One of the popular names in the browser world is Safari. It’s the default browser for Mac, so it’s only logical that Safari is widely used in the Mac community. But even in the Windows realm, where Safari is not the number one choice, it still one of the top alternatives. If you are a Safari user, or have plans to try it, here are three useful Safari startup tricks that you might not be familiar with.

Please note that the following screenshots are taken from Safari for Mac, but they are applicable to the Windows version as well.

Continue The Last Session

It’s obvious that the ability to resume browsing sessions should be built into modern browsers, so it’s unclear why some major browsers still haven’t implemented this feature yet. Safari has a similar feature, and you can access it by going through the “History – Reopen All Windows from Last Session” menu.

Unfortunately, you have to do it manually every time you restart Safari. To enable this feature automatically, you’ll need help from Safari extensions like Glims or SafariRestore.

If you accidentally close one of Safari’s open windows, you can quickly reopen it – along with all the tabs – using the “History – Reopen Last Closed Window” menu.

Many Ways To Start

One nice feature of Safari that I haven’t found in other browsers is the ability to really customize the way you want Safari to start. You can find the settings inside the Preferences window (Command + Comma on Mac or Ctrl + Comma on Windows).

One common thing between Safari and other major browsers is the ability to set a webpage as the homepage. To do this, type the URL of the page in the “Home page” field, or open the page that you want inside Safari and click the “Set to Current Page” button.

You can set the home page to be opened every time you open a new window by choosing “Home Page” from the drop down list next to “New windows open with“.

Other options you can pick are: Top Sites, Empty Page, Same Page and Bookmarks. But the main course of this option is the ability to open many pages at once. Choose the “Choose tabs folder“, then pick one of the tab folders from the list. Everything inside the folder will be opened whenever you open a new window.

You have a more or less similar option for new tabs, but you can’t choose a tab folder here.

But how can you add and customize tab folders? You can use the “Bookmarks – Add Bookmark Folder” menu to add the folder, and then drag and drop the saved bookmarks into the folder.

Or you could also open all the pages you want to include in the folder and go to “Bookmarks – Add Bookmark for These XX Tabs” menu, where XX is the number of the open tabs.

Then give a name for the bookmark folder, and choose the location where you want to save this folder.

Congratulations, you have just created your own tab folder.

Start At The Top

One of the options you can choose to start a new window or tab is “Top Sites“. This choice lets you quickly pick and open pages, either from Safari’s History or from the list of frequently opened sites.

The History tab will display the page list in a cover flow-like arrangement, and let you scroll to the items from side to side.

The Top Sites tab arranges the frequently opened sites in a matrix. You can choose the small, medium, or large boxes by clicking on the tab on the lower right corner of the screen.

You can customize the Top Sites view even more by clicking the “Edit” button on the lower left part of the screen. Two buttons will appear on the top left corner of each page, giving you options to remove individual item from the list, or pin it to the matrix so the particular item will always be present.

If you are a Safari user, you’ll find these Safari startup tricks to be useful. They will help you work faster and more efficiently. If you are not a Safari user, maybe these tricks could give you a good reason to try Safari?

Are you a Safari user? Do you have any more Safari startup tricks? If so, please share using the comments below.

We’ve covered cookies in some detail here at MakeUseOf. Guy previously covered the elusive 2o7.net cookie that plagues so many people, and Grant described the positive ways that websites make use of cookie technology. We’ve also showed you a few ways to opt-out of certain tracking cookies.

If it all feels just a little bit too confusing, you’re not alone. How are you supposed to know the difference between a “good cookie” or a “bad cookie”? What if you don’t even know where to start to even find these things? The truth is, most people can’t recognize a good cookie from a bad one. That is why software like MAXA Cookie Manager is so valuable.

Setting Up MAXA Cookie Manager

The MAXA Cookie Manager removes the confusion from the entire process of protecting yourself from dangerous tracking cookies. The software comes pre-configured with the majority of the “good” cookies out there, like those that retain your account-specific information for IM chats, your Facebook sessions, and a whole list of other online services where you really want the website to remember you.

