Browser Optimizing.

[felix]

I initially meant to make this thread Opera-only but I'll keep it general purpose just in case other browsers are in need.

Please keep clear separation between recommendations and what could be considered exotic functionality.
I would also ask that we try to avoid publicity on browser skins/themes. (!we all know how to use them)

The topic of the thread is: Give and discuss recommendation/guides on browser-tweaks to improve everyday browsing.
Comments on what practical use you have for X-less-known-feature (e.g. Opera Notes) are also welcome.

Opera Basic Install/After-Install Guide
Opera Version: from 9.22 to 9.60

Installing Opera
You have two choices...

• You can install the latest stable release at http://www.opera.com/
• Or you can get the latest weekly; only recommended if there's some cool new feature added.

From 9.30 onwards the shortcuts have changed. Select Tools » Preferences » Advanced » Shortcuts to set the compatibility with the old (better) shortctus.

After Installing Opera
Basic settings tweaks...

• F12 » Referrer Logging: Off
  
  
• Ctrl+Alt+T (Transfers) » View (top button bar) » "Never Show When Starting Download" or "Show Transfer in Background When Starting Download"
  
  
• Tools » Preferences » Advanced » Fonts » Minimum Font Size: 8
  
  
• Tools » Preferences » Advanced » Download » Hide File Types Opened With Opera: Off » search: torrent » Edit » Show Download Dialog
  
  
• Tools » Preferences » Advanced » History » Check Documents: Always and Check Images: Every 24hours (or Every Week is may be good for you too, depends)
  
  
  • Cache Setting
    
    The settings as they are be good enough, but...
    If you want Opera to have a low memory (RAM) footprint, set the Memory Catch to a small number (or OFF) and double/quadruple the disk cache.
    If you want a faster Opera and have plenty of RAM, set the Memory Cache to some high number.

OS Optimization
Operating system related tips...

Shortcut Key

If you don't like using shortcuts and docs are particularly annoying as well, you can try assigning opera to a function key. For example lets say you want to start opera with the F7 key. Go to Start » Programs and find the Opera shortcut (only works with shortcuts) now right click and select Properties. In the window that pops up you will see a Shortcut Key field. It should say None. Just click in the field and press the F7 key, hit Ok and your done. Now you can open Opera by pressing F7. Note that these will be overwriten by any program. If you are in some program and you want to open Opera quick just default to windows first before hiting F7 (or w/e key you chose). So for example you can hit something like WinKey+D (show desktop) and then press F7 (instead of WinKey+M you can also try WinKey+M which might be faster for you). With a little practice this is much faster then anything else.

Faster startup

Go the opera shortcut properties and in the target field add "/Prefetch:1" after the opera.exe location.
The field should look something like: "C:\Program Files\Opera\opera.exe" /Prefetch:1

ClearType

If your fonts look pixelated and you want them to look smother try RightClick on Desktop go to Properties and navigate to the Appearence tab, select Effect and where it says "Use the following method to smooth edges of screen font:" select ClearType. Give it a minute or two to get used to them and if you still don't like them just go back and switch to the default "Standard".

Automatic Ad-Blocking
Also blocks intelli-crap...

• Open My Computer (Win-Key + E)
• Copy/Paste/Enter in the addressbar: %appdata%\Opera\Opera\profile\styles\user
• Create a file "addblock.css"
• Open & copy/paste:

/*
Name: Ad-Blocking FiltersetP
*/

• Go to http://userstyles.org/styles/299 click the Show Code Button and Copy/Paste the code.
• Save the file and restart Opera.
• Go to View » Style » Ad-Blocking FilterP: Enable
• Say: "Goodbye 99% of intrusive crap."

Inline Spell-Checker
Similar to adv. word processors...

• Open My Computer (Win-Key + E)
• Create a "Opera UserJs" folder somewhere convenient...
• Go: Tools » Preference » Advanced » Content » Javascript: ON » Javascript Options » (disable the first 4 -particularly annoying- options) » User Javascript Files » Browse to: "Opera UserJs"
• Go to http://opera.gt500.org/ospell/ and download the OSpell file to your "Opera UserJs" folder.
• Give yourself a pad on the back, you've set up spell-checking.

