Firefox is my favorite browser. The biggest reason for this is its repository of useful plugins. The only problem which I see in its default installation is the screen usage. With this I mean, Firefox wastes a lot of screen real estate in unnecessary menus, buttons. The good news is that it also provides flexibility to customize its overall look and feel.
I have to tried to optimize my Firefox, and I am pretty happy with the new look. It gives more space for webpage. More emphasis on stuff that is important.
Previous Look
New Look
Changes
In new look there are following changes:
- Hide Menu Bar : As I have seen from my usage I don't really access menus. I simply use its keyboard shortcuts. So it is actually not needed for me.
- Show Small Icons : Fairly decent visibility for buttons even when they are smal.
- Place Firebug and Web Developer buttons before search bar : Being a web developer these two plugins are my best friends. So, I have kept their button on the top bar.
- Hide Status bar : After placing Firebug in top bar I realized there is no need for a status bar. I only use it to access Firebug.
- Hide Web-Developer Toolbar : After placing Web Developer Icon in top bar I realized there is no need for a separate menu bar. I can always simple show/hide it on clicking this button.
Analysis
I have reclaimed 75px from Firefox for my Web Pages. Initially webpage client area was 581px now it is 656px.
I really liked these changes in my browser. Hope you'll also like them.
Doing that for years now, but with tiny menu extension.
http://img189.imageshack.us/img189/4969/shrunk.png
I too am doing this with some about:config tweaks and tinymenu extensions. I dragged the bookmark toolbar in to Menu bar.
I wrote about a similar thing in 2007 http://chanux.wordpress.com/2007/01/16/firefox-almost-full-screen/ (Bit old and a bit messy
)
Anyway, Nice that you shared
s/about:config/userChrome
heh, i just realized these features the other day. personally, i think hiding the status bar is not a good idea. it always contains important navigational information.
i did the same with opera: http://my.opera.com/mastar2323/blog/2009/12/04/minimal-opera-3
the only thing I dont like is hiding the status bar, in web dev you use that to see what link is going where? Its a small thing, but I use that a lot checking links and urls before clicking on thing….
Instead of removing the menu you can use “Tiny Menu”:
https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/1455
Hate to nit-pick but you have _reclaimed_ 75px not _acclaimed_
Firefox is popular not only because of the plugins (which is massive) and the changes you can make to the look and feel but also because of the tweaks you can make to improve surfing speed. That is a big plus in my book.