It’s time! Right now, go download Firefox 3 and help set a new world record.

Sounds like a good deal, right? All you have to do is get Firefox 3 during Download Day, [today], to help set the record for most software downloads in 24 hours—it’s that easy. We’re not asking you to swallow a sword or to balance 30 spoons on your face, although that would be kind of awesome.

Aside from knowing you helped set a new world record, there’s a plethora of new features that will make you HAPPY you decided to upgrade your browser. Below is a summary of the new and improved features you’ll see in Firefox 3.

• More Secure
• Easier to Use
• More Personal
• Improved Platform for Developers
• Improved Performance

Here’s a useful tip for Firefox users. Typing in dict followed by a word you want to lookup in the address bar will send you to the definition page for that word.

For people that love keyboard shortcuts:

Alt-d (focuses cursor on the address bar)

type: “dict + word”

Takes you to dictionary.com with the definition you wanted.

Wouldn’t it be great if you could setup custom quick searches on other sites? Well you can; here’s how! Find a search box on the site you’d like to add a quick search for, (currently it’s on the top right side of the main page sidebar at this site), right click on the search bar, and click on “Add a Keyword for this Search” you should see something like this:

Then, enter a title for the search and a keyword you’ll use to execute it, like this:

Once you click the ok button (it might say “Add” in other OS versions), your quick search is setup and ready to search jeffmilner.com. Now, as an example type jm backmasking into your firefox address bar and Firefox will bring you to the search results for backmasking related posts on this site.

(via).

Just in time for the holidays, Google releases the Google Browser Sync. No longer will the masses be forced to manually manage bookmarks between home, work, and laptop.

Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings—including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords—across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.

I just installed AllPeers, a new Firefox extension that allows you to privately share files with your friends and family right in your Firefox browser. I haven’t had too much time to test it out, but so far things look good. This could easily become my primary source for sharing files over the Internet. Now I just need to get a few more of my friends on board.

Allpeers is a revolutionary Firefox extension that makes it possible to share pictures, music and video’s within Firefox. The files are distributed using bittorrent. Allpeers is not yet squeezing everything out of bittorrent, but Matthew Gertner from Allpeers told torrentfreak that this will definitely change in the near future.

See the Torrentfreak interview with Matthew Gertner.

My favourite and most often used extension for Firefox is easily Spellbound, the embedded spell checker that allows you to check the spelling of any text form on the web. After the Mozilla foundation released Firefox version 1.5 and up the SpellBound extension and the corresponding dictionaries both reported incompatibility with the newer version. If you’ve tried installing it lately, you might have seen a message under Spellbound in your extension page something like, “Disabled - not compatible with Firefox 1.5.0.2″.

I came across a link to a page that gives a step-by-step solution to the problem: Stefan’s Stuff: Simpler Spellbound Fix. The process breaks down to manually editing the extension and increasing the “maximum” version number that is supported.

To save you the trouble of manually editing the files, here are links to the edited Spellbound .xpi files that can be installed directly into Firefox 1.5.0.2 for Windows and as well I’ve tossed in a copy of the Canadian dictionary file.

• spellbound_0.7.3_1.5.0.2.xpi (the updated spellbound extension)
• spellbound_lib_win32_1.0+_1.5.0.2.xpi (the updated library xpi)
• spell-en-CA.xpi (the Canadian dictionary xpi)

For those of you not wanting to spell check with the Canadian word list, you can find other dictionaries at the Mozilla dictionary installation page.

I’ve set up the MEME type to recognize .xpi files as application/x-xpinstall following the Extension Packaging instructions at MDC, but you’ll need to add jeffmilner.com as a trusted install site.

Thanks to Brian Cantoni for his helpful post on the same topic.

Measuremap.com is the best stats tracking system ever! Internet legend Matt Haughey describes it as pure crack in web form; I couldn’t agree more.