Opera Very Useful Tool Shortcuts
Opera Features that work for you...

Auto-Form Completion

• Go to: Tools » Preferences » Wand
• I recommend setting only the basic. ( First/Last Name, Email and Homepage. )

Wand Password Manager

If you don't want it, disable it by going to Tools » Wand » Let Wand Remember Passwords: OFF ; This will prevent the annoying save/don't save/never dialog.

When you type a id and password you will get something like Save, Don't Save, Never Ask Again dialog. If you choose Save, the next time you come back you'll see the fields in yellow, you can hit Ctrl+Enter to log in. I should tell you that you can have multiple id's and passwords for the same field; when this happens hitting Ctrl + Enter brings forth the list of id/pass choices.

I find it particularly useful for remembering ids and passwords for sites you don't visit very often.

Speed Dial

• HowTo: Click the empty box » Type in your fav site » hit enter
• A preview appears you can now click that preview to go to the site.
• Speed Dial appears and is most useful when you create a new empty tab. (Ctrl + T)

Bookmark Nickname

I'm not a bookmark person, mainly because I have something like 5000+ only in Firefox, which is the browser I'm not browsing with My way is to extensively use the History, but a small problem comes up...

AS an example, how many forums use the address forums.BlahBlahBlah.com. Well I'll tell you: A DAMN Too Many!!

So this means I have to type way too may characters ("forums.ab..." et cetera) But there's an alternative:

• Bookmark the troublesome sites.
• Bookmarks » Manage Bookmarks » (select one) » Right-Click » Properties » (give it a nickname)
• Do the same for the others; make sure their as different as possible.
• Now to open bookmarks based on they nickname, hit Shift + F2 and start typeing.
• You do not need to press Enter, Opera will auto-open when it can find only on match, so at most you will be typing two or three letters.

KeyStroke Search Engine

Whenever you use a search field create a search keyword for it! "If it's worth doing once it's worth making something to do it." Here's how:

• Right Click the search field
• Select "Create Search"
• Assign a keyword. I recommend using keywords that are 2-3 to 4 characters long. ( ani, an, wiki et cetera ) Avoid using 1-character keywords, they are ambiguous and hence hard to remember.

Later when you wish to use it again you can type in your address field (try using F2) like this: wiki search-words

Opera Very Useful Key Shortcuts

• BASIC: Ctrl+T (new tab) 1/2 or Ctrl+Tab (cycle tabs) Ctrl+F8 (show/hide address bar) * (100% zoom) - (zoom out) + (zoom in)
  
  
• Ctrl+(click image) » Saves Image
• Ctrl+Shift+(click link) » Open in background
• F2 » pop-up address bar
• . » quick search in page (!Not what you get with Ctrl+F)
• F11 » Full Screen Mode
  
  
• Ctrl+W » Close Tab/Exit Opera
• Ctrl+Alt+W » Close All Tabs
• Ctrl+Shift+Alt+W » Close All Tabs But Active. But there's a better way...
  ( Right Click » Lock Tab ) on the tabs you don't want to close, then use Ctrl+Alt+W.
  (locked tabs can not be closed until you unlock them)

Hardcoded settings
The dirty/complete way...

Some settings you might not find in the Preferences. For a complete list of all of Opera's variables type in the adress bar opera:config. Tick the little checkbox at the top that says "Show All". Now you should see all of Opera's variables and settings and tweak Opera to your hearts content. For example enabling opera:config#UserPrefs|ScrollIsPan will make clicking and holding on any page a Acrobat Reader style page draging rather then mass selection.

See also: Opera Site-Specific Settings

[TakutoKun]

Very good instructions! I'll give you an "A+" for endowing us with your knowledge. I should try out Opera again someday. I stopped using it several years ago.

[arcadeplayer987]

Nice, those are very useful

[Urotsukidoji]

Set the encoding to UTF-8 Unicode rather than Western European (Windows). The reason? UTF-8 supports kanji and kana, Western European does not... perfect for browsing Japanese anime sites. (This will require a refresh of the page.)

If you don't have Tabbed Browsing enabled already (only in the latest version of Internet Explorer) go to Tools -> Internet Options -> Tabs and click "enable Tabbed Browsing." Tabs are infinitely useful, allowing you to have a bunch of sites open at once without them cluttering up the taskbar.

Putting more memory into Temporary Internet Files (Tools -> Internet Options -> Browsing History (Settings tab) -> Disk space to use) can help copies of webpages stored on your computer load faster. Internet Explorer recommends 50-250 MB, but I personally use a full GB (1024 MB) on a very high-end PC.

I personally use the Google toolbar, since it includes a search engine, Google bookmarks, a (very efficient) built-in pop-up blocker, and a fully-featured English spell-checker. To install it, visit Google's toolbar site.

[felix]

Opera Site-Specific Settings
Opera 9.22 & 9.23

!Warning -- Bad userJs can crash or slow down Opera. Be very careful when using someone else's script.

In Opera you can add site specific Css and site specific Js. I highly recommend that you avoid using these two features for any purpose other then minor tweaks. While it may seem a very cool idea to change the entire style of the site, it is in fact a very very bad and impractical one. By all means if you are bored and want to experiment, nobody's stopping you.

My personal advise: restrict it to only the simple things that take 2-3 lines to do.

Adding your personal Css
From here on I'll be using forum.animesuki.com as an example site.

The Global Settings for this are located under View » Style » Manage Modes.
I advise you do not touch these settings.

To set up a site specific Css or Js, what you should not do is Right Click (while in the site) » "Edit site preferences". From my experience this method is unpredictable at best and totally buged at worst.

The safe way to do it is go to: Tools » Preferences » Advanced » Content » Manage Site Preferences.

Let's do a simple example. Somewhere on your computer set up a folder Opera SS Css. Create a file forumsAnimeSuki.css (or whatever other name you want) And copy this little example code:

	a[href="index.php?"] img {
		display: block !important;
	} /* Fix Banner Ad-Blocking Problem */
	
	.bigusername {
		font-size: 13pt !important; 
	} /* Fix Layout Problem */

	img[alt~="Avatar"] {
		padding: 3px;
		background-color: transparent;
		border: 1px solid black;
	} /* Add border to avatars */
	
	body > table, .page {
		max-width: 900px; 
	} /* Limit Content to 900px */

/*	=====================================
	Quick Reply Editor
*/
	
	#vB_Editor_QR {
		width: 850px;
	}

	#vB_Editor_QR textarea {
		width: 100% !important;
		height: 280px !important;
	}

/*	=====================================
	Current Series Discussion Column Format
*/

	#f51 strong {
		clear: right;
	}
	
	#f51 span {
		float: left;
		width: 210px;
		visibility: visible !important;
	}
	
	#f51 > div.smallfont + div {
		visibility: hidden;
	}
	
/*	=====================================
	Hide Old Series Sub-forums
*/

	#f34 > div  + div  + div {
		display: none;
	}
	
/*	=====================================
	Display Piramid
*/

	#collapseobj_forumbit_5 > tr + tr {		
		display: none;
	} /* Hide "Licensed" & "Unaired" Forum */
	
		tbody#collapseobj_forumbit_5 > tr + tr + tr + tr {		
			display: table-row;
		}

	#collapseobj_forumbit_1 > tr + tr {
		display: none;
	} /* Hide all but "Fansub Groups", "Fan Creation" & "General Anime" */ 
	
		#collapseobj_forumbit_1 > tr + tr + tr + tr + tr {
			display: table-row;
		}
		
		#collapseobj_forumbit_1 > tr + tr + tr + tr + tr + tr {
			display: none;
		}
		
		#collapseobj_forumbit_1 > tr + tr + tr + tr + tr + tr + tr {
			display: table-row;
		}
	
	#collapseobj_forumbit_3 > tr + tr {
		display: none;
	} /* Hide all but "Download Help" & "Tech Support" */
	
		#collapseobj_forumbit_3 > tr + tr + tr {
			display: table-row;
		}
		
		#collapseobj_forumbit_3 > tr + tr + tr + tr {
			display: none;
		}
	
	#collapseobj_forumbit_4 > tr + tr {
		display: none;
	} /* Hide Site Feedback */

If you just want to follow along reading (by all means I'm not recommending this as the most useful or a essential Opera feature ) here's what the Css-Snips above do:

• Fixes a problem that occurs in Animesuki styles displaying banners, where the said banners are being blocked (hidden) by Ad Blocking FiltersetP (see: Guide I)
• Fixes a problem where user names with underscores would push the user info column out of bounds.
• Adds a border (outline contour) to all avatars.
• Limits the width of the forum to 900px. This is meant to achieve a more minimalistic look but also brings the post boxes (taking into account the info column) closer to what is considered the best line width, which is in (classical) typography would be around 45 - 70 characters.
• The quick reply box is slightly tweaked so it's taller and fills as much of the available space as possible.
• Subforums of the Current Series forum will display in a table-like two row format instead of a list.
• Based on a "imaginary" browsing habit, I removed a lot of forums from the main index view. They're still accessible, you just have to click on the parent forum or section header to get the underlining Vb structure where they are. This is to keep with the minimalistic theme I mentioned earlier. Here's how the result looks like:
  
  

Back to the guidelines...
After you created your .css file, go to Tools » Preferences » Advanced » Content » Manage Site Preferences.

To add your style, first create a rule for the domain by clicking Add and typing in your desired domain name in the Site field. (example: forums.animesuki.com)

Still in the Add box go to the Display tab and in the My Stylesheet input browse for the file you created earlier.

Click Ok. Now opera will act a little stupid and won't show you the entry you just added, but it's there! If you really want to see it, close Edit Site Preferences then open it back, you should see it then.

One thing to note, you can go ahead an edit your .css file and it will apply without going through the steps above all over again. But because it is cached (most likely in memory) you'll have to restart Opera to see the effects.

Well that's that, you've successfully added a style to the forum. This style will only be loaded, by Opera, for (in the case of our example) forums.animesuki.com.

Adding your personal Js

To make javascript load only a specific site (let's say forums.animesuki.com) Opera has a simple conditional comment syntax.

It is pretty much self descriptive. Here's an example:

// ==UserScript==
// @include http://forums.animesuki.com/*
// ==/UserScript==

document.addEventListener('load',function(){
  
	alert("Script Test Complete.\n\nTo remove this pop-up just remove or delete the script from your UserJs folder.");
  
},false)

Do not keep Js scripts that don't do anything in your UserJs folder. They won't make some noticeable drop in performance but it's just stupid. You move them to some other folder, alter their extension or just delete them; any one of the three just mentioned will work fine.

Opera will not run UserJs on sites using the https protocol. This can be enabled... but I recommend you leave it disabled.

[arcadeplayer987]

Are there any optimization for firefox??

[SeijiSensei]

I routinely install these extensions to Firefox from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1

Adblock Plus (I subscribe to EasyList, then add things I want to block over time.)
Image Zoom (really helpful at times)
Forecastfox Enhanced (weather forecasts)
ReloadEvery (great for monitoring pages like www.animesuki.com or my User CP)
Firebug (tool for web developers; thanks to Cats for pointing out this one to me)
DownThemAll (download multiple items from a page in one task)

I'm not sufficiently paranoid to install NoScript, but I know others here use it.

[arcadeplayer987]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I routinely install these extensions to Firefox from
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:1

Adblock Plus (I subscribe to EasyList, then add things I want to block over time.)
Image Zoom (really helpful at times)
Forecastfox Enhanced (weather forecasts)
ReloadEvery (great for monitoring pages like www.animesuki.com or my User CP)
Firebug (tool for web developers; thanks to Cats for pointing out this one to me)
DownThemAll (download multiple items from a page in one task)

I'm not sufficiently paranoid to install NoScript, but I know others here use it.

