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4 unsolvable Firefox annoyances

July 21st, 2007

MozillaLinks.org wrote:

Firefox is not perfect. No, really it isn’t and the large collection of extensions and themes are testimony to this little fact.

But while usually extensions, themes and an assortment of different caliber hacks take care of any inconvenience, these four little devils listed here have survived over time and keep me searching around for a solution:

4. The menu items hot keys. I will start with the most trivial. To me, the main menu looks too busy with all the menu hoy keys permanently underlined. In Windows XP, even with the setting to show underlines only when the Alt key is pressed (which is enough to learn the hotkeys if you’re interested) Firefox doesn’t honor it. Below, Firefox’s main menu as it is and as I wish it was.

3. Enter the password for the Software Security Device. Software … Security … Device … I still remember the empty look I gave this gem the first time I encounter it. How about Enter your Firefox Master Password? Yes there are other security devices Firefox can handle but why risk people to brain damage when trying to figure out what a software security device is?

2. Entering the master password multiple times on startup. I love session restore. This nifty feature introduced with Firefox 2, automatically recovers tabs and windows in the case Firefox crashes and if you have set you home page that way. Unfortunately if more than one tab or window require the Master Password to access credentials for those particular web pages, they will ask for it individually instead of just once for all accesses.

1. Printing a selection. I print a lot. In some sites like Ars Technica which still believes it’s the 90s and doesn’t offer a printable version I have to manually select the relevant contents and print them. But guess what? Firefox thinks a selection is an accident and what you really want to print is the complete page, unless you explicitly check Selection in the Print range dialog.

Do you know how to solve any of these? I will more than happy to cross it over if it is the case. Please let me know.