I’ve decided to try and give up using Firefox for at least one week. In it’s place I plan on using Konqueror and in some cases where I’m using OSX, Safari or perhaps Camino. The real test for me though is to see if I can make Konqueror do everything I’m used to doing (and worry that I can’t live without) with Firefox.

I’ve been falling slowly out of infatuation with Firefox for a while now. Version 2.0 left me mildly underwhelmed and dealing with much of the same-old including an annoying memory leak. Since I use KDE as my desktop environment, I’ve always had Konqueror kicking around and have been very impressed with it’s abilities as a file manager. In my job, where I often have to migrate many files from server A to B, Konqueror’s view splitting features kick serious ass. As a web browser that I’ve had access to for almost two years, I’ve probably used it a handful of times, mainly because of my dependence on Firefox extensions.

This reliance on extensions bothers me. The fact that enough people use it now that exploits are starting to show up isn’t great news to me either. Granted, they’re generally addressed pretty fast, but whatever. Really cool people use fringe, obscure browsers like Konqueror or Lynx.

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I was checking out an article about various keyboard shortcuts with KDE and I was blown away by a feature in Konqueror. When viewing a web page in Konqueror, holding down CTRL highlights every link on the page with a letter or number that you type in and hit enter to navigate without having to use a mouse. I don’t know how long I’ve wished for something like this. I hate having to use a mouse and especially with a laptop, it’s a really big bitch.

Unfortunately, I’m addicted to the various extensions that I depend on with Firefox and I just can’t switch over to Konqueror. So, I immediately started scouring through available Firefox extensions on mozilla.org and after a good long while (Mozilla’s extension organization sucks), I finally found the equivalent. NumberFox does the exact same thing. Using only numbers to tag links, the font is a little too small and there’s no options to change anything, but it does the job. On a web page, hitting ALT-w activates NumberFox for both Windows and Linux (APPLE-e on Mac) and you’re off, leaving that mouse in the dust. I find that some links and some pages do not respond to the extension&8212;links in Flash are obviously a no-go, but I find that it works in 95% of the pages I’ve tried so far.

Thees murneeng, vheele-a I ves perooseeng thruoogh edduns.muzeella.oorg und sloorpeeng doon cuffffee-a in bleery fug ierned frum steyeeng up vey tuu lete-a, I nuticed a Fureffux ixtenseeun celled Bork Bork Bork! vreettee by Unthuny Hooe-a thet elloos yuoo tu trunslete-a zee text ooff uny veb pege-a intu bork-speek, in oozeer vurds tu meke-a it reed leeke-a it ves vreettee by zee Svedeesh Cheff frum zee Mooppet Shoo feme-a.

Zee Svedeesh Cheff hefeeng beeeng my ell-time-a fefureete-a mooppet, I ves cumpelled tu instell it immedeeetely und seence-a zeen hefe-a beee borkeeng ell murneeng lung in geeddy deleeght. Thees ixtenseeun rooles. Bork Bork Bork!

Translation:

This morning, while I was perusing through addons.mozilla.org and slurping down coffee in bleary fog earned from staying up way too late, I noticed a Firefox extension called Bork Bork Bork! written by Anthony Howe that allows you to translate the text of any web page into bork-speak, in other words to make it read like it was written by the Swedish Chef from the Muppet show fame.

The Swedish Chef having being my all-time favorite muppet, I was compelled to install it immediately and since then have been borking all morning long in giddy delight. This extension rules.