If Firefox recommends ad blocking software ...

• December 24, 2008
• James Skemp

The other day I installed YSlow on my home machine. When I did so I noticed that they were recommending the major ad blocking add-on, but I didn't think too much of it. I was reading an article that questioned again (id est, old news) whether Chrome would strain the Google/Mozilla relationship. Since the ad blocking add-on blocks Google ads, I wonder if instead of Chrome, it's these recommended add-ons that are causing the strain.

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Current, major, browsers

• November 23, 2008
• James Skemp

Do users know that they're not using the current version of their browser? While many browsers will check for updated versions (Firefox, for example), some do not. Anywho, I've decided, looking at the numbers, that I would start adding a check on my sites to alert users if there browser is out of date, and tell them where they can get an updated version. Note that I refer to the desktop version of these browsers, and mention only the major browsers.

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Browser environments for testing

• November 20, 2008
• James Skemp

In a previous post I mentioned using virtual machines for testing. Here's the three virtual machines that I feel cover the most options for browser testing (on Windows):  Current versions Looking at the top 10 browsers for this site, using data from Google Analytics, we have; Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome, Mozilla, Opera, Playstation 3, Konqueror, SeaMonkey, and Camino. Of those, Internet Explorer and Firefox, obviously, account for the largest amount of traffic, at about 86% of all visits.

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Firebug: Don't enable for every site

• February 8, 2008
• James Skemp

After a deal of searching, I've finally discovered why my Firefox browser was crashing so often. So often, in fact, that I have Internet Explorer 7 a chance (and it showed how much of a fight it can now put up). The short story: don't enable Firebug for all sites. Gmail has recently been warning about this, stating that slow-downs are likely. One config setting, javascript.options.strict, when set to true, can also cause issues with Google AdSense.

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Gmail and Firefox 2.0.0.5 - issues with JavaScript?

• July 24, 2007
• James Skemp

Over the past couple of days I've noticed issues with the Inbox view of Gmail being extremely slow on Firefox (2.0.0.5, the current version). Disabling JavaScript makes the load much faster (naturally), but even switching to Internet Explorer (7) works (with JS on). With Firefox 2.0.0.5 already having a security issue, I wonder if updating was a good decision in this case. Perhaps 2.0.0.5 was released a bit too quickly?

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Installing Sun's Java Development Kit 5.0 Update 12 on Ubuntu 7.04

• June 11, 2007
• James Skemp

I don't have much desire to update from the repositories all the time, for whatever reason. Supposedly, if you run Eclipse from the download manager on Ubuntu, you can expect one slow experience. So ... time to start by installing Sun's Java.

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Initial thoughts on moving Firefox settings from Windows to Ubuntu

• May 30, 2007
• James Skemp

This past Friday, I installed Ubuntu 6.06, upgraded it to 6.10, upgraded it to 7.04. I didn't have too much time to actually use it this weekend, but I'm beginning to, attempting to move towards using it almost exclusively for day-to-day stuff.

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Browser support for different versions of JavaScript

• January 19, 2007
• James Skemp

After a number of Google searches, I've been unable to find a listing of what browsers support what versions of JavaScript. The few sites I did find were AnyBrowser.com and Mozilla.org. Unfortunately, the information they provide is pretty focused. In this article I'll be going over this information, and trying to dig up more.

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Three reasons Microsoft Firefox is a hoax

• November 14, 2006
• James Skemp

Three reasons Microsoft Firefox is a hoax, in order of when I spotted them. 1) "it's better now ... like seriously ..." 2) Site Ground banner in the bottom left corner. 3) Create a better video, eh? Microsoft doesn't need to reuse the same video they used elsewhere. 4) Free email address?  How 90s/early 00s ... The Register: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/11/14/ms_firefox/ Microsoft(R) Firefox | We've Made it Better

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Firefox 1.5.0.7 released today

• September 14, 2006
• James Skemp

Firefox 1.5.0.7 was released today.  Once again, I found out about this by seeing a site mention it, instead of my browser notifying me ... Ah well.  It's recommended that you download, so go do it!  Note that the partial download failed for me.  Firefox actually had to download a 6.1 MB file to update Firefox, instead of the under 600 KB file it initially downloaded.  While I was at it, I checked my Extensions for updates, which I also recommend you do as well.

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