

Joe Hewitt, one of the initial developers of Firebug, tapped this level of access to create a debugging platform to watch what happens when the browser loads a page. Developers can write plug-ins using simple JavaScript, or they can plumb the depths of data structures using C++. Net, rendering non-.Net programmers, such as Barnabe, less likely to port their plug-ins across all browsers.įirefox, on the other hand, offers various ways to access browser data.
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IE, for example, welcomes code written for. Programming language also plays a role in what developers offer. IE has changed dramatically over the past few years, Barnabe says, and the documentation for the earlier versions doesn't help with the newer versions. "Chrome only lets you into certain things - and while the things you get are useful, it does stifle the possibilities."īarnabe's attempts to rewrite Stylish for IE demonstrates another limiting factor developers face when it comes to coding plug-ins: browser upgrades that break with the past. "In Firefox, extensions get the same interfaces and level of access as the Firefox UI does, so they can do pretty much anything: access data like cookies and preferences, modify settings, change behaviour," says Barnabe, who is one of the developers of the Stylish plug-in for Firefox and Chrome. As such, far fewer options for customizing Safari are available.ĭepth of access plays a significant role in developers' ability to customize browsers as well, as plug-in developer Jason Barnabe notes.


Apple, on the other hand, opened up Safari only recently. Among the first to open up its API, Firefox still offers the most complete API for programmers to navigate, boasting the widest variety of add-ons. Step 1 to a better Web browser: Know your platformīrowsers differ greatly in their openness to being improved. The process works smoothly - most of the time.Īnyone looking to make their browser faster, more functional, or just plain prettier can do so by following these seven steps to a richer Web experience. And there's little reason to worry about the mechanism itself. In most cases, one click starts the process. What's great about these additional blocks of code and images is that they're usually packaged for easy installation. For Internet Explorer, they're add-ons for Opera, widgets on Chrome, extensions will do the trick, as they will on Safari Firefox is so open that you can customize your experience via add-ons, extensions, jetpacks, personas, plug-ins, and themes. All the major browsers make such customizations easy, though each employs a different mechanism and uses different labels for each one. For the most part, however, sucking down text and rendering HTML, even as the breadth of computing activity in the browser has increased, make most browsing experiences similar, regardless of the frame in which you surf.Įnter the browser hack - mechanisms by which users can customize their Web experience and tweak the performance of their browser of choice. True, subtle differences in features, flexibility, and performance set some browsers ahead of the pack for particular uses. With ubiquity comes a measure of uniformity - such is the plight of the modern Web browser.