When you first download and run the MAXA Cookie Manager, you’ll have the option to check off the common online services you use the most, like certain IM services and social networks.

MAXA has the ability to monitor and protect you from browser specific cookies, covering many different browsers like Firefox, IE, Opera, Chrome, Safari and even Flock. Keep in mind that the free version will only detect non-browser specific cookies, but it won’t delete them. For that you need the Pro Version.

Once you’ve gone through the quick install Wizard, the software is ready to start protecting you. It’ll always run in the taskbar and it will alert you when any new, malicious cookies arrive while you’re surfing the web. When you open the Cookie Manager, it’ll show you a dashboard of all of your current cookies across all browsers. It shows you the name of the site that installed the cookie, when it was created and last accessed, when it expires, and what browser it’s connected with.

You can click on the “Export List” button to export your entire cookie list as an HTML output file. This is a good way to send your list off to an IT friend if you want someone to take a closer look at them to determine whether there are any “bad” ones there that the Cookie Manager might have overlooked.

Click on the “Online Privacy Test” button, and MAXA will perform a full-scale test regarding what private information cookies can currently access on your system. It will display that information to you so that you can gauge whether or not you’re satisfied with your current privacy settings.

If you don’t recognize a particular cookie, or you just want to know more about what it does, select one from the list and then click on the “Cookie treatment” button, and select “View Details”.

This pops up an informational box that provides a lot more detail about the originator of the cookie and more specifics about what it does and where the file itself is stored. Remember, just because Cookie Manager has identified a cookie as a “web bug” doesn’t mean it’s bad. It just means that the behaviors of that cookie meet MAXA’s criteria of a “web bug”. It may be perfectly safe, in which case you can set MAXA to consider specific cookies as safe.

Anytime the software recognizes that you have cookies on your system that are specifically made for tracking you, you’ll see the following warning pop-up.

You can choose to delete all of them instantly, without further investigation, or you can choose to manually search through the list and delete them yourself, one at a time. In the Pro Version, you can also configure the software to automatically block specific cookies as well. For the free version, you’ll need to have an active part in deleting these tracking cookies.

Don’t forget to click on the “Settings” button to explore the options available with this software. For example, you can set up the software to keep checking all of your cookie “areas” for new, dangerous cookies at a set time interval. You can also configure the software to launch with Windows, and configure alert sounds for new cookies that come up.

Not many people have the time or the know-how to manually search through every spot on their computer where tracking cookies could reside. These cookies could potentially give away information about yourself that you consider private. MAXA Cookie Manager helps to simplify the process so that you can have greater control over what information is being tracked and what isn’t.

So give MAXA a try and see if it sets your mind at ease while you’re surfing the web. Did it catch any dangerous ones on your system? Share your insights and thoughts about the software in the comments area below.

Image Credit: Crystal Woroniuk

I recently uncovered a few extensions that I have found to be very useful, and I’d like to share them with you. One lets you browse in split screen mode, which I’ve constantly had a need for, and one lets you browse ‘up one level’ on websites. The third extension lets you run IE inside of Chrome, which is huge if you want to test the compatibility or formatting of something.

Split Screen

I really like Chrome’s tab feature, but sometimes I need to refer to two windows at the same time when I’m recording/comparing data or–better yet–multitasking. Split Screen is a simple extension that lets you view two websites at the same time, side by side, without having to resize your windows.

Split Screen installs as a button next to the OmniBar. When you click on it, a new tab will open and you’ll be prompted for two URLs. Type in your destinations and two websites will load in the same window.

The URL bars cannot be used for searching in Google but the extension does come equipped with a notepad that saves whatever you type for the next time you use the extension, which can be great if you need to take notes.

NavigUp

Typically, whenever you want to go back to a previous page you were on, you hit your browser’s ‘back’ button. What browsers don’t have, however, is a ‘level up’ button, which lets you return to a previous level of a website.

