Create A Custom Firefox Installer with Add-ons, Bookmarks And Preferences

Deploying a customized version of the Firefox web browser can be quite the daunting task. It does not really matter if you are a home user who wants to copy Firefox to another PC, or a system administrator who has to deploy Firefox on hundreds of PCs. Home users can use Firefox backup programs like Febe or Mozbackup for instance to copy their extensions and settings to the new computer.

Firefox Addon Maker offers to create custom Firefox installers that will not only install the selected web browser version, but also add-ons, plugins, bookmarks, passwords and other custom preferences.

The portable Windows application displays all customization options on one screen. It begins with the selection of the Firefox edition that the installer should install on target computer systems. The program supports the current stable version of the browser, the beta version and the previous version. It does not support Aurora or Nightly versions, or older versions. All program interface languages are selectable here as well.

While it is possible to include existing profile data in the installer, it is also possible to create a custom installer without it. You can select one of the detected Firefox profiles directly, or a custom profile path instead which is for instance necessary for portable versions of the browser, or if the correct profile path has not been detected by Firefox Addon Maker.

The private and common options menus define which settings and components are copied from the selected profile to be included in the installer.

The following choices are available:

Private Options: Include bookmarks, passwords, cookies, history, preferences, sessions and extension user dataCommon Options: Including extensions and themes, plugins, components, search engines, dictionaries, modules and hyphenation

It is possible to copy the complete profile, or only select preferences. Home users for instance may want to include all preferences and settings, while business owners might not want to include cookies, passwords or the browsing history.

It is probably a good idea to create and configure a new Firefox profile to be used for the creation of the custom installer, as it is not possible to customize individual settings further. All extensions will for instance be copied over, without options to select only some. A new profile allows you to customize the installation exactly the way you want it to be distributed.

The editable options can be used to set Firefox as the default browser on the target system, to select custom interface icons, and to disable the browser’s Migration Wizard, Compatibility Wizard and Crash Reporter.

The program furthermore offers to include the latest Adobe Flash Player and Shockwave plugins, as well as Macromedia Authorware, Windows Media Player and the Microsoft Office 2007 in the installer. This is useful if the option to include plugins from the selected Firefox profile has been disabled.

The installer can add the Firefox installation to the start menu, pin it to the Quick Launch toolbar and place a shortcut on the desktop.

A click on Create Installer finally creates the custom Firefox installer. The program downloads the selected version of Firefox before it is processed and the installer is created.

The program saves the custom installer on the desktop. The program and the created installer are compatible with all recent 32-bit and 64-bit editions of the Windows operating system.

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Firefox Profile Preferences Cleaner About the Author:Martin Brinkmann is a journalist from Germany who founded Ghacks Technology News Back in 2005. He is passionate about all things tech and knows the Internet and computers like the back of his hand. You can follow Martin on Facebook or Twitter.Author: Martin Brinkmann, Wednesday February 29, 2012 -
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Make The Most Out Of Pinterest With These Browser Add-ons

Web browser add-ons can improve your Pinterest experience significantly. Let me give you a quick overview of what the service is about. Pinterest lets you pin photos and videos to online pinboards. These are publicly accessible, and all Pinterest users can comment on them, share them or pin them to their pinboards as well. Links to the original site the photos or videos were found on are retained, which makes it a visual bookmarking service as well.

There are three options to pin photos or videos to your own pinboard. You can use the bookmarklet and run it on the page that contains the photo or image, paste the web address of the page on the Pinterest site into a form, or pin an item that has been posted by another Pinterest user.

When you look at browser extensions, you will notice that Google Chrome got the bulk of it, while both Firefox and Opera only one each. Lets take a look at the add-ons:

Pin It Buttons – Instead of having to use the bookmarklet, these extensions add a button to the browser that you can click on to pin a photo or video on that website. Chrome: One Click Pinterest Button, Opera: Pinterextension

Right-click Pinning – These add a right-click context menu option to pin the selected item to one of your Pinterest pinboards. Chrome: Pinterest Right click, Firefox: Unofficial Pinterest Addon

Keyboard shortcuts – Adds a shortcut to pin items on a page with a keyboard shortcut. Chrome: Pin It!

Image Zooming – Lets you zoom in on images right on the Pinterest website without having to click on the item. Works similar to Hover Zoom. Chrome: Pinterest Zoom

, Pinterest Image Expander, Pinzy

Pin Screenshots – Lets you pin screenshots of web pages that you are currently on, or upload photos from your desktop to pin those. Chrome: Screen 2 Pin

Closing Words It is interesting to note that there is no userscript, and only one Firefox add-on available for a popular service such as Pinterest. Google Chrome on the other hand has been blessed with extensions in comparisons. Is it because many developers are using that browser now? What’s your opinion here? Also, let me know if you come across other add-ons for Pinterest. And if you are not currently a user, you can grab your Pinterest invites here.

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How To Uninstall Firefox Add-ons With No Remove Option

You can uninstall most Firefox add-ons from the addons manager page in the web browser. All you need to do is type in about:addons in the address bar and tap on the enter key to open the page. A click on remove next to an add-on uninstalls it from the browser. You may need to restart the browser to complete the process. The add-on afterwards has been removed completely.

Some add-ons on the other hand do not show a remove option at all in the addons manager. Most of the add-ons that you cannot uninstall from within the browser are called global extensions. They are installed from third party sources, for instance when you install or update security software or another application on your system. The Babylon Toolbar is an example extension as it is often attached to software installations.

The majority of extensions are installed in the extensions directory of the Firefox profile folder. I’d suggest you start there to see if the extension that you want to remove from Firefox is listed there.

You may run into two issues here. First that extensions sometimes install with cryptic names so that it may be difficulty to identify them, and second that you may not find the extension that you want to uninstall listed here.

The easiest way to identify add-ons here is to load them into archiving software like 7-zip. Double-click on the install.rdf afterwards and look for name there.

Some extensions are already unpacked in a folder. Just open the folder of the extension in that case and double-click on the install.rdf file in there to identify its name.

It is however likely that you do not see the extension in the directory.

Global extensions

Global extensions can be installed into any directory. The most likely folder is the extensions folder in the Firefox installation folder. This is usually C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\extensions for 64-bit Windows operating systems, and C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\extensions for 32-bit systems. Keep in mind though that you can install Firefox into any directory. Portable Firefox users need to open the extensions folder under the portable path.

Repeat the steps outlined above to identify all extensions listed here.

The third and final option is the Windows Registry. You may find extension information under the following two Registry keys:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Mozilla\Firefox\Extensions\

Use the shortcut Windows-r to bring up the run box. Enter regedit in there and hit enter. Navigate to the keys in the Windows Registry and check if extensions are listed there.

Information that you will find there includes the extension path.

Backup the Registry key first by selecting File > Export. Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the directory of the extension. Backup that directory as well, before you delete both the directory and the Registry key that links to it. Repeat the step for all extensions that you want to delete.

Please note that you need to close Firefox before you start deleting extensions on the system this way.

If you follow the method, you should be able to delete any extension that you cannot uninstall from within the browser interface.

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