Thanks, those are useful

[Dkong1026]

All in all, all of these are more or less just interface tweaks. There is little to no "fluff" extensions or tweaks. I feel that any firefox user can benefit from these tweaks.

Basic tips:
1. Go to https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/ to get some bookmarklets. They let you do interesting things like zoom images in and out. That site has a very good list of bookmarklets...though you'll need to do some googling to find other good ones.

2. tools > options > main
"When firefox starts"..... My suggestion is "load windows and tabs from last time". That way when you close your browser, the next time you open it up it'll display all the crap you had open before.

3. A helpful download manager tweak is tools > options > main...and then check "show downloads window when downloading a file", but also check off "close it when downloads are finished"




Slimming down toolbars:
1. First download Personal Menu.
It's a really handy extension that lets you slim down all the menus like file, edit, etc, into one menu. You can also choose to have it not collapse menus that you use all the time, such as history.

2. Go to View > Toolbars > Customize.

3. Move crap like stop, reload, the address bar, the search bar, and just about everything on the navigation bar onto the top bar (aka menu bar).

4. Turn off the navigation bar.

If you installed personal menu, you should have more than enough room on the menu bar for your address and search bar, along with buttons like stop and reload.


Recommended Add ons:
1. Adblock Plus - Very good and effective way to block ads.

2. Faviconize Tab- This lets you make tabs only as wide as the icons. Very useful if you have a bunch of tabs open that you can identify with their icon alone. Obviously useless on sites without icons, but not many sites have no icons anymore.

3. Fission - This lets you see the progress bar and mouseover link in the address bar, so you can basically get rid of the statusbar with this add on.

4. All in one Gestures - Useful mouse gestures. Very customizable.

5. Personal Menu - I already mentioned how this is useful .


About:config tweaks:
Open a new tab and type in "about:config". This opens up a ton of in depth configuration options.
My favorites are...

browser.download.manager.openDelay (copy and paste that into the "filter" bar). If you set this to something like 5000, Firefox will wait 5 seconds before opening up the download manager. Helpful for downloading pictures that take 2 seconds to download, since you don't need to see the manager for that.

browser.tabs.closeButtons
The default is 1, which shows the red x's on each tab. If you change it to 3 it takes the red x off each tab. Personally I like getting rid of the x's because middle clicking a tab closes it.

browser.tabs.tabMinWidth
The default here is 100. Change it to a lower number such as 70 or 80 so you can fit more tabs on the bar before it begins to scroll.

browser.urlbar.hideGoButton
You can toggle the go button on and off with this option.

This page also has a good list of about:config tweaks: http://cybernetnews.com/2006/11/01/c...efox-2-tweaks/



Chrome "Hacks":
Overall, this site explains how to set up the userChrome.css file better than I can...http://www.supernova00.biz/userchrome.html
My favorites:
/* Remove Back button when there's nothing to go Back to */
#back-button[disabled="true"] { display: none; }

/* Remove Forward button when there's nothing to go Forward to */
#forward-button[disabled="true"] { display: none; }

/* Remove Stop button when there's nothing to Stop */
#stop-button[disabled="true"] { display: none; }

/*Remove magnifying glass button from search box*/
.search-go-button-stack { display: none !important; }

Also, if you didn't notice, the site I posted above also contains a bunch of other useful chrome hacks.


So there you have it. Hope that was helpful!
Also, there's a lot more to explore past all of this, such as executing bookmarklets with mouse gestures, but if I added all of that in this guide, it would be a lot longer than it already is!

[Furuno]

I have some tips for Opera user...

Auto-reloading mechanism

What :
This feature enable you to reload a page for every specified time (ex. every 1min, 5min, 10min).
Why :
Very useful to avoid being automatically logged out due to cookie/session expire (ex. you'll be automatically logged out from AS forum if you idle for some period, don't know the exact time but i guess it's over 10min, probably every 20min...).
How :
Just right click and you'll see the Reload Every choice...