If you install NavigUp, you will see a button in the Chrome OmniBar that–when clicked–will take you up one level in the URL. For instance, if you’re currently browsing

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/cool-webservices/

and you want to go up one level, just click the NavigUp button to be taken to

http://www.makeuseof.com/dir/

and once more to be taken to

http://www.makeuseof.com/

, even if you hadn’t browsed either of those URLs previously.

Chrome IE

Lots of people out there still use IE as their default browser, which means if you’re designing or building something for the web you need to take IE’s functionality into account.

Chrome IE installs as a button next to the OmniBar that lets you toggle between Chrome and IE mode. To search or open pages in IE from the OmniBar, type IE and enter keywords or the URL. The Chrome extension also lets you sign in to different Google accounts in each browser.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I am still an avid Chrome user. Being able to view two websites at once in a single window is pretty great, and NavigUp proved extremely useful as well. Admittedly I won’t have much of a need for the Chrome IE extension, but I know a lot of others who will be uninstalling IE from their computers after hearing about this extension. Are you one of them?

When it comes to improving readability on the web, the browser hasn’t been of much help. It gives us a full screen view and zoom but nothing else. For that we have to fall back on the little pals we call add-ons or extensions. We have already seen how they come to the aid of people who use Chrome as their browser of choice.

Taking a leaf out of The Four Google Chrome Extensions For Easier Online Reading let’s see if we can give some help to our eyes on Firefox.

Readability

We have covered the Readability add-on as recently as a couple of months back when we saw how the new Readability add-on converts pages to a read-friendly format. But it’s worth mentioning again as this excellent add-on is worthy of leading the rest of the pack. I won’t talk about it much; the screenshot shows the Firefox add-on in action as it converts one of our regular pages into a more reader-friendly one. What I would recommend is that you should get familiar with the keyboard shortcut (CTRL+ALT+R) to toggle Readability and the Auto scroll function (CTRL + SHIFT + A).

iReader

iReader is an experimental add-on that also creates a clutter-free scrollable reading page overlaid on the original one. There is also a version for Chrome. The Firefox add-on recognizes an article and displays its icon in the address bar after the page loads. An iReader page opens up with all clutter removed. The add-on supports multi-page articles and you can set the background opacity in the options panel. You can use the iReader panel to disable images, change zoom, and share the page. We have covered this add-on previously in iReader – Instant Clutter-free Reading on Chrome & Firefox.

Readable

Readable is an add-on developed by the same guy who gave us Readability:  Baris Derin. It tackles the problem by giving you options to change the layout of a webpage by altering the fonts and colors. On some sites the implementation is not that great, but customizing things like font size and page color gets this add-on a positive point. We have reviewed this in more detail before.

Enjoy Reading

This experimental add-on installs itself just next to the address bar. The add-on looks, feels, and is ‘heavily based’ on the old Open Source Readability bookmarklet. This add-on too is Open Source.

Easy Read

Easy Read is an experimental add-on the deals with excessive links on web pages by automatically hiding them when a page loads. You can toggle the page links by clicking the icon on the Add-on Bar of the browser. Avoiding links is a great aid for trigger happy fingers when a click on a link takes you away from the source page without finishing reading it. As the description page mentions, Wikipedia is a prime example of a link rich page which could with the use of this add-on.

No Color

A lot of web pages especially the older ones, have eye-jarring colors and backgrounds. You can choose to remove them and increase the white space with the help of this simple Firefox add-on. It may not improve readability by a large degree but removal of excessive color from web pages is sometimes soothing. Though it doesn’t look that great when it renders our MUO Facebook page, all white!

Blank Your Monitor + Easy Reading

The add-on was designed for changing the color combinations on web pages viewed on CRT screens for the purpose of saving energy. I am not sure whether it ‘scientifically’ works out that way but the add-on’s Options allows you to play with colors and customize text and background colors as per your requirements. For instance, reading a web page against a black background sometimes helps me to focus better especially if the room is dark.

