There are 2 online tools I find myself using quite often and whose, in my opinion, should be in any utility belt of any web-designer and web-master.

WebPagetest, a site where it test the load time of your page and analyzes what loads, how long it loads, and even gives suggestion on how to improve it.

And of course the most important one: Browsershots. Ever wondered how your website looks in Opera 8? Or IE 6? Or any other dozen browsers out there? You don't have to install 10 browsers to find it out. This webservice takes care of it for you by taking screenshots in each browser and uploading said screenshots upon completion.

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1. Shorten your URL – A small collection of URL shortening services

Lately my video (HD) playbacks in YouTube seemed to be lagging a LOT! I wondered why. I thought it would be me and my years old OS or perhaps even somehow my pc.

But no it wasn't. The lag was caused by Firefox's session saving feature. A simple and fast change in it and "poof" went the lag.

• Open Firefox and type in "about:config" (without the ") in the Address Bar and hit Enter.
• Type in "session" in the "Filter" line at the top of the list.
• Find “browser.sessionstore.interval” and double click it. The 10000 milliseconds (equals 10 seconds) is the interval in which Firefox keeps saving your session in case of a crash; same amount of time between video lags.
• Change it to something different. 120000 equals 2 minutes, 300000 equals 5 minutes or something else you desire. I went with 600000 (10 minutes), because I don’t particularly care about session saving.

Related posts:

1. Using Firefox 3.x? Speed it up by vacuuming its SQLite database!
2. Firefox: “I see where you are!”, Me: “No, ya don’t!” [Turning off Geolocation Tracking in Firefox]
3. Force Firefox Add-ons to work with Firefox 3.6 betas!

Recently I stumbled onto some tips how to speed up ones Firefox. Firefox, since the version 3, uses a SQLite database for various tasks such as storing bookmarks, histories, site specific preferences and backups.

Over time it's get filled up with unnecessary and old info if you want, and there's a simple method to ditch those useless info and speed up your Firefox considerably, or like most of the guides say to "vacuum" it.

Use it once in a while, I've seen an improvement on my Firefox since I used it.

1. Go to "Tools" -> "Error Console"
2. Paste this in the "Code" text box:

   Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");

3. Press enter or click "evaluate"
4. Your Firefox will freeze for a short time, just wait
5. Enjoy your speed up Firefox!

Related posts:

1. How to fix the video lag in Firefox!
2. Make your Firefox load faster!
3. 5 easy-to-do tweaks to make your Firefox faster!

Firefox 3.5 is out already a few days! Get if folks! Ditch your Opera, IE, Chrome and Safari!

I thought I'd share my Add-Ons I pretty much use on daily basis.

Adblock Plus:
Ads, oh how I loathe them. This addons takes care of every ad I came across until today. I'm 100% ad-free! Of course websites who rely on their only income, ads, will suffer from this.

So remember, if you have a favorite site you frequently visit and it relies on ad revenue to keep alive, un-block and support it!

Fasterfox Lite:
Remember the 5 tweaks I posted way back then? Well this Add-On takes care of it automatically. Except this LITE version, which is the only one functioning for 3.5, doesn't have prefetching.

If you don't like to do these manual tweaks this is the Add-On for you.

Edit 25.09.2009: Fasterfox has been updated to run with 3.5 since August 26th 2009. Not the Lite, the normal one!

Flagfox:
Since I sometime need to know about the location of a website or its server, Flagfox gives me their IP, location and ask whois detailed information, if needed to be.

Gmail Notifier:
If you own a single GMail account this is small addon to notify you if you got new mails in the inbox. There's a GMail Manager for those with multiple accounts.

NoScript:
Perhaps the most important Add-On for Firefox. It is, assumed it's correctly configured, what makes Firefox and in turn your computer so resilient to scripts, Keyloggers and viruses.

I can pretty much click any link I come across without fear of somehow installing malicious software, keyloggers or viruses.

This Add-On is constantly being updated to keep up against scripts, keyloggers and viruses who try to circumvent NoScript. 3 cheers to open-source!

PDF Download:
I think the name explains it all. It allows you to choose between downloading a PDF file or opening it up

Skipscreen:
With 1-click-hosters such as Rapidshare, Netload, Megaupload, etc. becoming widely popular this Add-On is pretty much a must have if you want to skip all the unnecessary pages to go directly to download.

Saved me a lot of time, this diamond!

Related posts:

1. Using Firefox 3.x? Speed it up by vacuuming its SQLite database!
2. How to fix the video lag in Firefox!
3. 5 easy-to-do tweaks to make your Firefox faster!

It never cases to amaze me how revealing and careless people are going on about on the internet. I mean nowadays where Key loggers, Worms, Virus and whatnot are as standard as your daily breakfast.

