There are two extensions for Firefox that, together, can emulate behavior similar to the visual tabs in Opera. The Tab Sidebar extension provides a sidebar in the browser that can act as a replacement to the main tab bar, complete with preview thumbnails that are always visible and in-tab navigation buttons. The Tab Preview extension provides previews of non-active tabs on the tab bar.

Tab Sidebar

First, we will install Tab Sidebar to get the visual tabs like Opera.

Install Tab Sidebar from

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6535/.

Once the Tab Sidebar is installed, select Sidebar | Tab Sidebar from the View menu to activate it.

NOTE: You can also press Ctrl + Shift + E to activate the Tab Sidebar.

Previews of all the open tabs display in the sidebar at the left side of the Firefox window. Moving your mouse over each preview displays a slightly bigger preview of the tab.

To view more tabs, use the wide arrow buttons at the bottom and the top of the sidebar to scroll down and up through the tab previews.

There are some options you can set to customize the Tab Sidebar. To access these options, select Add-ons from the Tools menu.

The Add-ons dialog box displays. Scroll through the list until you find Tab Sidebar and select it. Click the Options button.

The Tab Sidebar Options dialog box displays. If you want the tab bar to displays even when the sidebar displays, select the Hide the tab bar when the sidebar is open check box. Use the Display navigation buttons check box and the Display page previews check box to show or hide these features.

If you want the Tab Sidebar to emulate Opera’s visual tabs more closely, you can select Top from the drop-down list in the Position box.

Click OK when you are finished setting the options.

The visual tabs now display above the tab bar, and scroll buttons are available on the left and right sides of the tab previews.

Click the X button in the upper, right corner of the Add-ons dialog box to close it.

To close the Tab Sidebar and get the tab bar back, press Ctrl + Shift + E, select Sidebar | Tab Sidebar from the View menu, or click the X button on the Tab Sidebar header.

Tab Preview

Now, we will install the Tab Preview extension to get tab previews on the non-active tabs on the tab bar.

Download Tab Preview from

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6132/

You do not have to do anything to activate Tab Preview. Simply move your mouse over a non-active tab to see a preview of the current web page on that tab.

To access Options for Tab Preview, select Add-ons from the Tools menu as mentioned earlier in this post. Select the Tab Preview add-on and click the Options button.

The Tab Preview dialog box displays. Select an option in the Preview Size box to specify the size for the tab previews. If you want a delay before the preview displays, select the Before displaying preview, wait check box in the Preview Delay box and specify a time in milliseconds in the edit box.

If you want to display the web page in the currently-scrolled position on the preview, select the Have preview display the scrolled position radio button in the Preview Scrolled View box.

The combination of these two extensions is a good substitute for the visual tabs available in Opera and allow you to continue to use Firefox if that is your preferred browser.

by Lori Kaufman

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Make Firefox Tabs Act Like Visual Tabs in Opera

What about doing the same thing in Internet Explorer? We found an extension for Internet Explorer that allows you to copy the page title and URL of the current web page to the clipboard.

It is a Registry entry from Billsway.com that adds a Copy Title and URL command to the context menu when you right-click on a web page in Internet Explorer. It was written originally or Internet Explorer 4, but works in all subsequent versions. We tested it in Internet Explorer 7 and 8 and the procedures listed in this post work the same for both versions.

Download Title_URL.zip from

http://www.billsway.com/notes_public/IE_Context_Menu/.

Unzip the archive you downloaded. Move the file Title_URL.htm to the Web directory in your Windows installation directory.

NOTE: To find out the path to your Windows installation directory, open a command prompt in your version of Windows by either selecting Run from the Start menu (Windows XP and earlier) or by searching for Run on the Start menu (Windows 7/Vista) and enter the following command at the prompt:

echo %windir%

This prints the value of the environment variable that specifies the path to your Windows installation directory. Most of the time, it will be C:\Windows.

Note: The Web folder path is hard-coded for C:\Windows\Web in the .reg file. If Windows is installed in a different location in your system, open the Title_URL.reg file in Notepad and edit it to update the drive-letter accordingly. Make sure you leave the double slashes in the path name. Save the file and exit Notepad.

Then, right-click Title_URL.reg and choose Merge. This adds a context menu item Copy Title and URL in Internet Explorer.

A confirmation dialog box displays to make sure you really want to add the information in the .reg file to the registry. Click Yes.

A dialog box then displays saying the information has been successfully added to the registry. Click OK.

To copy the title and the URL of the current web page, simply right-click somewhere on the web page, that is not a link, and select Copy Title and URL from the popup menu.

A confirmation dialog box displays showing you what was copied to the clipboard. The title and URL of the web page are copied to the clipboard, in the following format:

Copying Text From a Webpage as an HTML Link in Firefox:

http://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/copying-text-from-a-webpage-as-an-html-link-in-firefox/

Click OK.