Readability is a concern on webpages especially when we have shunned books and newspapers and gone over to the internet. Maybe, these posts will give you a few more pointers:

5 Services That De-Clutter The Web For Readers
4 Tools To Make Web Pages Easier To Read For People With Poor Eyesight (Firefox)
2 Useful Bookmarklets To Make Your Web Reading Easier

Do you deliberately use tools like browser extensions and Firefox add-ons to enhance your reading experience? Tell us about your default ones.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

FromWhereToWhere is another way to dig into your browsing history and structure it in some way.

Similar to the no-longer-supported addon called “Referrer History”, this tool structures your FireFox history based on which page took you to the current URL and where you headed after that.

More Effective Search

Web search may be very addictive and hectic. You click through the search results, then you start clicking links on the target pages – and you ultimately forget where you actually started and how you got to the current page. With FromWhereToWhere addon you can always get a well-structured picture of what you’ve been doing.

It only shows the web history that is related to the currently active URL instead of displaying all the browsing history.

All you need to do is to click FromWhereToWhere item in your FireFox “Tools” menus when on the search results page and:

• You’ll see the list of pages you clicked from the search results;
• Each node can be expanded if there are URLs that you visited from the URL it stands for;
• Each page has the exact date when you visited it for the last time;
• You can open a URL by right click on the node -> “open in new tab”, or simple double click.

Note: the addon does NOT collect browsing history, Firefox does when you let it. FromWhereToWhere only search through the history data kept by Firefox. This means that you are not allowing any third-party tool to access your history. Instead, the tool is using the database which already exists within your browser and moreover the tool is analyzing the information locally.

You can control what the tool has access to by tweaking your FireFox browsing history settings:

Go to: Tools -> Options -> Privacy and there select “Use custom history for settings”. Now you have more freedom with tweaking what is being saved:

• Remember your browsing history or your download history;
• Remember your search and form history;
• Clear history when you browse the history:

Domain Browsing History

The tool offers a clearly structured domain history: which links you clicked off from any domain or website. The search result proximity can be somehow controlled:

• Search terms that are not quoted are considered optional. A page will show up in search results if its title has any (at least one) of the optional terms;
• If you need an exact match, you’ll have to use the phrase in quotes;
• You can also exclude any word with help of – operator: -word:

Easy Note Taking

The addon has a useful note-taking feature inside that lets you quickly save some URLs for further reference:

• Hold CTRL to select multiple links;
• Right-click and select “Save to local notes”
• A note will be created named after the top selected URL:

Additional fun feature: Scrapbook support – if a link had been captured by the add-on Scrapbook, it’ll be highlighted in Italic font – which makes this addon even more note-taking-friendly.

What are your thoughts? Does this look like a promising addon!

It’s very easy to lose yourself amidst stacks of open tabs. The more tabs you open, the more difficult it is to keep track of them and to move between opened sites. Mozilla has tried to solve the tabs problem by adding a new feature called “Tab Groups” to the latest version of its popular Firefox browser.

Manage Firefox Tab Groups

To access this feature, click the small arrow on the very right of the open tabs (next to the “+” button). You’ll see Tab Groups above the list of sites currently open. You can also access the feature by using the shortcut key combination (Control + Shift + E for Windows or Command + Shift + E for Mac).

Activating Tab Groups will put Firefox into the “Group Your Tabs” view with all of your tabs stacked inside one container. You can give the tab group a name by clicking on the “pencil” icon at the top left corner of the group window. To add a new tab to the group, click the “+” button.

As the name suggests, the “Expand” button will expand the group window and display a preview of all the tabs inside. This feature is useful if you want to quickly see what’s inside a specific page. You can also close a tab by clicking the “X” button.

You can also peek inside a page by resizing the group window. If you only have a small number of open tabs inside the group, the result will be similar to the “Expand” feature. But for bigger groups, you’ll get better previews using Expand.

If one of the groups has grown too big, you can split the group into smaller groups. Drag a tab out of a group to make a new group, or drag another tab on top of the new group to expand the group.

