This Week's Sponsor:

PowerPhotos

The Ultimate Toolbox for Photos on the Mac

Posts tagged with "browser"

Facebook Neue Safari & Chrome Extension Removes Ads, Makes Facebook Twitter-like

Developed by Milind Alvares of Smoking Apples (and Beautiful Pixels) Facebook Neue is an extension for Chrome and Safari 5 that does one thing very well: it makes Facebook simpler. The extension removes the ugly ads from Facebook (sorry Mark, I’m tired of Coca Cola ads) and resizes the main container to two columns, making it more Twitter-like. As Milind says it’s far from feeling exactly like Twitter, but I like this new layout. It makes everything readable and elegant.

Also in the extension:

I also selectively hid some of the settings in the sidebars, such as application links, or that language settings button next to the chat toolbar. I was happily using this until I realised I could very well just convert this into an extension and share it with everyone. Some more bug fixes, and a redesigned login page later, version 1.0 was ready.

I’m sure some of the changes, like the fixed masthead or the rounding of image avatars, are not going to be universally appreciated, and I’m okay with that.

I love it. Go download it here.

RIM Posts BlackBerry Playbook and iPad Comparison Video

RIM believes in its upcoming Playbook tablet as a feasible alternative to Apple’s iPad. With the new video comparison they posted on their official Youtube channel, it looks like RIM is betting a lot on the web surfing capabilities of the device.

The video shows that the Playbook is faster at loading web pages than the iPad, although the selection of websites is limited and a test is focused on loading a website that feature “rich Flash content”. The iPad can’t load that, and the Playbook seems pretty fast at rendering it, but the video doesn’t show how scrolling speed is affected by Flash. The Playbook’s browser looks fast anyway, scoring a 100/100 on Acid3 test and loading a Javascript / HTML5 Canvas based webpage faster than the iPad. It looks fluid.

Check out the video below. Read more

How To Change Your iPhone’s Default Browser

Last week I installed a new universal browser for iPhone and iPad called “iCab” which I’m going to review soon here on MacStories. The browser is so good I wondered if there was a way to force iOS to open links from any app using iCab instead of Safari. I know it’s not a recommended move and it might turn out to be pretty problematic in the future, plus I actually had tried to override Safari a few times in the past.

I didn’t know a tweak to change the iPhone’s default browser had been released in Cydia until I stumbled upon iCab’s excellent feature and decided to google that again. Browser Changer, available for free in Cydia, does just that: it replaces Mobile Safari as your iPhone default browser. Read more

Using Simplenote On Classic Mac OS→

Using Simplenote On Classic Mac OS

First and foremost: as you may have guessed, there isn’t a ‘Simplenote client’ for Mac OS 9 or earlier versions, so your best option on a vintage Mac is to access your Simplenote account and your notes using the Web interface. On Mac OS 9, this is accomplished rather effortlessly using Classilla and enabling JavaScript for the Simplenote website. Classilla correctly renders the modern, iPad-flavoured Simplenote interface, and you can also use the old one if you so prefer.

It also works on Mac OS 8.6. Completely useless, but we love it.

Permalink

Skyfire Makes $1 Million In First Weekend, CNN Interviews CEO

As noted by MobileCrunch, alternative 3rd party iPhone browser Skyfire did great in its first weekend in the App Store. Even though the app wasn’t exactly off to a great start (the developers had to pull the app as they couldn’t keep up with the server demand), it still managed to win the hearts of thousands of iPhone users who apparently needed a browser capable of playing Flash videos:

The company isn’t sharing exact numbers, but they did just tell me that their download numbers for their first weekend on the store were well over 300,000. At $2.99 a pop, that works out to one hell of a bounty. SkyFire isn’t walking away with that whole million, of course; Apple’s going to get their 30% cut, which brings SkyFire’s share down to somewhere between $600-700,000.

Read more

Shellfish Safari Extension Takes You On A Lonely Trip To The Internet

If you live on the Internet, if you ready dozens of blog posts every day but you hate the fact that the latest trend among publishers is to put tons of sharing buttons in their pages – then you’ll love this extension fo Safari called Shellfish.

Also available for Chrome and Opera users and released a few months ago, Shellfish strips away all the Twitter, Facebook and Digg buttons that suggest you share stuff with your friends. “Be Shellfish”, writes the developers on the extension’s site. Other services such as AddThis, AddToAny, Apture and Tweetmeme are blocked as well.

Shellfish is available here and works as advertised. If you think there’s no need to share anything, go install it.

1Password 3.5 Released With New Chrome Extension, Better Dropbox Integration

Last week we talked about the new Google Chrome extension included in 1Password for Mac beta: it looks great and it retains the look of the app we all love on our Mac desktops. With the public release of 1Password 3.5 today, AgileWeb Solution is bringing the new and updated Chrome extension to life together with lots of bug fixes, better Dropbox sync status visualization in the sidebar and overall performance improvements.

1Password 3.5 for Mac is available here. Check out the full changelog below. Read more

Color Snatcher: Simple Safari Extension To Grab Colors Off Webpages

This one’s a Safari extension designers and developers alike are going to like a lot: with just two clicks, Color Snatcher for Safari allows you to grab colors off any webpage and copy it to your clipboard from a dialogue box that will appear on screen.

The extension, due to Apple’s restrictions, can’t automatically copy a color’s HEX or RGB code to the clipboard – you’ll have to manually copy it from a secondary tiny window. The extension, however, delivers on what the developer promised: a simple tool to grab pixel colors. That’s it.

Color Snatcher is, of course, free and the developer is already working on a better way to copy color codes. Very nice. Go download it.

ADC: Safari Extension To Search On Apple Developer Website

If you’re an iOS or Mac developer, you must have noticed that searching for framework keywords, reference documentations and guides on Google isn’t exactly the best experience you can get. Wouldn’t it be great to have everything always under control a few keystrokes away?

This extension, ADC for Safari (and Firefox), puts an additional “developer bar” in your browser with shortcuts iOS and Mac OS reference libraries, a search bar and a link back to the ADC home.

It’s unobtrusive and will save you lot of time going back to the developer’s website and / or searching for stuff. Go download it.