Greasemonkey

One of the main reasons Firefox is popular, is because of it’s extension system. Firefox still can’t compete with Maxthon when it comes to features. But, an extension like Greasemonkey makes a strong case.
Greasemonkey is a FF extension that lets users change the functionality of a site by installing scripts. So, the content providers no longer have an absolute say in how their content is consumed. For example, the Customizegoogle site has combined a number of scripts written by many people and allows the installation of one script which results in a number of improvements, like bringing the Suggest feature to the normal search page and adding a ‘Delete’ button to the Gmail interface (Gmail really needed that one), and many others. The script repository has many many more very useful scripts and the contributions are pouring in. A separate site for the management of scripts is also in the works.
I thought it would be great to write a user script. But, I’m still learning Javascript, and so I took the easy way out and modified an existing script to skip all the ads on the ad-farm Indiatimes.com
Ad-block already does that pretty effectively, but the script is more generic. You can get the script here.
The best part is, I started a thread on the Forums, and some talented guy is almost ready with a like plugin for Maxthon.

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 14th, 2005 at 12:53 am and is filed under Browsers, Google, Interesting, Web. You can follow any comments to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

  • Zeroglif
  • Firefox has more features and more extensions/plugins.

    Out of the box, Maxthon does have more features than Firefox. Many extensions need to be installed before FF can become as usable as Maxthon, at least to me.

    They never did.
    Consumers have never had the freedom that they do now, and it's only going to get better.

    G. has a strict stance against false positives.

    Agree with you on that, but, it depends on how the script is implemented too doesn't it?
  • P.
    "One of the main reasons Firefox is popular, is because of it's extension system."

    One of the reasons.

    "Firefox still can't compete with Maxthon when it comes to features."

    Looks like you have that backwards. Firefox has more features and more extensions/plugins. And does Maxthon support Linux or Mac? Nope.

    "So, the content providers no longer have an absolute say in how their content is consumed."

    They never did.

    "The script repository has many many more very useful scripts and the contributions are pouring in."

    Hardly, though I expect there will be improvement.

    "Ad-block already does that pretty effectively, but the script is more generic."

    G. has a strict stance against false positives.
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