You can bypass the above confirmation dialog box by changing a variable in the Title_URL.htm file you copied to the Web directory in the Windows installation directory. Open the Title_URL.htm file in Notepad and change the following line

var showConfirm=1

to

var showConfirm=0

Save the file and exit Notepad.

If you are going to use this extension a lot, you may want to add it to the Internet Explorer toolbar, or Command Bar. To do this, right-click on the following link and select Save link as (in Firefox) or Save Target as (in Internet Explorer) to save the titleurl_button.reg file.

http://www.winhelponline.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/titleurl_button.reg

NOTE: When you save the titleurl_button.reg file, Windows may add a .txt extension to the file, because it is essentially a text file. Edit the filename and remove the .txt extension.

Merge the titleurl_button.reg file in the same way you merged the Title_URL.reg file earlier in this post.

NOTE: When you try to merge the titleurl_button.reg file, you may encounter a problem opening the file, and see the following Security Warning dialog box. We have scanned this file for viruses and then used it to install the toolbar button, and the file does not seem to be infected or corrupted in any way. Click Run to close it.

Or, you may see an error dialog box like the following. If you encounter this dialog box instead, click OK to close it.

To be able to merge the titleurl_button.reg file, right-click on the file and select Properties from the popup menu.

The Properties dialog box for the titleurl_button.reg file displays. Make sure the General tab is active. Click the Unblock button.

Click OK to close the Properties dialog box.

Once you are able to merge the titleurl_button.reg file, a confirmation dialog box displays, again, to make sure you really want to add the information in the .reg file to the registry. Click Yes.

A dialog box then displays, again, saying the information has been successfully added to the registry. Click OK.

If you do not see the Copy Title and URL button (with a globe icon) on the toolbar, restart Internet Explorer. If you still do not see the button after restarting and clicking the arrow button at the right end of the toolbar, if needed, you need to customize the toolbar in order to display the button.

To customize the toolbar, right-click on the toolbar, or the Command Bar, and select Customize Command Bar | Add or Remove Commands from the popup menu.

The Customize Toolbar dialog box displays. Select the Copy Title and URL item in the Available toolbar buttons list on the left and click the Add button.

The Copy Title and URL item is added the Current toolbar buttons list on right. If you want to put the Copy Title and URL button in a different location on the toolbar, highlight the item and click the Move Up button or Move Down button. To close the Customize Toolbar dialog box, click Close.

You still may not see the button because it is beyond the visible part of the toolbar and you must click the arrow button on the right side of the toolbar to access the button. You can widen the toolbar to display all the buttons.

To widen the toolbar, you must first unlock the toolbars. To do this, right-click on the toolbar, where there are no buttons, and select Lock the Toolbars from the popup menu to remove the check mark next to the option.

A vertical dotted line displays to the left of the toolbar. Put the mouse cursor over the vertical line and drag to the left.

The Copy Title and URL button is now visible. Lock the toolbars again by right-clicking to the left of the toolbar and selecting Lock the Toolbars so there is a check mark to the left of the option.

The Copy Title and URL option is also available on the Tools menu.

To uninstall this extension, you must manually delete the following registry key that was added.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Internet Explorer \ MenuExt \ Copy Title and &URL

To remove the button from the toolbar, just access the Customize Toolbar button as described earlier in this post, select the Copy Title and URL item in the Current toolbar buttons list on the right, and click Remove.

This extension does not copy the title and the URL in all the different formats like the CoLT add-on in Firefox we mentioned at the beginning of this post, but it is still a useful feature, if you have to use Internet Explorer as your browser.

by Lori Kaufman

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• How to copy the path to a file or folder
• Copying Links in Multiple Formats in Firefox
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Copy Title and URL Context Menu Extension for Internet Explorer

Gibson Research Corporation (GRC) – Perfect Passwords

The first method we recommend is to visit the Gibson Research Corporation (GRC) website. The owner of GRC, Steve Gibson, is an expert in privacy, security, and data recovery. He also does a very informative podcast about computer and internet security called Security Now! with TechTV’s Leo Laporte, https://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm.

To access GRC’s webpage for creating ultra secure passwords generated just for you, go to http://www.grc.com, move your mouse over Services on the menu bar and select Perfect Passwords. You will notice, by the “https,” that you are on a secure connection now.

The Perfect Passwords page displays. You will notice, by the “https” in the address bar, that you are on a secure connection now.

Every time the Perfect Password page is displayed, a unique set of custom, high quality, cryptographic-strength password strings is generated that you can copy all or part of and use for protecting your information. There are three different password generated containing different types of characters. Here’s what Steve Gibson says about the generation of the passwords:

What makes these perfect and safe? Every one is completely random (maximum entropy) without any pattern, and the cryptographically-strong pseudo random number generator we use guarantees that no similar strings will ever be produced again.

Also, because this page will only allow itself to be displayed over a snoop-proof and proxy-proof high-security SSL connection, and it is marked as having expired back in 1999, this page which was custom generated just now for you will not be cached or visible to anyone else.

Therefore, these password strings are just for you.