When I first heard about Measure Map, they had limited space available for users to try out their service. I thought it worth-while so I asked them to send me an invitation when space became available. I sort of neglected to actually open an account when my invitation came, but just the other day I heard that Google had bought them out and thought, “Hmmm, maybe there is something to this Measure Map stats thing afterall.”

I’ve become quite the stats junky since then and I love the fix I get when I see all the detailed breakdowns that measure map offers. It shows all the traffic on every post for everyday and even archives each posts individual traffic—meanwhile all the while doing it with simple animated AJAX finesse. As far as traffic monitoring stats go—measure map really is amazing.

What bugs me though, is that while purusing my stats I discovered that 74% of you (that’s right almost 3/4 of the visitors here) are browsing my site with Internet Explorer! See the cropped screen capture below (and don’t try to pretend you’re not part of the problem because these cute little icons don’t lie).

Now I’m only speaking to the bad 74% of you when I say, HAVE YOU NO IDEA HOW MUCH FUN (and more secure) THE WEB CAN BE WHEN YOU USE FIREFOX? I imagine that since you’re using Internet Explorer in the first place, a good number of you have no idea what I’m talking about. If you’re my mother for example, you mean well, but you don’t even know what a “browser” is.

“So which browser are you using?”

“I use Google.”

“Um, Mom, Google isn’t a browser—it’s a search engine.”

“Well that’s what comes up when I click on the Internet.”

The problem is far more extensive than just a bunch of less-than perfectly savy web surfing moms. This problem applies to 74% of the traffic here. Why are you still using Internet Explorer! I would think the increased security alone would be enough to make anyone switch… not to mention tabbed browsing.

But alas, enough rambling, I’m actually going to do something to allow you (my misguided microsoft miscreant) to do something about it.

Just click on the friendly graphic above and follow the directions on the page. Trust me, once you try firefox, you’ll never want to go back.

Oh and if you’ve got a webpage/blog, then I HIGHLY recommend you try and get yourself an invitation to try measure map (crack in web form - and though I really have no idea what crack is like - I can only imagine it’s something like Measure Map.)

Firefox 1.5 is out!

The award-winning Web browser is better than ever. Browse the Web with confidence - Firefox protects you from viruses, spyware and pop-ups. Enjoy improvements to performance, ease of use and privacy. It’s easy to import your favorites and settings and get started. Download Firefox now and get the most out of the Web.

I downloaded a new extension for Firefox today called Spellbound. It allows you to verify your spelling in forms and comment boxes using the language of your choice. I choose to download English (Canada).

I recommend trying it out if you are prone to typos and misspellings like me.

Previously I Heart Firefox.

I just installed another great extention for Firefox. It’s called Sage.

Sage is a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator extension for Mozilla Firefox. It’s got a lot of what you need and not much of what you don’t.

Previously I Heart Firefox.

I love Mozilla Firefox! I just upgraded to their newest version and while I was at their site decided to download some extentions.

Extentions are part of what makes Firefox so great. They add a little bit of customization to your browsing experience. These are the ones that I have and I recommend them all:

• Stumbleupon 1.9991
  Stumble onto sites suggested by like-minded individuals.
• Tweak Network 1.0
  Tweak your network settings making Firefox that much faster.
• BugMeNot 0.6.1
  Don’t be bothered with privacy issues and the inconvenience of required registration. Sometimes you can even find passwords to sites you’d never expect.
• BetterSearch 1.7
  See the sites you are searching in nice thumbnails before you click.
• Disable Targets for Downloads
  Gets rid of those blank windows that sometimes pop-up when you are downloading binary files.
• Tabbrowser Preferences
  Customize your tabbed browsing experience. I especially like the “open new tab” button.
• ForecastFox 0.7
  Now you don’t have to look outside for the weather! Just look on the small icon at the bottom for all the weather information you need.
• ColorZilla 0.8.2
  Featuring webpage zooming and eye dropper colour picking.

I installed the Better Search extention last night and already I know I’ll never go back.

Previously I Heart Firefox—a Collection of Extensions.