Enrich your browsing experience under Ubuntu

Ubuntu now is not just geek box. Web developer also can be more convenient using it by installing various browser in it.
Not less than 4 browsers you can install:

1. Firefox
no doubt, this is de facto browser, most widely used among Ubuntu user, as it installed by default.

2. Opera
Eventhough Opera market share is not as big as Firefox, this browser has certain fanatic fans. Deliver a unique render style, browsing using Opera give a different feel.
To install, go to www.opera.com linux download section. Select Ubuntu deb package. Double click downloaded deb file, follow the installation instruction. Otherwise, you may follow instruction by ubuntu forum

3. Internet Explorer
IE is the most widely used, as it come preinstalled with the OS that ruled PC user for years.
To install, follow instruction from my previous post.

4. Safari
Mac fans is unable to accept other browser, but safari. Run on wine, with some display issue, Safari can still shows its beauty. As it run on Wine emulator, simply download safari installation file, then run it.

All browsers above, only Firefox and Opera is running natively, while two others are emulated from Windows version. Meaning you have Wine installed properly before proceed to install them.
Overall, all browsers does have own characteristic and render style that a web developer should have installed them all.

Firefox 2 on Ubuntu Hardy Heron

Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron just rolled out from it's beta stage. For those ubuntu-lover, we just can't wait what are new features on this new release, especially that can be seen directly from its fancy desktop.

Firefox is one of among list. Even Firefox 3 offer lot of new browsing features, but unfortunately, I don't like beta softwares. Even it proved stable, but one thing is sure, it slow down my laptop, compare to previous version. Maybe you have same opinion with me.
Also, lot of my favorite plugin does not work with Firefox 3, including Foxmarks.

To roll back using Firefox 2 as Ubuntu Hardy default browser, simply uninstall firefox 3, get firefox 2 and change some shortcut links. Open a terminal session

$ sudo aptitute remove firefox
$ sudo aptitute remove firefox-3
$ sudo apt-get install firefox-2

Next is change default command firefox shell script to firefox-2, by type :
$ cd /usr/bin
$ sudo ln -s firefox-2 firefox

As bonus here is an article for you who love Internet Explorer, and wish to run it on your Ubuntu. Installing Wine, Internet Explorer and Visio 2003

Just like Asus tagline, now you can enjoy rock-solid heart-touching Firefox 2 :) and alternative IE on your Ubuntu.

Use firefox to open wap site

Firefox is now about to take over the position of most popular browser. Due to lack of customization and security reason, now more and more user are turning using Firefox rather than other browser.

For wap developer like me, everyday involve with hundreds of trial-and-fail page load using all available browser, I found it's very useful for you all to have this plugin. WMLBrowser is essential for firefox to determine the content type text/vnd.wap.wml file.

To install, simply go to Tools -> Add Ons. On extensions tab, click "Get Extensions". Your firefox will open a new tab. Just type wml in the search box. Or you can go to WMLBrowser direct link. Once installed now you can open any WML site as it display on phone browser. All plugins above work for Firefox 1.5, Firefox 2 and Firefox 3 both on Windows or Linux.

Another utility that complementary to this plugin is User Agent Switcher, to let you pretend that you really a mobile handset to wap server. This trick very useful to mask yahoo and gmail site to serve us as mobile user, as well as to download contents that should serve mobile user only.