No one else can ever see them or get them. You may safely take these strings as they are, or use chunks from several to build your own if you prefer, or do whatever you want with them. Each set displayed are totally, uniquely yours — forever.”

If you click your web browser’s Refresh button, you will notice that you get a whole new set of unique, strong passwords. We recommend using GRC’s Perfect Passwords page for generating secure passwords. However, if you don’t have access to the web and you need to generate a password, the following section discusses a good offline password generator.

SoftFuse Password Generator Free

If you need to generate a strong password offline, SoftFuse Password Generator Free is an easy-to-use password generator.

Download SoftFuse Password Generator Free from

http://www.password-generator.com/free.html.

There are two versions of the program. You can download the program as an executable, installable file, or as a .zip file that does not require installation. The .zip file can be handy if you need to generate passwords often and in several different places. It can be put on a USB flash drive and run from there.

When you run the program the following dialog box displays. Specify the length of your password in the Length edit box. In the Character Set section, select the types of characters you want included in your password. Click Generate to create your password.

A password is generated and displayed in the Password box. To copy the password, click the Copy To Clipboard button to the right of the Password box.

For times when you are in a public place, you can choose to hide the password that displays in the Password box. To do so, select Hide Passwords from the Options menu.

When you generate a password with the Hide Passwords option on, it displays in the Password box as asterisks. You can still use the Copy To Clipboard button to copy it.

To change settings for SoftFuse Password Generator Free, click the Preferences button on the toolbar.

The Preferences dialog box displays with the General screen active. Choose a Language and specify how often to Check for Updates, Every day, Every week, or Every month. If you move the program’s window and want to preserve the position, select the Save Window’s Position on Exit check box.

The Passwords screen allows you to exclude characters that are similar, such as the letter “l” and the number “1.” It may be difficult to make out which character you chose when you created the password if you use characters that look too similar.

Use the Prefix and/or Suffix edit boxes to automatically add the same prefix and/or a suffix to each password you generate.

The Character Set screen allows you to specify what characters are included in the groups listed on the main SoftFuse Password Generator Free dialog box. These sets of characters can also be edited directly from the main dialog box, as we will discuss later in this post.

SoftFuse Password Generator Free allows you to generate passwords by mask using a flexible, easy-to-use mask syntax. This is a powerful feature for creating passwords of various semantic types for various purposes.

You can choose to use a predefined format, such as a password containing 10 lowercase letters or one with a dash and three digits. See the Generating by Mask topic in the help that comes with the software for the mask syntax and some examples of masks.

Enter your desired mask in the Mask edit box using the syntax listed in the help file.

The Privacy screen allows you to clear the clipboard when you exit SoftFuse Password Generator Free. This is an added level of protection, especially if you use a computer that other people also use.

Click OK to close the Preferences dialog box.

The gear buttons to the right of each of the character sets listed on the main dialog box, allow you to add to or delete from the corresponding character set. These gear buttons perform the same function as the Character Set screen on the Preferences dialog box mentioned earlier in this post.

The Edit Character Set dialog box displays, containing the current set of characters for that character set. Edit the set as desired and click OK.

You can save your password to a text file, if desired. To do so, click the Save button and use the resulting dialog box to select a location and specify a name for the file.

NOTE: Saving your password to a text file is very insecure as it is in plain text. If you need to store passwords, KeePass is a good option that is also portable, so you can keep it on a USB flash drive. We mentioned it on Online Tech Tips in the post, KeePass Password Safe Takes Trouble Out of Password Management.

You can download the latest version of KeePass at http://keepass.info/download.html. Steve Gibson, of GRC, and Leo Laporte, of TechTV, discussed a very secure option for storing passwords online, called LastPass, in their Security Now! podcast episode #256 on July 8, 2010. You can download the podcast in various formats, including a transcript in text and PDF formats, at http://www.grc.com/securitynow.htm.

You can also save your password into an HTML file using the Export option on the File menu. Again, this is not secure.

Strong, secure generated passwords are not easy to remember, and you will most likely need to store them somewhere. Look into LastPass, KeePass, or any other password storage software that uses strong encryption algorithms, such as AES and Twofish.

by Lori Kaufman

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Two Free Methods for Generating Strong, Secure Passwords

You may have disabled this message by unchecking the Show this warning next time check box so you wouldn’t have to click the I’ll be careful, I promise! button every time you want to change a setting. What if you want to turn the message back on? There is a setting in about:config that controls this message and allows you to easily re-enable the message.

To do this, enter about:config in the address bar and press Enter.

In the Filter edit box, enter general.warnOnAboutConfig. The results display automatically as you type the text. Double-click the text in the Value column to change it to true.

NOTE: When the value is false, you will notice that the setting displays in bold. When a setting displays in bold, it means that setting has been changed from its default value.

After changing the general.warnOnAboutConfig setting back to true, the warning message will display each time you access about:config.

by Lori Kaufman

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Bring Back the Firefox about:config Warning Message