2007 Sep 17 - Mon
Debian's Firefox is Known as Ice Weasel, and breaks Google Toolbar
Ok, I might be behind the times somewhat, I havn't used Debian in workstation mode in a
while. To date, I've been using it substantially in console/server
mode. Today I found trying to get Firefox to run, while in workstation mode, to be an
'interesting' experience.
Using Debian's built-in browser, Konqueror, I went to www.getfirefox.com to download
Firefox.
The download worked fine, but figuring out how to install/run it was.., not possible.
A little web searching told me that due to some differences of opinion between MOzilla
and Debian, Debian has decided to do things a bit differently. With an
'apt-get install firefox', you get the latest software, but under a new name: IceWeasel.
All well and fine. Until I wanted to use the Google Toolbar.
It isn't possible to install the toolbar because Google checks the user agent string.
So... the trick is to change the user agent string. Put 'about:config' in the address bar.
You'll get a bunch of entries. To make it easier to find the needed one, put 'useragent' in
the filter line. In the line for 'general.useragent.extra.firefox', change 'iceweasel' to
'Firefox'. Restart firefox. The Google Toolbar is now available.
So in summary, don't download Firefox from the Mozilla web site. Instead, obtain the
Debian install package. A change to the useragent will be needed to make it 'more
compatible' with plugins and such.
The other plugin I use is FireBug with Firefox. This is a handy tool for troubleshooting
CSS and HTML code on a web page. Two cool things with FireBug: 1) as you pass over html
code, it's area on the web page is highlighted, and 2) you can edit HTML and CSS entries to
see their immediate results reflected in the browser. Installing this tool took one
trick... when downloading, do a 'run with' firefox. A new window will open allowing the
install to proceed.
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