acatalept/blog

To modify Firefox 3 & 4's window UI chrome using userChrome.css, based on whether the window is in Private Browsing Mode, just prepend [browsingmode=private] before a given css selector.

For example, to change the color of Firefox 4's appmenu button (the orange button at the top left of the window that reveals the newly arranged application menu), add the following to your userChrome.css file:

/* this first line is required for userChrome.css to work */
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul");

/* example of changing the appmenu button color from
   the default orange to a transparent black */

#appmenu-button {
  background-color: rgba(0,0,0,0.2) !important;
}

/* here we prepend [browsingmode=private] to the above
   selector to change the appmenu button color to
   transparent red only when in Private Browsing Mode */

[browsingmode=private] #appmenu-button {
  background-color: rgba(255,0,0,0.5) !important;
}

FYI, this file is typically located at:

C:\Users\{yourname}\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\{random}.default\chrome\userChrome.css

If the file doesn't already exist, you should see an existing userChrome-example.css in that same location which you can use as a basis for creating your own new file.

Quick solution: RTFM (yes, it was right there on Google's help page) - clear the captcha by going to:

http://www.google.com/accounts/DisplayUnlockCaptcha

or if you use Google Apps:

https://www.google.com/a/yourdomain.com/UnlockCaptcha

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I was having trouble getting Chrome to play nicely with Sandboxie - it loads and runs, but it was slow to show the "New Tab" page (with thumbnails of your most visited sites), the History page, and, well, most websites in general - so it appeared as though Chrome was trying to copy some needed files into the sandbox every time it loaded a page... Note that I have my sandbox set to automatically delete when the last sandboxed program ends to ensure I'm cleaning up after myself.

I couldn't find any specifics elsewhere, but after a little tweaking I solved the problem:
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The new Location bar in Firefox 3.x will, by default, take any non-URL input and:

1. If it's a single word (no spaces): first attempt to prepend "www.", and/or append ".com", then lookup in OpenDNS to see if this makes a valid server name - if so, you are automatically redirected to this found server
2. If there is a space: it is assumed this is a search phrase, so the the input is passed (by default) to Google's Browse By Name service. This works similarly to a standard Google web search, however if the search phrase is associated with an "authoritative" server (as deemed by Google), you are automatically redirected to this server (similar to an I'm Feeling Lucky search).

To disable these behaviors, resulting in similar functionality to Google Chrome's address bar, just make a couple changes in Firefox's hidden about:config settings (that is, type "about:config" in the address bar and hit Enter):

1. Change the value of "browser.fixup.alternate.enabled" to false
2. Change the value of "keyword.URL" to

   http://www.google.com/search?q=

   Note that there is nothing after the equal sign.

This appears to work up through Firefox 3.5b4.