How to turn Pale Moon into a convenient browser

After reading an article about the rich functionality of the old Opera, I decided to talk about problems that I could (and could not) solve in the Firefox browser, or rather, its Pale Moon fork. I will touch not only on the issues raised in that article, but also on other issues that I have encountered.

A small background to the question:
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I used Opera from the sixth version. Norwegian developers began to make controversial decisions after about the ninth. Of course, compared to the current state of things, the 12th version is a design masterpiece. After the Opera, I switched to Firefox, catching it in the last successful version - 3.6. Since then, I have tried many browsers, including Chrome, but I never found the ideal among them. Recently, the changes in Fox’s interface and functionality have become so irreversible that I switched to Pale Moon. In fact, this is the same Fox, with the same extensions, only with the old interface and not broken functionality. Unfortunately, the browser cannot boast of stability and speed (at least for me).


What problems could be solved:


1. Sidebar

One of my favorite pieces of the old Opera is the multifunctional sidebar. In Fox, it is replaced by the All-in-One Sidebar extension . It has tree-like bookmarks, tree-like history (including grouping by site), downloads, extensions, page display (for example, about: config), as well as information about the page. For all this, a quick search with filtering is available.

One of the differences between the new Fox versions from Pale Moon is the download manager, which cannot work normally in the sidebar. In Pale Moon, this can be fixed with the Download Manager Tweak extension .

2. Highlighting part of the links

The Fox has the ability to select part of the link by holding Alt. To do this, disable saving by Alt + Click. We find browser.altClickSave parameter in about: config and switch it to false. To select part of the link you need to hold down the alt, select the text, first release the mouse button, and then the alt . This method works on regular links, but doesn’t work on, say, names on Twitter (it works like a click).
Bonus: To follow URI text as a link, use Text Link . Now you just have to double-click on the text with the address of the site, which is not a link.

3. Image Properties

Firefox has a View Image Info context menu item that shows the file format, pixel resolution, file path, signature, and weight. Weight is indicated only for cached images, which for some reason does not happen on some sites (for example, on Habré).

4. RSS

After closing Google Reader, I switched to Inoreader . Everything seems to be in place. By the way, they recently updated the design.

5. Switching tabs

For everything that is connected with tabs I use Tab Mix Plus . It allows you to switch tabs with the wheel, customize behavior, appearance, context menu and much more.
Also Tab Mix Plus allows you to switch tabs by ctrl + tab with showing thumbnails or just with a list. At the same time, they can be switched both in the order of use and in a row. You can switch with the mouse.

6. Go to the next page by space.

Another killer feature of the Opera is available with the Space Next extension . The bottom line is that the spacebar scrolls the page down like the PgDn button. If you reach the end of the page and press the spacebar again, the extension automatically goes to the next page (for example, from the first to the second on the main Habr).

7. Sites loading indicator.

Extension Extended Statusbaradds to the status bar Pale Moon indicators from the Opera, that is, information about downloading pictures, weight, speed, time and sending requests to the site.

8. Download indicator

In addition to the previous item, you can set the Download status , which will show information about the downloaded files in the same status bar. Compatible with both Extended Statusbar (takes place on the other hand), and with All-in-One Sidebar (a click opens a list of downloads in the sidebar).

9. Replacement Opera Wand

Wand is a tool that allows you to log in to the site with one click, if the login / password has been saved before. In Fox there is a Secure Login for this . Cons: does not always work.

10. Reading mode

In Fox, as in Opera, you can turn off all the design through View> Page Style. But the Opera had more settings, and it’s easier to read, as a rule, the site does not become, as the whole structure breaks down. If you need something against a layout curve and vyvryglazovogo design, I can recommend Clearly or any similar extension for easy reading. Clearly changes the style of any page to one of the selected. It is possible to create a custom style.

11. Address bar / search

Division into the address bar and search always seemed to me a violation of Occam's razor. Foobar does a good job of combining them into a single whole.(not to be confused with the player). In addition to the hints from the history / bookmarks, it shows the hints of the selected search engine. Appearance and behavior can be customized. But with the lack of a normal list of recent sites, as in Opera, I had to come to terms.
Bonus: I use Site Searcher to search the site .

12. A separate story for the context menu of the forward / back buttons

Use the NoUn Buttons extension .

13. Disabling Extension Compatibility Checks Disable Add-on Compatibility Checks

will help . This will not solve the problem of installing already inaccessible extensions, but will allow you to keep existing ones. The extension did not work in Fox.
As for the installation of incompatible extensions (gray button on the site). Attention! You do this at your own peril and risk. Right-click on the “Add to Firefox” gray button. Select View Page Source. In the window that appears, find the line like addons.mozilla.org/firefox/downloads/file/NUMBER/NAME .xpi Just paste the link into the address bar and press enter. Just keep in mind that installing the extension does not guarantee its operation.

What remained unresolved:


1. Grouping tabs

The coolest thing in the old Opera is grouping tabs by simply dragging and dropping. All operations with them took place directly in the tab bar. There are simply no analogues. For Fox there is an extension that creates a second row of tabs that works like groups. There is a toggle button . But this is not it. Well, non-usable built-in groups.

2. Turbo

Of course, now there are thousands of proxy services and extensions for them. But, firstly, Turbo squeezes traffic, and secondly, proxies from the authors of the browser cause more confidence, and it works stably and quickly. On Android, I use Opera for this reason. By the way, Opera Max recently released for Androidcompressing all traffic. Unfortunately, she doesn’t compress the official Twitter client (she didn’t check for some time, maybe she’s already compressing it).

3. Fit to width

Another function of Opera is to fit the page to the width. In my 12th version, by the way, it doesn’t work at all. I did not find a direct replacement, but I do not need it. As an option, you can use the zoom or readers.

4. Disabling images

For Fox there is an extension HideImages , which allows you to hide both all and individual images on the page. The downside is that it leaves a gray field in its place. Pictures appear after page refresh.
You can also hide images using the Adblock Plus add-on - Element Hiding Helper. It will automatically create a filter for the selected item. Minus: unlike the chromium version, choosing the right item can be difficult.
Again, you can use the reader.

This is not a complete list of usability problems that have to be solved, but I tried to dwell on the most basic and universal ones. Share your tips in the comments!
If you could not find the extensions with the functionality you need, I advise you to search among user scripts (at the time of writing the site was, here is a mirror ) or styles . For this we need Greasemonkey and Stylish , respectively .

PS Please note that I don’t particularly monitor changes in versions of Firefox and some of the above may work / not work / work wrong there. Information is checked on the latest stable version of Pale Moon (at the time of publication - 24.5). If you find an error, please report it in the comments.

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