Resources for Learning Howto Customize Your Browser

No matter which browser you prefer, there’s a plethora of ways to customize the way you surf the Web. There are countless plugins, extensions, toolbars and more. Some of these are easy to install while others require a little more effort.

We’ve put together a list of some of the best instructional resources for the most popular browsers today, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, Opera and even the still wet behind the ears rookie, Google Chrome ().

Internet Explorer ()

ie Tips - Shares a ton of quick tips for customizing Internet Explorer.

Official Browser Settings - Overview provides plenty of useful information on all of the settings for IE that most users never touch. Learn what they do and perhaps fix some problems you’ve been experiencing.

Official IE Developers Blog - Shares new tips and tricks all the time on their official blog for Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer Toolbar - Tutorial covers what you need to know about IE’s toolbar.

Top 11 ie Add-ons - Covers a list of cool tools you can add to the IE experience.

Firefox ()

Customize Firefox themes - Provides a large collection of new themes for changing your Firefox look and feel.

Mozilla’s Official Way to Customize Firefox - shows undocumented features and ways to customize their browser.

How to Use GreaseMonkey - A must-read if you truly want to take your browsing to the next level.

Office Firefox Add-on Library - Contains an amazing amount of add-ons that you can install with a simple click.

Mashable’s List of 30+ Firefox Extensions - Extensions that enhance your browsing experience.

Safari ()

How to Customize Safari Beyond All Reason - Offers up a bunch of solutions to common annoyances with Safari as well as other cool tips. Funny title too.

How to customize the Safari Toolbar - Covers everything you need to know about the toolbar.

SafariStand - Adds dozens of extra features to the Safari browser.

eHow’s How to Customize Safari covers the basics of Safari preferences here.

YouTube video - Shows you how to customize the Safari Toolbar.

Opera ()

Opera Mini - How to install and configure Opera Mini for your mobile device

Official Opera Tutorials - Tutorials on how to customize the Opera browser.

Opera Widgets - Shows the best ways to customize Opera Widgets.

Extending Opera - Demonstrates several ways to get the most out of Opera.

Opera Mail Tutorial - A nice visual tutorial on the Opera Mail system.

Chrome ()

Google Chrome Forums - Has a tremendous amount of ways to trick out your Chrome browser

Digital Streets - Shares some cool tips for customizing your Chrome experience.

Custom Search Engines - Covers how to change the search engines in Chrome

Customized Chrome Themes - Gives you ideas on how to change Chrome’s skin.

GreaseMetal - The Chrome equivalent to Firefox’s popular GreaseMonkey.

Whether it’s just to save time or make your browser more visually appealing, there’s an amazing amount of options for any browser that you choose to use. What are some of your favorite ways to trick out your browser? Are there any unusual things you do that others might like to try? Share your secrets in the comments area.

Coolest Opera Tips & Tricks

As we know, Opera is an extremely customizable browser, but it does so much that it can be difficult to remember it all. Then again you would have to know what it does in order to remember it.

Today we want to walk you through a dozen tips and tricks that will inch you closer to becoming an Opera grand master. So lets go ahead and jump into it, and as always, hit us up with your tips in the comments!

–Bookmark & Folder Nicknames–

Opera has a nickname feature for bookmarks that I’m guessing most people use. With it you can enter in an abbreviation for a bookmark that can quickly be typed into the address bar to pull up a particular site. One thing that you may not have realized is that the nicknames can also be assigned to entire folders of bookmarks, and entering that into the address bar will open every site within that folder:

–Bookmark & Open Multiple Links–

Let’s say you’re on a sight such as Digg, and you’re trying to quickly go through all of the news. Enter Links Panel! The Links Panel (a.k.a. sidebar) will let you handle hyperlinks throughout the page in bulk. You can Ctrl+Click or Shift+Click to select multiple links from the current page. Then just choose the bookmark or open the option from the right-click menu.

–Click to Save Images–

Do you find yourself frequently saving images from websites? Instead of right-clicking on an image to save it each time, just Ctrl+Click on it. You’ll immediately be prompted with a Save As dialog box for you to enter in the name, or you can just press Enter to use the image’s current name.

[via Opera Watch]

–Customize the Browser’s Name and Icon–

Did you know that you change the name of the browser, and even replace its icon with your own? Yep, that’s all built-in. To change the icon you’ll need to enter opera:config#UserPrefs|ApplicationIcon into your address bar, and then provide the location of the icon you want to use.

To change the browser’s name, just enter opera:config#UserPrefs|Title into the address bar, and in the box type the name you want to appear. Additionally, you can use these combinations to insert dynamic items:

• %t for page title (entering just %t in the box will remove the browser’s name all together, which is what I currently do)
• %s for build number
• %v for version number

–Detach/Move a Tab–

Want to open a tab up in a new window? Just drag it onto the title bar of the browser. You can also move tabs between multiple windows simply by dragging and dropping them from one tab bar to another.

–Fast Navigation–

If you’re trying to open several links on a page, you should try using Shift+Arrow keys to move between the hyperlinks on the page. The nice thing is that this doesn’t jump back up to the beginning of the page where the first hyperlink appears. It starts with the first hyperlink in the area that you are looking at.

Shift+Ctrl+Enter will then open the currently selected link in a background tab.

–Fit to Width–

When you come across a site that requires horizontal scrolling, why not try and enable the Fit to Width feature (located in the View Menu, or press Ctrl+F11). The site will be adjusted so that no horizontal scrolling is necessary, and for the most part it won’t look all that bad.

–Hide the Menu Bar–

I hardly ever need to use the Menu Bar, and it takes up more room that I’m willing to part with. So what I do is I add a button that will remove the Menu Bar, and at the same time provide all of the menu options in a single condensed drop-down list. Just click here to add that button, and for more menu buttons visit the Opera Wiki.

–Hide the Tab Bar for a Single Tab–

In Firefox when you only have one tab open, the tab bar is not visible, and there is an option in Opera to do the same thing. Just right-click on the Tab Bar, choose the Customize option, and then check the box that says “Show only when needed.” The tab bar will now be hidden anytime only one tab is open.

–Right-Click Address Mapping–

It’s super easy to map any address on a site using your favorite map service. Here’s what you have to do:

1. Open up your favorite map service (ex. Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps).
2. Right-click in the service’s search box, and choose the Create Search option. Enter in a keyword (it’s required by Opera, but isn’t used in this trick), and then press Save.
3. The next time you see an address on a site just highlight it with your mouse, right-click, and then go to “Search with.” You’ll see a list of all the possible search engines that you’ve added to Opera, and all you have to do is select the mapping service.

–Promptless Downloading–

If you’re like me you probably save all of your downloads to the same folder so that you don’t end up with things scattered all over your computer. In Opera you can set your default download location in the Options, and then when you right-click on a file or image, there will be a “Save to download folder” option. Clicking on that will initiate the download without prompting you for any information.

–Speed Dial Homepage Button–

This is something that I was yearning for, and luckily the Opera Community came through. For reasons unknown to me, the Opera developers never associated an address to the Speed Dial page. That meant you couldn’t assign it as your browser’s homepage, but dragging this button onto the address bar will do the trick. It will take on the look of the homepage button, but it will actually open the Speed Dial page.