My dad, again for the umpteenth time, got infected with yet another Worm, this time it was, how could it be different, the Conficker. Of course he keeps his computer up-to-date, his Anti-Virus not so much. And on top of that he uses Internet Explorer.

Don't get me wrong, I did like the Internet Explorer once upon a time when I was just another kid starting out on the internet. Since then I went from Internet Explorer to Netscape, did a migration to Opera and finally found my home in Mozilla, later Firefox.

USE FIREFOX! Even though you have to get used to a totally different UI if you are switching from IE or Opera, it's well worth it in the long run. And here are 2 reasons why:

1. NoScript
2. AdBlock

These 2 addons coupled with Avira-Antivir , and if you really are paranoid, you can trow in Sandboxie, and trust me you are 98% on the safe side.

Of course there always IS and always WILL be a risk of catching a Virus, Key logger, Trojan. There's no 100% guarantee!

So folks, remember, use Firefox, use NoScript, AdBlock, Avira-Antivir and Sandboxie, and you really never have to worry again.

When I play WoW, I often surf the official boards. Occasionally there's some idiot posting Key logger links. By now the fear and paranoia on these boards have risen to such levels where people simply refuse to check out any links they don't know. A good idea indeed, but flawed nevertheless. Almost every link posted there contains useful information. Very, very rarely is it a key logger. Yet the damage of a few have jump started the fears of thousands.

I for one don't have to worry. I click any link I want and never catch anything. My NoScript blocks any script, by standard, unless I specifically allow them to run. Sure I have to spend a little extra time figuring out what this script is and what it does, but it's well worth the trade-off I get in security.

My AdBlock blocks ads, period. No Ads, I don't see any Ads, EVER. Not so long ago, there was a Key logger being distributed simply by an Ad-banner. I don't have to worry about it. Of course it must be said that some awesome and useful sites are financed purely through advertisement. It hurts them if you block all their ads!

I really do believe with the 5 tools mentioned above you are on the safest side possible without compromising too much.

So long, Don Salva

Addendum:
I've been getting e-mails with folks saying a firewall software is missing. I apologize. Let me clarify: If you have a modern hardware router there's no need for a software firewall as there already is one integrated in good, modern routers (I'm not talking about ancient ones, like from 1980 or so).

A firewall software is only necessary if you are paranoid and have the need of a illusory "double security" or if you have no router and are connecting direct to the internet via your personal computer with nothing in between your pc and the internet.

Related posts:

1. Using Firefox 3.x? Speed it up by vacuuming its SQLite database!
2. How to fix the video lag in Firefox!

I was angry and frustrated that Firefox once again has slowed down the i-lost-count-this time! Seriously, it's such a great browser but so full of little problems which really can get annoying as hell!

So I went to google and found 5 easy-to-do tweak with remarkable results! Remarkable, because you truly can see the difference between a standard and a tweaked Firefox. One might wonder why such tweaks are not standard options..

Type “about:config” into the address bar and hit return. Look for the following entries:

1. "network.http.pipelining" and set value to true
2. "network.http.proxy.pipelining" and set value to true
3. "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" and set value to 30-40
4. "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set value to 0
5. "config.trim_on_minimize" and set value to true

If you don't have them, create them:

1. Right click -> new -> boolean -> type in "network.http.pipelining" -> set value to true
2. Right click -> new -> boolean -> type in "network.http.proxy.pipelining" -> set value to true
3. Right click -> new -> boolean -> type in "config.trim_on_minimize" -> set value to true
4. Right click -> new -> integer -> type in "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" -> set value to 30 (default is 1)
5. Right click -> new -> integer -> type in "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" -> set value to 0

Now the explanation as to what does what:

network.http.pipelining and network.http.proxy.pipelining:

It enables pipe-lining, which means the browser normally sends 1 request at a time, with pipeline enabled it will send the amount of request you set in "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests"!

network.http.pipelining.maxrequests:

Like I said Firefox usually sends 1 request at any time. By setting a different value than 1, you force Firefox to send more requests thus enabling it to load faster, because he gets more responses at any time.

config.trim_on_minimize:

Each time you minimize your Firefox it will clear the RAM. Firefox is infamous of wasting RAM for Pages you don't need so you can go "back" to them.

nglayout.initialpaint.delay:

If this value doesn't exist or isn't set Firefox waits 250 milliseconds, or 0.25 of a second then starts rendering the requested page(s). People report that setting it to 0, ergo forcing Firefox to begin rendering immediately causes almost all pages to show up faster.

Addendum:

If you are one of the lazy lot, and don't want to manually tweak your Firefox, here's a great Extension with virtually the same effect

Fasterfox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1269

Enjoy your new, faster Firefox!

Related posts:

1. Make your Firefox load faster!
2. How to fix the video lag in Firefox!
3. Using Firefox 3.x? Speed it up by vacuuming its SQLite database!