This may well be the first time when I've entirely missed 5 major releases of a program I'm using daily… the next (and probably last) candidate is Delphi 7 – that is, if I ever consider switching to RAD 2011 or whatever version it will have by then. But let's leave today's fancy versioning to FSF marketeers and focus on the subject. So, what was it like upgrading from good old mighty Firefox 3 to a glamourous Firecub for me?

Nothing too bad although I have dreaded this day since the very first minute I have (automatically) upgraded to the first Firefox 4 version – it didn't last for long for I've seen enough. At that time the upgrade disabled almost all my extensions (and I've only got a dozen of them) while adding a very Aerovista feeling to the entire thing. And it has also removed the statusbar replacing with a Chrome-derived «hovering address cloud».

So I've reverted back to Firefox 3.6.

However, it's a tough challenge to be a web developer and use an outdated browser even if it supports all the things you need like Firebug and the likes. And it was really slow and picking on my nerves any time I switched between Firefox and Iron or Firefox and Opera while testing page layout.

Luckily for me it seems the critical period is over for us old-school Firefox users – there are now a handful of extensions to bring back the familiar feeling.

Let's carry on.

My extensions

1. Firebug – the right hand of any webdeveloper
2. Firecookie for viewing cookie information on a separate Firebug tab and outputting console info messages
3. Firepicker for color selection in Firebug's CSS props
4. FireRainbow for highlighting code on Firebug's Scenario tab
5. HTML Validator – the name speaks for itself; features a nice statusbar green/yellow/red bulb
6. HTTP Logout – logs you out of HTTP Unauthorized sessions; I wonder why browsers don't feature this by default
7. ImgLikeOpera (see below for upgrading) – AdBlock for nerds
8. Extended Cookie Manager (disabled in FF 3.6+) – AdBlock for privacy-obsessed geeks
9. NoScript – AdBlock for dummies
10. Live HTTP Headers – another webdeveloper's must-have
11. Speed Dial – Opera-style not-so-blank startup tab
12. Status-4-Evar – gimme back the status bar!
13. Add to Search Bar – a new replacement for old OpenSearchFox plugin that let you add items to the search bar (with Google, Wikipedia, etc.) with a single click
14. Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4+ – not really an extension but nevertheless essential

Good news for me was that all of the above except for Extended Cookie Manager (which is mainly handy when you're setting up a new profile anyway) have up-to-date versions compatible with the latest Firefox and once you're upgrading the latter all of them will automatically upgrade too.

The only glitch was with ImgLikeOpera which for some reason didn't upgrade on its own and I thought it was abandoned as it was for several last years; however, a bit of searching has led me not to its homepage which has versions for Firefox 3.6 and below but to the Mozilla Add-ons page which features ImgLikeOpera 0.6.21 that's compatible with latest Firefox-es.

Making matte

Now that I've got my extensions back (and better – look at the new Firebug!) the task was to take off all those bells and whistles introduced by Firefox 4. Good news again (that's what I meant by «critical period») – there are both themes and extensions to make this happen.

I have a laptop and a desktop PC and I went two ways to achieve the classic look & feel:

1. On a laptop with its 1280×800 I often need more vertical room to read text or view images; for this I have installed Classic Compact theme and its companion extension that lets you customize how exactly compact your toolbars and tabs are and how various buttons looks like (featuring styles from most previous Firefox versions and platforms).
2. On a desktop PC with its 1600×1200 (or 1200×1600 when pivoted) I don't need such fancy so I've simply installed the «Firefox 3 theme for Firefox 4+» and it did the job quite well – all I had to do thereafter was to make tabs go back under the toolbar, not above it.
   • Soon enough I've become nervous from the absence of the status bar with its page load progressbar and extension icons such as NoScript's and Firebug's; I've looked the web and guess what I've found? Status-4-Evar extension that brings the old status bar back! And even more – you can flexibly customize it. It also adds a nice «progress bar» to something once called Awesome bar (I'm unsure if it's still called so, though – they've even removed the ▼-arrow, apparently to conserve space on 24" displays).

That's it. If you have comments or just a few words to say – the form below is at your service :)