You can group tabs based on as many categories that you want, such as design, download, Linux, Mac, Windows, social, work, fun, gossip, news, etc. Clicking on one of the tabs in a group will open the tabs in that group in the normal browsing mode.

Arranging The Groups

Normal browser users with lots of open tabs will easily end up with several tab groups. But if you think your group area will be messy, you are wrong. The grouping feature comes with the ability to snap the group windows into grids. The grids are aligned to other windows.

You can neatly arrange the windows next to one another. Every time you bring two windows closer together, faint alignment lines will appear and you can ”snap” the window to the lines.

Another neat ability of this feature is “Search“. Click the magnifying glass icon and enter your search terms. All of the area will be darkened and pages that match your search will be highlighted.

For example, I entered “answer” in the search field and the MakeUseOf Answers page is highlighted.

One Simple Quick Trick

What’s the advantage of using Tab Groups other than having your open tabs neatly arranged into groups? I found that this feature allows me to move between tabs quickly and easily using shortcut keys. Here’s how to do it:

• From the normal browsing view, hit the Tab Groups shortcut key combination (Ctrl + Shift + E or Command + Shift + E).
• Then navigate to the page that you want to open using keyboard arrow keys (Up-Down-Left-Right).
• With the page selected, hit the Tab Group shortcut keys again to go back to the normal browsing view.

So if you are a tab junkie, the Firefox 4 Tab Groups feature will really help you improve your browsing experience. If you haven’t tried Tab Groups, now would be a good time to start. Then tell us what you think about the feature using the comments below.

This post will hopefully make your web image searching and browsing even more fun: the three addons listed will let you easily zoom the image thumbnails in to quicker choose one from search results.

Let’s see how we can quickly preview thumbnails in search results, download any image in its original size and preview your contacts’ Facebook photos right from your dashboard:

Thumbnail Zoom

Thumbnail Zoom is a fun addon that lets preview thumbnail pictures on Facebook, Twitter, Google Picasa, DeviantART, PhotoBucket, Flickr, LinkedIn, Wikipedia, YouTube, Google Images and a few other popular services Any supported site can be enabled or disabled using the toolbar menu and the addon settings dialog.

The addon also adds an extra context right-click menu item that allows to download the enlarged image without ever opening it.

The options panel lets you disable any of the supported services as well as set the delay before displaying the image and its opacity:

Cool Previews

CoolPreviews is the multi-feature FireFox addon that lets you preview any linked content including images. The image preview panel enables you to:

• Zoom the image in or out;
• Open the linked image in the separate tab;
• Email the current link;
• Play all the images on the page in the slideshow (works especially well for popular image search services like Flickr, Google Images, etc)

You can also turn previews on/off on specific sites anytime by clicking the icon on the status bar (or for those who have no status bar in FireFox 4, the same settings can be accessed in Tools -> Addons). CoolPreviews will memorize your settings.

The “Settings” dialog lets you customize your image previewing experience in many ways:

• Set when you want the preview panel to appear: on mouse-over, on clicking the CoolPreviews icon, on mouse-over + CTRL key;
• Set the location of the preview panel (relative to the cursor or the link);
• Control the speed (how fast you want the preview panel to appear)
• Set the theme (dark or ice);

Additional fun features:

• Temporarily bookmark images to the right column with “stacks” feature;
• Scroll Google Image search results on an “infinite 3D Wall” (Cooliris addon required).
• Preview multiple thumbnails simultaneously without (mouse over subsequent images on a page while the preview window is open or pinned).

Obviously, there’s no point in using the above two addons simultaneously, so you should pick one.

Facebook PhotoZoom

Facebook PhotoZoom only works for Facebook, but I am sure most of the readers frequent the site, so they’ll find the addon very useful. The tool works as a magnifier for Facebook thumbnails (both profile pictures and album photos): when you hover over a thumbnail, a tooltip will appear with the bigger image in it.

They have a few reported issues (some people experience problems making it work on Windows), but I’ve had no such issues.

Do you have any more tips for better thumbnail preview in FireFox? Are you aware of any similar tools for other browsers?