From Firefox to Chromifox - A Comprehsive Addon Guide
Written by Angelo on Friday, October 31st, 2008This is a post from Extendably’s regular author Angelo. Each week he will be reviewing individual Firefox extensions. You can see this post in it’s original context over at Xangelo
After using Chrome for nearly 3 months now, the verdict is in. Firefox is much more usable for me considering I use it for work purposes as well as casual browsing, however I love the visual enhancements and little additives that Chrome brings. In fact I liked them so much I did what any true Firefox fan would do… find an addon to do the same thing - the best thing about Firefox that no amount of GUI additions and screen real estate can ever replace.
The Skin
One thing that always struck me whenever I start up Chrome, was the fact that it looks good. The blue gradients, subtle blue tinge on buttons and the way the font was rendered all stick out to me.
Call it the web designer in me, but Chrome looks good while being so usable. There are so many programs out there that sacrifice functionality for visual appeal or vice versa but Chrome has this perfect blend.
Thankfully to falconer (from the addons community at Firefox) for releasing what has to be one of the best themes for replicating Chrome. Chromifox provides all the visual appeal of Chrome but seems to be designed in such a way so that it doesn’t take up as much room as I expected it to. One thing that I liked about Chrome was the fact that it provided so much real-estate by removing the title bar, but the Chromifox theme, with a few browser modifications definitely keep the screen real-estate almost exactly the same.
-Update 10/11/2008-
Development on Chromifox has been handed over to Triton (Jeff T) and is now version 2. I’d recommend downloading that instead of Chromifox 1. Compatibility has also been tested with 3.1b2 and it works great.
Single Menu Button
Chrome user’s will have noticed the similarities between Chrome and IE7 (and 8’s) single menu button interface. While it all it seems to do is add another click, for those of us who rarely access the menu, it really does not take anything away. This feature can easily be added by using the Tiny Menu add-on. This add-on simply mashes up all the menu links into one. Normally it shows up as a text link called “menu” but those of us who are looking for the ultimate Firefox to Chrome conversion can use this image, since Tiny Menu supports an image as well. However, just note that on hover, the image will disappear. Which isn’t a problem, since the reason you got the add-on was because you don’t really use the menu all that much to begin with.
Search Through Address Bar
While Chrome claims to automatically add new search engines to it’s address bar (I say claims because it doesn’t always work as advertised), this feature is also enabled in Firefox, and has been for a while now. The only difference is, you get to add the search websites that you want, and customize them by keywords. So if I want to search Google, and it’s not my default search engine, I can simply type [g search terms] and it will be off and search Google. To access this, all you have to do is navigate to a website that has a search bar. Right click the search bar and click on “Add a keyword for this search”. Now all you have to do is add a keyword (for example g for Google, or wiki for wikipedia) and give it a name. Now, whenever you want to search using that particular engine, it’s just a matter of heading to your address bar and typing in your keyword, followed by a space. Here’s an old video I made that I managed to scrounge up through youtube that walks you through this.
Now get rid of the search bar
Now that you can search through your address bar, you can get rid of your search bar. You can easily remove components from Firefox by right-clicking on the UI and then clicking on customize. Now you can easily drag and drop components from the browser window, into the window that pop’s up. You can also drag stuff from the little window to your browser window, and even reorganize elements that are in the browser. So to remove the search bar, you just have to click and drag it to the window. Presto.
Merge your toolbars
Since repositioning elements in your browser window is no longer an issue for you, you can easily eliminate all your toolbars. Firefox by default starts with 3 different toolbars. A menu toolbar, a navigation toolbar and a bookmarks toolbar. However, most of the elements that start out on your toolbar can be removed to make way for something that’s a little nicer and cleaner. You’ll probably need your back and forward buttons, unless you have keyboard shortcuts for those, but you don’t need them to be so big. Open up the customization window again and click on Tiny Icons. You’ll see a noticable increase in the screen real-estate. Now, you can drag the rest of your icons around so that they only occupy the menu toolbar. For me, the toolbar now looks like this, since almost every button is removed, and I don’t keep bookmarks on the toolbar.
Hide your status-bar
This add-on is covered more in depth in another article I wrote on Extendably, but I’ll do a quick run-through on how to set it up. Simply install the add-on from this page, and you’re almost done. It’s just a matter of configuring the status bar to stay permanently hidden. You can do this by clicking on Tools and then on Add-ons. Then it’s just a matter of selecting autoHideStatusBar and clicking on options. Check of always hide, and click on OK and you’re done. Now to add the status-bar functionailty to your address bar so that you can see where that link will take you.
The Address Bar
The address bar in Firefox will take a couple add-ons before you can get all of the functionality of Chrome within it. One thing Chrome does, is highlight the root url of a website. This helps draw your attention to it and serves as a very simple anti-phishing measure. By making sure the root of the website you are on is actually the right website you want to be on, it saves you potentially entering sensitive information into a website that is just trying to collect it. This can be added through an add-on called LocationBar2. You can feel free to play around with the options, but the default settings are enough to match Chrome.
Finally, since we removed our status-bar, we’re going to add some of that functionality to the address bar, so that our browser still shows us all the same information it did before, just in a smaller space. What we need to install is Fission. Simply install it and head to the options for Fission, make sure the 3rd option is selected (which adds the status bar rollover information to the address bar) and you’re all set. Now if you mouse over a link the address of the link will show up in your address bar, and if you click on it, a progress bar is underlayed on the text that appears in the address bar.
-Update 10/11/2008-
Move your tabs above the address bar
Optionally, if you want to emulate the look completely, install the add-on Stylish. Then head over to this page, and install the userstyle created by falconer. What it does, is move your tabs above the address bar. Note, this add-on does not work with Tab Mix Plus, or most other tab feature add-on’s.
And there you have it - a comprehensive guide for taking Firefox through some tweaks and add-ons till it mimics a lot of the Chrome functionality. If you feel like I missed anything, or want to mention a better way of doing something, feel free to leave a comment behind.
Tags: Chromifox, Extensions, Fission, Locationbar2, Tiny Menu
Posted in Chrome, Firefox
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