Running Linux, 5th Edition - Matthias Kalle Dalheimer [91]
Firefox has one particular powerful feature that is often overlooked: its extensions. By selecting Tools → Extensions from the menu bar, a dialog with installed extensions pops up; it is quite likely that you initially don't have any (unless your distributor or system administrator has preinstalled some for you). Click on the Get More Extensions link, and a long list with extensions that have been contributed to Firefox will show up. By default, you will see the list of the most popular and the list of the newest extensions, but take some time to discover all categories that seem interesting to you, there are a lot of goodies in here.
We would like to point out two extensions that we have found particularly interesting. Adblock adds a small overlay that looks like a tab to parts of the rendered web page that it suspects to be banner advertising. Just click on that little tab, click OK in the dialog that pops up (or edit the URL to be blocked, maybe to be even more general), and enjoy web pages without banner ads. It can actually become an addiction to refine the blocking patterns so much that you do not see any banner advertising anymore while surfing the Web. But just zapping a single one is a source of joy.
The other extension that we found particularly interesting is ForecastFox. It lets you select a number of locations on the earth and then displays small icons in the status bar (or other locations at your discretion) that show the current weather at those locations. Hover the mouse over one of those icons, and you will get a tooltip with more detailed information.
As with Konqueror, you should plan to spend some time with Firefox in order to explore all its possibilities. In many aspects, such as security, privacy, and browsing convenience, it beats the most often used browser on the Web these days hands down.
Yet another versatile browser is w3m . It is a text-based browser, so you miss the pictures on a web site. But this makes it fast, and you may find it convenient. You can also use it without the X Window System. Furthermore, when you want to save a page as plain text, w3m often provides a better format than other browsers, because text-based rendering is its main purpose in life. Then there is the ad-financed browser Opera, which has become quite popular lately, and finally, for those who never want to leave Emacs, there is Emacs/W3, a fully featured web browser you can use within Emacs or XEmacs.
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[*] A web site that can be browsed with only one browser or that calls itself "optimized for browser X" should make you virtually run away, wringing your hands in wrath over such incompetence on the part of the webmaster.
Instant Messaging
Although various forms of chat have been widespread among computer users for decades, a very rich and easy-to-use kind of chat called instant messaging (IM ) has become popular with the growth of Internet use. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) , Yahoo! Messenger , and MSN Messenger are just a few versions of this medium. Although each service provides its own client (and prefers that you use their client, so they can send advertisements your way), you can get access to all the most popular IM systems through open source programs such as Gaim, Kopete, and a variety of Jabber clients. These are very full-featured clients that have a number of powerful features that in terms of functionality put them ahead of the clients that the commercial