Advice on browsers

[Coromandel]

Hello all

Until the recent demise of my old laptop I was using Windows XP and Firefox with Google Toolbar. My new laptop has Windows 7. Straight away I downloaded Firefox and then tried to add Google Toolbar, only to discover that the two no longer work together. Do I just have to learn to live with it? Or is there another better browser out there?

[terrysfamily]

I have windows 7 and Firefox but have never had Google toolbar. I always use the Google search in the top righthand corner. Is/was there a difference?

[Peter Goodey]

I also reckon that the Firefox search bar (note that it doesn't have to be a Google search) does most of what I want. In any case I reckon Google has now joined the Evil Empire so I use it a lot less than I used to.

Some add-ons can be induced to be compatible by installing the add-on called "Add-on Compatibility Reporter".

[Coromandel]

I have windows 7 and Firefox but have never had Google toolbar. I always use the Google search in the top righthand corner. Is/was there a difference?[/IMG]

Google Toolbar had a lot of extras besides a Google search box . . . it is already fading from my memory but here are some of the good things I remember about it:

• the search terms from your current search appeared as buttons on the toolbar; clicking them found where they were mentioned on the web page. (I know you can still find words using Edit Find but having the buttons saved retyping things.)
• there were little icons for going straight to Google Books, Google News, etc. (now it is easy to switch to these from an ordinary Google search so I can live without them)
• there was another icon that allowed you to go up a level on a website, without having to go in manually and delete the end part of the website address

There were also Google Translate options.

The feature I miss most is that when you opened a new tab in Firefox, it would have thumbnails of sites you'd visited recently (or most often?) which was really handy. Now when I open a new tab it is just a blank page.

In any case I reckon Google has now joined the Evil Empire so I use it a lot less than I used to.

Which search engine(s) do you use instead?

[arthurk]

The feature I miss most is that when you opened a new tab in Firefox, it would have thumbnails of sites you'd visited recently (or most often?) which was really handy. Now when I open a new tab it is just a blank page.

A quick look at the Firefox add-ons site and a search for Speed Dial or Fast Dial brings up some options which I think do what you're looking for. It looked to me as though some require you to select which thumbnails to show, and some can be configured to show the most visited, or most recently visited sites.

Arthur

[Coromandel]

Thank you, Arthur! I have now downloaded the "FVD Speed Dial" add-on and have thumbnails back again.

P.S. and they're more sophisticated than before, with many options for which sites are shown and how. By default there are 25 thumbnails ranked according to how often I have visited them in the last month. Top of the list . . .
BG of course!

[Peter Goodey]

I may be out-of-date with what I said about the Add-on Compatibility Reporter