Ramblings, ideas, problems, and solutions

Category: Web browsers

  • Use browser profiles for more efficient operations

    One of the complicating factors of my job is that I need to use the same tools, with different user credentials, often at the same time. For example, most of the companies I and my colleagues support use services that have some sort of integration with Microsoft Azure. As a result, I need to log in to the Azure portal for many of them on a daily basis.

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  • Deleting site-specific cookies in Chrome

    On occasion, the single sign-on authentication for a few of the systems I work with stops working due to an issue with the cookies stored in my web browser. The solution is simple enough; delete the cookies, and Bob’s your uncle. I don’t, however, want to delete all cookies, as that would mean that all of my logged-in sessions stop working. Instead, I want to delete the cookies for the site or sites affected by the issue. Here’s how:

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  • iOS: Print to PDF from Safari

    Safari on iOS lets you screenshot a full website as a PDF. With the judicious use of reader mode, you can also remove extraneous content making these screenshots more useful. Here’s how:

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  • iOS: Using reader mode in Safari

    One of the features in Safari that I use a fair amount is called reader mode. Simply put, it strips an article of extraneous content (such as ads), and allows me to focus on the article itself. Here’s how you use it:

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  • Resolving error code 0x9c47 when installing Internet Explorer 11

    A user called in, wanting help troubleshooting an installation of Internet Explorer 11 that repeatedly and persistently failed. The error code was the same, 0x9c47. The error code means that a Windows Update, KB2729094, could not be found on the computer. Because it is listed as a prerequisite for IE11, the installation failed. It did not matter one bit that the update was already installed. Luckily, resolving it is pretty straight-forward – here’s how: (more…)

  • Internet Explorer: Search in the address bar does not work

    A while back, a user called in, complaining that he was unable to use the address bar to search, in Internet Explorer 10. He further reported that he had just upgraded from Internet Explorer 9. I originally thought it was due to problems with a plugin, so that was where I started out. After looking at all of them; enabling and enabling, restarting IE and so on, I had gotten nowhere. At all.

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  • How to remove addresses from Autocomplete in your browser

    One practical, but sometimes annoying, feature in most browsers today, is the autocomplete functionality in the URL field. While it does save you time when you are used to it, it can also send you to a different page than you were intending. Luckily, both Firefox and Chrome has a shortcut to delete entries from the autocomplete list.
     
    Start typing the address, and when the one you want to delete shows up in the list of alternatives, use your down-key to mark it. Then simply delete it by typing Shift+Delete. If you’re on a Mac with a compact keyboard, the keyboard combination fn+shift+backspace will do the same thing.
     

  • Give me one bar, make it do more!

    I have said it once, and I’ll say it again; I love my iPad. It’s light-weight, instant-on and, most importantly, for the most part, it just works. However, there are a few frustrations, some of which I’ve mentioned previously, such as what they did to the rotation lock switch.
     
    Now, most of the time I spend on it, is spent browsing the web. However, whenever I go to open a new page, I am presented with this:
     

     
    Now, I like the fact that I can search from the browser, but why make it a separate box? If it were up to me, Apple’d take an idea from Google Chrome, and make it look like this:
     

     
    Make one bar, its default function an address bar, unless something that is neither a URL, an IP or a combination is inputed, in which case it performs a search instead.

  • Welcome to the party, Microsoft

    Like many, many others, I have been urging people to stop using Microsoft Internet Explorer for years. Finally, Microsoft is starting to come around to part of our argument, and has launched a website called IE6 Countdown. Welcome to the party, Microsoft.

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  • Firefox does not save tabs on close on Mac OSX

    My girlfriend recently got herself a shiny new MacBook Pro, and installed Firefox, as that’s her browser of preference. She kept having a problem that her tabs would not be saved when she closed Firefox, and asked me to look into it.

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  • Microsoft Internet Ballot screen candidates

    After a long run of anti-trust suits, Microsoft has finally come to an agreement with the EU about how to solve the internet browser problem. The problem is that Microsoft delivers Windows bundled with Internet Explorer, which competing software developers claim is a breach of anti-trust laws.

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