Semi Mouse Gestures

What :
If you're using Opera, you should know the mouse gestures features, this is something i found quite interesting.
Why :
It's handy...
How :
» Back :
Hold right mouse button and press left mouse button and release them.
» Forward :
Hold the left mouse button and press right mouse button and release them.

[felix]

Opera Tip:

When you want to use the back/forward button press and hold on it. A list of your previously visited pages will pop up.

The fast forward/backward button is a little tricky, but supposedly Opera would look in the page for sings to the next page. Keywords like next for example, or if your going back, keywords like index.php et cetera.

(it depends on the site's navigation system so it can be unreliable)

[Dkong1026]

Actually, that reminds me...regarding bringing up a list of sites to go back to, an easier way is just right click the bar with the back and forward buttons, right click, go to customize, then go to buttons, then go to Browser, then find the back and forward buttons with the arrows on them...and voila, now you have an arrow to click to open up a list of sites to go back to.

[KiNA]

Originally Posted by Cats

Automatic Ad-Blocking
Also blocks intelli-crap...

• Open My Computer (Win-Key + E)
• Copy/Paste/Enter in the addressbar: %appdata%\Opera\Opera\profile\styles\user
• Create a file "addblock.css"
• Open & copy/paste:

/*
 Name: Ad-Blocking FiltersetP
 */

• Go to http://userstyles.org/styles/299 click the Show Code Button and Copy/Paste the code.
• Save the file and restart Opera.
• Go to View » Style » Ad-Blocking FilterP: Enable
• Say: "Goodbye 99% of intrusive crap."

I'm too lazy to check, but can someone tell me why this little thing started to block this forum's banners at the top of the page?

.wysiwyg { background-attachment: scroll; background-repeat: repeat; background-position: 0% 0%; background-color: #f5f5ff; background-image: none; color: #000000; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Arial; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: 400; font-size: 10pt; line-height: normal; margin-top: 5px; margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-left: 10px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px } .wysiwyg a:link, .wysiwyg_alink { color: #22229c } .wysiwyg a:visited, .wysiwyg_avisited { color: #22229c } .wysiwyg a:hover, .wysiwyg a:active, .wysiwyg_ahover { color: #ff4400 } p { margin: 0px; } .inlineimg { vertical-align: middle; }

[felix]

Because they called it a banner. Sounds like something used in a ad.
It's easily fixed. I'll post later the solution... a lil busy right now >_>

[KiNA]

Ahaha.. funny looking post I have above too... Never mask as FF ever again

[felix]

To get started. Open a new firefox tab and type in about:config.

1. Filter: network.http
   then go and change...
   
   
   • network.http.pipelining set it to true
   • network.http.pipelining.maxrequests make it 8
   • network.http.proxy.pipelining set it to true
   • network.http.max-connections set it to 96
   • network.http.max-connections-per-server set it to 32
   
   Firefox should load things faster now.
   
   
2. Filter: browser.cache.disk
   then go and change...
   
   
   • browser.cache.disk.enable set it to true (should be already)
   • browser.cache.disk.capacity set it to a larger value. Default is 50000 (kb).
   
   Larger Cache = less loading time.
   
   
3. netwok.prefetch-next set it to false
   
   Firefox will no longer prefetch links.

Flash content can will definetly slow down pages. Solution: flashblock.mozdev.org
You will still be able to enable flash when you need it.

-----------------
I'll add more stuff later. (also updated the Opera version)

[Shin Muhammad]

Hmm, did it worked with FF 3.0.3 and Opera 9.6?

[felix]

Yes, that's why I updated the Opera guide actually. What are you having problems with?

[Generic Asian Guy]

Tweaking Firefox v3.0:

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/r201...d-Fx-v3-Series

[Shadow Kira01]

I always use Opera as the main web browser. Not that its better, but it loads webpages much faster in comparison with Firefox and Internet Explorer, but the compromising point would be the content itself. Online games don't work properly and the browser sometimes freezes due to flash content, but still... The webpage loading speed is magnificent!