1)Chrome-Is there any way to stop the URL from flashing in the bottom left hand corner every few seconds? I’ve glanced at the settings and I didn’t see anything, but I’ll admit I didn’t look all that hard. Also, it doesn’t appear to be the URL for the page I’m on so I’m not exactly sure what it is, either way it’s annoying when I keep seeing it in the corner of my eye.
2)Is there a better Spell Check for Firefox? The one that came with it is terrible. Often times the words it chooses to replace the incorrect word aren’t even close to being correct and I end up either using Google to find the correct spelling (and then cut and pasting it in) or attempt to spell the word incorrectly differently hoping it’ll come up with the right spelling. I’m using FF 3.6 if that makes a difference which brings me to…
3)For the last few weeks up until about a week ago FF was nagging me every few hours to update to the newest release and it wasn’t just the standard “Hey, wanna update? No? Okay then” It was a bit more aggressive then that. I really like 3.6 and haven’t really cared as much for the later releases which is why I stuck with this one. Am I really opening myself up to all kinds of security breaches by staying with an older version? Should I be worried? Should I bite the bullet and update and just get used to the latest release?
The flashes of URL are likely to be reloading advertisements or something or the page itself doing a harmless self-refresh. Go to a very simple page (Google?) and watch as nothing happens in the lower left.
That’s what I thought. Kinda looked like an ad trying to load. I have adblock, so I didn’t see it. Still annoying when I keep seeing it flash though. If my laptop is just sitting next to me I usually flip to a different browser or minimize the window.
And yes, by using a browser that doesn’t have regular security updates, you will have an insecure browser which is much more likely to be exploited.
As for spell checker. Are you sure you have the right language dictionary installed? You might be getting UK spell checking instead of US or vice versa.
It says English/US, I’m sure it’s the right language, it just seems to be bad at guessing the word I want. For example, if I type delema it gives me:
delegate
delete
Deleon
Delmar
I just checked. Neither Firefox, Chrome or Opera had spell checkers that could give the right spelling from the word “delema”
So I don’t think you should be blaming Firefox’s spell checker, but congratulating whatever spell checker you’re using on other software. I’ll look into a better spellchecker addon for firefox, but I don’t think one exists.
FWIW, I’m using the “After the Deadline” plugin for Chrome and it offered “dilemma” as one of the options for “delema”. Dunno if it exists for Firefox.
I *think *you’re referring to Chrome’s version of the status bar. The idea of a status bar is to tell you what site a link actually links to, as a security feature. (That is, so you don’t click a link reading “Bank of America” and end up at “spammersrus.biz” instead.) Every time you mouse-over a link, you’ll see it fade-in.
You used to be able to tell Chrome to simply display the status bar all the time. It looks like it no longer has that option. With Chrome, it’s a little bit “my way or the highway” when it comes to the UI-- there are very few options to twiddle.
You could try looking at Chrome themes to see if any of the themes either disable the status bar, or show it permanently so that it doesn’t fade in/out. But using the default theme, I think you’re sunk here.
3.6 and 4.x have known open exploits that are not, and will not, be patched. (Mozilla actually got a lot of flack over this, but AFAIK their position has not wavered.) You should upgrade to the latest version-- if you prefer the UI of Firefox 3.6, I recommend you look for a Firefox theme that makes FF 10 look like 3.6.
With browsers, not upgrading is *not *an option if you want to retain a secure computer.
The question then becomes: Is there any way to disable the automatic self-refreshing of any web page? (Including any of the advertising boxes on the page, which are the worst offenders doing this, and the probable the cause of the OP’s consternation to begin with?)
Taking this a step further: Is there any way a browser (Firefox 3.6.9 in my case) can be told to IGNORE all href’s to some list of specific sites – in much the same way one can build a blacklist of sites to NOT accept cookies from, and the same way one can build a blacklist of sites to NOT load images from?
I’ve been able to reduce advertising and other web clutter substantially by
(a) Running with JavaScript DISABLED all the time except when I really need it, and
(b) Blacklisting images from all web sites that I don’t care to see images from. (To do this, right-click on the image, and the menu has an option to do this.) Sure speeds up page loading time too!
I have to ask why you like Firefox 3.6 over later versions. You can turn off the Firefox button. And, as mentioned, you can get a theme to override the glass. The only real problem I can think of is an essential addon that hasn’t been updated
Plus you’re missing out nearly entirely on HTML5–but I doubt that matters much, yet.