With Firefox 2.0, many good things came. Among them are spell checker, anti phising, better tabs and so on (insert your favorite here)… Alas, it also broke two of my favorites extensions: OpenDownload and Tab Mix Plus (well, tab mix plus is now compatible). I used Tab Mix Plus for only one thing: open a tab for every search, bookmark or address I type in. So I searched for a easier method to do that. First, let’s fix the searchbar. Fireup configuration by typing about:config in the address bar, then search for « browser.search.openintab » in the list. If it does exists (it should), change it for « true » instead of false. Now every search opens up a new tab. Ahh, much better !

Unfortunately, people at Mozilla did not include the same option for bookmarks and address bar (I wonder why ? That’s not that hard). So we will have to use another option: userChrome.js extension. It’s the same type of customizing than userChrome.css, but with javascript instead of css. Cool ! Ok, install it (from the link above) and create a new file named userChrome.js (in your profile chrome directory, usually in C:\Documents and Settings\yourusername\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles\xxxx.default\chrome – you can get more information on your profile directory at the mozilla website.) with the following content:

/*======= Open urlbar's/bookmarks in new fg tab or in current tab if it's blank =======*/
eval("BrowserLoadURL = " + BrowserLoadURL.toString().replace("e;", "$& if ((gBrowser.currentURI.spec != 'about:blank' || gBrowser.webProgress.isLoadingDocument) && (!aTriggeringEvent.altKey)) { var tab = gBrowser.addTab(); gBrowser.selectedTab = tab; }"));
eval("BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark = " + BookmarksCommand.openOneBookmark.toString().replace("open", "if ((gBrowser.currentURI.spec != 'about:blank' || gBrowser.webProgress.isLoadingDocument) && (aTargetBrowser != 'window' && aTargetBrowser != 'tab' && aTargetBrowser != 'tabshifted')) { var tab = gBrowser.addTab(); gBrowser.selectedTab = tab; } $&"));

Or you can download mine here.

Moreover, there are more little customization that allows you to create your firefox without tons of extensions. Vote for this extension to be included in the browser ! For example, you can open your tab to the right of the current tab. Oh, and you can probably uninstall Tab Mix Plus too :-).
Now, let’s start the hard part : OpenDownload. First, the OpenDownload extension is not compatible with Firefox 2.0, so grab the compatible-made one here. Do a tight-click->Save As… and then drag and drop from the saved location onto Firefox 2.0. Ok, installed ! Now, we only need a little modification in one of the Firefox files. This file is located in your Firefox install folder, not your profile folder. Usually this is « C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\ ».
Find this block of code :

if (shouldntRememberChoice && noDefaultApp) {
https://www.x2b4.com/ hide featured choice
this.mDialog.document.getElementById("normalBox").collapsed = true;

And change the last true to false. Here is the already modified version. Do not forget to do a backup before modifying ! If it does not work and you’ve broke your firefox, reinstall it. Voilà ! Now you can finally open executables directly (having 100+ temporary executables on my desktop is not one of my biggest dream).

Happy hacking !