and load and load forever – without even doing anything… The only possibility was then to shut down Firefox and kill the task in the Taskmanager.

After having read loads of stuff, I suspected that the problem was caused by a combination of my Virus scanner and my firewall.

The Virus scanner I use is AVG – as previously listed. I found a website that helped on uninstalling the problematic AVG linkscanner (it is listed as a problematic extension in Mozilla’s Knowledge Base), I did so.

Also, I got rid of the Ashampo firewall in use and switched to Comodo Firewall.

Now, after 1 or 2 months of surfing and browsing, I never encountered the problems any more – the only problem persisting is that Firefox sometimes does not end the task correctly, but this is only AFTER I exit the program – so I sometimes still need to end the task, but my browsing experience is unaffected. Phew…

The mplayerplug-in is not really working, I have to say… therefore, I installed this firefox extension (MediaPlayerConnectivity) – which will launch any videos in an external player (like mplayer)…. works flawlessly and with almost all video formats!

I fixed an annoying behaviour in Firefox: When I scrolled fast with the scroll wheel on my mouse, Firefox would go back and forth (depending on the scroll direction) in my browser history.
I found some resource that described the solution: I had to change the ZAxisMapping in xorg.conf. I did as suggested – the problem is now gone!

We have loads to fix and to tweak!
There is a problem accessing the SMB-shares (they are chmoded rwxr-xr-x), so I change the corresponding lines in /etc/fstab to have dmask=770,fmask=770 instead of umask=007
Now, Firefox. I emerge the mplayerplug-in; for this to work correctly, I add divx, wmp and realmedia to my use flags (note that I set them global).
Also, I set the tab close button the way I am used to – and the settings regarding tab-scrolling.
Also, the Firefox fonts are ugly – here’s how to fix them.
The next thing is to configure dispatch-conf (mainly change the diff command to colordiff, as explained).
Then, I configure ccache to speed up portage.
Some stuff for KDE:

• Make sure ARTS has gone correctly
• Make sure KDE can mount removable drives
• emerge amarok (can’t believe it was missing!)

Finally, I want my Logitech keyboard to work (all buttons).
Nice – another step towards a final, usable installation!