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Simon Willison’s Weblog

How to install Mozilla on Bath University PCs

Since I’m using the University Library computers at the moment I’m having to reinstall Mozilla on a daily basis. Here’s how I do it:

  1. Download Mozilla 1.2 Alpha for Windows (11 MB), taking advantage of IE’s “Run this program from its current location” option to minimise the time spent using that browser
  2. In Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Proxies select Automatic proxy configuration URL, enter http://www.bath.ac.uk/proxy/netscape.config and hit the “reload” button (this gets Mozilla working with the Bath Uni proxy server)
  3. Install the excellent Orbit 3m skin
  4. Install the gesture recognition plugin from Optimoz
  5. Select Orbit 3m from the View->Apply Theme menu
  6. Restart Mozilla (to apply the skin change and enable gestures)
  7. Edit->Preferences->Advanced->Mouse Gestures and set “Make mouse gesture with” to “Right mouse button” (that way gestures will not interfere with dragging over text to select it)
  8. In Preferences->Navigator->Tabbed Browsing, check all of the options. This lets me load links in the background in a new tab just by middle-clicking on them.
  9. Ctrl+B to bring up the bookmark manager, then File->New->Bookmark to add the only bookmark I ever need: http://www.google.com/search?q=%s. Once added, I right click the new bookmark, bring up the Properties dialog and set the Keyword to “gg”. I can then search for things on Google by typing “gg search terms” straight in to the Mozilla URL bar.
  10. Finally, Preferences->Advanced->Scripts & Plugins and uncheck the “Open unrequested windows” option to kill popups

The above usually takes about 5 minutes but is well worth the time spent if I’m planning to use the library computers for more than half an hour. There’s probably a way of automating it all (I heard rumours that Hixie has a script to install the whole lot whenever he logs in) but I’m hoping to have a connection at home again within a couple of weeks.

Posted 24th September 2002 at 1:56 pm

This is How to install Mozilla on Bath University PCs by Simon Willison, posted on 24th September 2002.

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10 comments

  1. I did indeed have a script. I'm afraid I deleted it though. It was pretty simple, it just used ftp to download mozilla-win32-talkback.zip, then unzipped it using the command line zip tools on G:, then appended the proxy config to the relevant file, and ran mozilla. Easy peasy. I had it set up with a s.pif file on H:\ so all I had to do was press WIN-R H : S ENTER and it installed it for me (along with some other stuff like changing the resolution, installing my Exceed config file, etc.)

    Ian Hickson - 24th September 2002 15:02 - #

  2. I'm not really sure where to look, but here's what I'm looking for. In IE I use the Yahoo toolbar, which houses my bookmarks (essentially the only reason I use it - although I do have a yahoo email account as well). This way, my bookmarks are the same between work and home. Is there something similar in Mozilla? Where I can grab the bookmarks from a central server? Preferably if I could access the links through the toolbar as well. Mozilla has a lot of features I love, but this is the one thing that keeps me from using it regularly.

    kyle - 24th September 2002 15:37 - #

  3. I'm not really sure where to look, but here's what I'm looking for. In IE I use the Yahoo toolbar, which houses my bookmarks (essentially the only reason I use it - although I do have a yahoo email account as well). This way, my bookmarks are the same between work and home. Is there something similar in Mozilla? Where I can grab the bookmarks from a central server? Preferably if I could access the links through the toolbar as well. Mozilla has a lot of features I love, but this is the one thing that keeps me from using it regularly. (Note: the 'central server' doesn't have to be Yahoo, I could always transfer the links)

    kyle - 24th September 2002 15:38 - #

  4. There are several bookmark related projects listed on www.mozdev.org - at least one of these is related to centralised bookmark storage. However, of the ones I have looked at none seemed to be quite what I was after. I too would love to have some way of centralising my Mozilla bookmarks, even if it were only a one-way system where Mozilla loads a bookmarks file from the web whenever it loads up and bookmarks have to be added using a bookmarklet or web based interface.

    Simon Willison - 24th September 2002 16:56 - #

  5. Yep, that's all I'm looking for too. I'll take a look at mozdev.org. If I find something interesting I'll let you know. Thanks.

    kyle - 24th September 2002 19:18 - #

  6. One could write a simple links manager that could be used as a Mozilla sidebar. Oh, do you think that could be done with incDirectory, Simon ? :) I'll have to take a look at your script and build a front-end that could fit in a sidebar, if it's possible.

    michel v - 25th September 2002 01:38 - #

  7. I wish my school would give us enough room on our computers to be able to install Moz. As it is, the only way you can run exes that they haven't specifically allowed is through ones they have (eg use a button in a powerpoint slideshow), and even once you do that, only browsers that they've approved are able to access the proxy server. :(

    Lach - 25th September 2002 02:47 - #

  8. Lach, have you tried using a spoofed user-agent string for Mozilla ?

    michel v - 25th September 2002 18:06 - #

  9. Hmmm, why do you use custom keywords to do a Google search? You can just type some words in your location bar when you set your Internet Search thingamajig preference to Google. Unless you use another engine more, I would use Google as my main search engine and use custom keywords for others (e.g. Bugzilla, Google Image Search, Merriam-Webster, ...)

    Jan! - 26th September 2002 10:32 - #

  10. i have installed mouse gestures from mozilla site. i can use the standard functions. But i wan to add some more functions( eg. to load google just by drawing a G on screen). That site has given an example to add function which loads ESPN site by drawing E. But that doesn't work. Can u help me or tell me names of any other sites which can tell me how to add customized functions to gestures...

    JYO - 2nd February 2003 14:08 - #

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