This of course works if you want to open Kopete links in Firefox as well. Instead of the default Konqueror. Just replace my ‘swiftfox’ in the commands with ‘firefox’

This assumes that you are using the same environment as I am (KDE4.2, Ubuntu 9.04)

1. System Settings* -> Default Applications -> Web Browser
2. Set the value for “in the following browser” as ” /usr/bin/swiftfox -new-tab ”
3. Apply
4. You’re Done.

*If you’re not sure where “System Settings” is, press Alt + F2 and type “System Settings” (remove quotes)

Microsoft has a 10,000 AUD prize for finding a treasure on the internet. Details here. Catch is: You can only use IE8.
If you view the above link in Firefox, it will ask you not-so-politely to ‘Get Lost’
For extra fun try viewing the site in Arora or Chrome or better yet: Opera

Anyway here’s how to hunt for the treasure with Firefox instead:

1. Download and install the User-Agent switcher found here. You will need to restart Firefox.
2. Configure the User Agent switcher to add IE8:
2.1 create a file, lets call it ie8-spool.xml
2.2 paste the following in the file:

<useragentswitcher>
  <useragent
    description="Internet Explorer 8 (Windows Vista)"
    useragent="Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
    appname="Microsoft Internet Explorer"
    appversion="4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.0)"
    platform="Win32"
    vendor=""
    vendorsub=""/>
</useragentswitcher>

2.3 In Firefox, go to Tools > User-Agent Switcher > Options > Options…
2.4 Click the “User Agents” tab, click “Import”
2.5 Locate and import the file mentioned above “ie8-spoof”
3. Go back here. You will see a nice message welcoming you.

These are 13 alternatives for Linux. If you google around you’ll find other similar lists, but the ones on my list are actually working, are in relatively active development as of June 1st 2009 and / or has a future. I’m not going to bother arranging this in any particular order, so here it is, all in one go.

1. Arora – Small, lightweight, buggy
2. Swiftfox – Big, Bloated, but faster then it’s siblings. Has a cooler logo
3. Flock – Social stuff which can be cool when you’re surfing youtube or facebook
4. Chromium – Fast. Buggy. Google.
5. Opera – Not open source but Free (as in beer), innovative, fast, killer looks
6. Konqueror – neah~ fits in nicely with kde
7. Epiphany – neah~ fits in nicely with gnome
8. Galeon – neah~ fits in nicely with gnome. Pretty light.
9. Seamonkey – Big Bloated web stuff. Not just a browser
10. Kazehakase – lightweight, buggy, JS sucks, keeps segfaulting…. but I see hope.
11. Amaya – The best tool I’ve found for debugging xhtml pages / and XML. I wouldn’t actually browse with this unless I’m debugging something.
12. elinks – OH YEAH!!
13. wget – Don’t gimme that crap about it not being a browser. Just try recursive mode, and THEN browse.

..Does not work.
I will assume that Firebug does not work with Firefox 3.5beta either.
I’m using Swiftfox 3.5b4.

And while we’re at it, Swiftfox 3.5 Does not work with Tamper Data, iMacros, YSlow, and Gears.

BUT on the bright side:

1. my delicious plugin works (version 2.1.041)
2. the issue with it killing my desktop effects mentioned here seems to have been solved!

I guess it’s back to Firefox 3.0 for me (for now).

OK Fine, it’s really Swiftfox, but the problem is really inherent to Firefox.

My Swiftfox 3.0 kills my KDE4 Desktop Effects. Which pisses me off because I love my shinny objects.

Everytime I accidentally drag select some text and then accidentally attempt to move the selected text, everything hangs up and poof. There goes effects.

I solved this by disabling the drag-drop feature in firefox but I’m still not happy.

Workaround: