The share of users still using these two out of date Windows versions is really small, the largest number I saw was maybe .4%? So, if this means that the Mozilla team is able to put out a bigger and better browser, then so be it.  Dotzler says, “Next Tuesday or Wednesday, after Firefox 12 moves to Aurora, the Mozilla Release Engineering team will begin upgrading our Windows build systems to Visual Studio 2010.”

In fact, Mozilla has supported Windows XP SP1 and Windows 2000 longer than Microsoft has. Internet Explorer 8 requires XP with SP2 or higher, and has no support for Windows 2000 at all.  So if you are still using Windows XP, make sure you are running the latest and greatest version if you want to still use Firefox.

TableTools2

Here is a little more information about TableTools2 from the developer:

Whether you’re a sports fan checking out stats of your favorite quarterbacks, a music fan viewing a listing of top selling albums, a gamer searching for top games, a shopper comparison shopping, a scientist analyzing data tables …, you’ll find TableTools2 tremendously helpful.

Some of the other features include the ability to compare data, combine tables, rearrange the things you are looking at, chart the data into pie chats, line charts, histograms and more. 

Want to give it a shot? You can download TableTools2 from the Firefox Add-ons website. It is definitely the best add-on out there if you need to work with tables and data.

How can you change your cookie settings in Firefox? To change your cookie settings:

1. At the top of the Firefox window, click on the Firefox button (Tools menu in Windows XP) and then click Options.
2. Select the Privacy panel.

If you click the check mark box under the “Tracking” section, you can tell websites that you do not want to be tracked. I have covered that in a previous article: How to Stop Website Tracking in Firefox

Under “History” you have the option to remember past websites you’ve visited, not to remember websites you’ve visited or a custom history setting.  When Firefox remembers your browsing history, it keeps track of form and search history, websites you’ve visited, downloads and cookies.

Last but not least, if you scroll down a little lower you will see the option to “Accept cookies from sites”. This allows you to control if specific websites can track you or not.  You can also accept cookies until:

• Keep until: they expire: Each cookie will be removed when it reaches its expiration date, which is set by the site that sent the cookie.
• Keep until: I close Firefox: The cookies that are stored on your computer will be removed when Firefox is closed.
• Keep until: ask me every time: Displays an alert every time a website tries to send a cookie, and asks you whether or not you want to store it.

When you are done with your cookie changing, always be sure to hit the “OK” button at the bottom of the options window to save your changes.  What type of cookie tracking changes do you like to make?

This extension isn’t just obviously named – it also works wonders too.  Once installed, you can right-click on any link and choose the option “Open Link in Private Browsing Mode”. Not sure if this would be useful? Here are a few examples from the extension developer of how this add-on might come in handy.

• You click around Amazon, and suddenly you see an item that you think would make a great gift for your partner, who uses the same computer.
• You encounter an ad for a really silly item that you really want to check out but are too embarrassed to admit.
• Your detour through the depths of Wikipedia gets so absurd that you’d rather not have those pages show up in your browsing history.

Want to give it a shot? You can pick up Open in Private Browsing Mode from the Firefox Add-ons website.

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Tabs, with this new theme, will seem to fade into the background a ‘bit more.  You get a much more glass-like interface – especially if you are a Windows Vista or Windows 7 user. This theme is the fourth most popular theme on the Firefox Add-ons website, so it must have something going for it.  However, there are a few too many odd graphical bugs that might keep me from using it all the time.  For example, the new tab button seems to overlay on top of the last tab.  Little things like that might not bug some – but they do bug me.

Want to give it a shot? You can download the Shine Bright Skin for Firefox from the Firefox Add-ons website.

Usually with these price comparison tools, if you want the lowest price – you have to order your product from some shady unknown realtor that you might or might not feel comfortable dealing with. As you can see in the picture here, the add-on does a great job at comparing some of the biggest and best online realtors to find you the best deal.

Here are a few more features worth mentioning:

• Instant Price Comparison: PriceBlink automatically lets you know if you’ve found the lowest price on a product or whether it can be found for less at another retailer. PriceBlink checks more than 4,000 merchants for lower prices.
• Shipping Charges: PriceBlink displays shipping costs along with price comparison results, the first add-on of its kind to do so.
• Coupons: PriceBlink also alerts you to money-saving coupons and free shipping codes for the site that you are on.

The only downside to this add-on I could find is that it is for US users only.  You can pick up PriceBlink from the Firefox add-ons website. If you have any other great shopping or coupon finding add-ons you’d like to share, please be sure to mention them in the comments.

I think Google Chrome, Internet Explorer and even Opera should all thank Mozilla and Firefox for continuing to push the bar for innovative browsing. It doesn’t matter who had what feature first.  The thing that does matter is that with all the most recent browser innovations, like the search box or tabbed browsing – Firefox made it cool and useful to do so.

What Mozilla needs to do is find out what the next best feature is going to be.  What can they do that the other browsers can’t?

One more important feature to Firefox’s success is the huge fan base that Mozilla has built. Don’t write Firefox out of the browser wars just yet. I have a feeling that Mozilla will see to it that they stay competitive out there. The browser competition is good for all of us because it means we will get better web browsing experiences – no mater which browser we use.

Here are some of her Personas she designed that I like the most:

Gray and Black

Fall Horizon

Autumns Light

Christmas Sky

Browse through more of MaDannas themes on her Personas page or check her out at her official blog. Also let me know if you would like to see me feature more Persona designers like this.  I’ll take your feedback and deliver what you need – just let me know in the comments.

Unfortunately, it’s enough to regularly clean your system of cookies to make App Tabs not work. On my work computer, I run CCleaner on daily basis and the App Tabs I set up don’t work. Therefore, I installed a wonderful App Tab Initializer addon, but still find it strange that such a great functionality cannot work on its own…

So with that said, I thought I would give App Tab Initializer a shot and I have to say, it does exactly as reported. If you automatically clear your browser history upon closing Firefox, this add-on will allow you to keep your favorite App Tabs up and running. App Tab Initializer lets you grab the list of open App Tabs from your current browser and store it. When you start Firefox it will open your preferred set of App Tabs.

You can pick up App Tab Initializer from the Firefox Add-ons website.