Back when I was a Firefox user on Windows I used an extension called IE View. The simple idea behind it was to right-click on a link within Firefox and be able to open it in Internet Explorer. There’s also an OperaView extension which does the same thing for Opera, which is a lot more practical for people who have made a decision to use an OS other than Windows.
Now that Google’s Chrome (as well as the open source Chromium project, which is what I’m using to write this and has lead me to refer to this browser as Chrom[e|ium]) is so popular someone’s come out with an extension to let you open a link in Chrom[e|ium] from within Firefox. There’s just one problem. Sometimes you’re on a site and you want to use an extension that is only available in Firefox, such as DownThemAll! (DTA) I ran into this when I found a site with wallpapers for the EarthHour project.
Right now I have to snag the URI, open Firefox, and then paste the URI into the Firefox location bar to get the benefit of DTA on the site. What a pain in the arse. Can someone help make a Chrom[e|ium] extension to give us this flexibility? People are finding that Firefox doesn’t “float their boat” anymore and Chrom[e|ium] is a great alternative for them, but some of us have to keep the fox around just to be able to use some of their favorite Fx extensions. An extension to open a link in Firefox from within Chrom[e|ium] would be a very popular addon.
What about the Epiphany browser? I’m definitely falling out of love with it since they killed the Gecko version, but that’s the subject of another post, which I’ll hopefully be able to write this weekend.
31 January 2010 at 7:50 pm
We’ve been awaiting Google’s web browser’s widgets for forever. In a day I have tested 8 of them and am plesantly surprised with it. Mozilla Firefox has always lagged & changes are more stable than FF.
9 February 2010 at 11:50 am
I’d like an “Open in Firefox” Chrome extension too.
17 February 2010 at 9:43 am
Me too!
12 March 2010 at 5:28 pm
This would make my life alot simpler. Not sure why it hasn’t been done yet because there is obviously demand for it.
13 March 2010 at 9:58 am
I suspect it’s to the point where users are simply waiting for someone to write the extension. Unfortunately with all the work going into getting [Chrome]Chromium] bugs fixed and other extensions coded the current pool of coders may simply not have the time to see what has to be written.
22 March 2010 at 8:58 am
If you’re on a Mac, you can simply drag any link and any URL from your address bar on a Firefox icon in your dock. This will open the referred page in a new tab.
Still, this doesn’t allow multiple URL handling. I wish there was a “Copy URLs of all tabs / Open URLs from clipboard” extension for Chrome – just like the “Copy All URLs” or “MultipleTabHandler” for FF. Oh so useful!
22 March 2010 at 9:31 am
You can do that on GNU/Linux as well (since the bug got fixed) but if the Fox isn’t open you first have to open it to drag the link. For what I suspect is how most [Chrome|Chromium] users have their systems set up, we don’t keep Fx open or even have a launcher on our desktop so just being able to drag a link to it doesn’t do us that much good.
The way the Fx addon works is that if Chromium or IE (or Opera) isn’t open it will open the app with the link.
Thanks for the good comment. Some of our readers may not know you can do that.
22 March 2010 at 9:32 am
Really wish that would work in Windows 7!
[Rich's URI was removed from his comment because it looked like comment spam. But we did want to approve what looks like a very valid comment. -Peng]
22 March 2010 at 9:43 am
If there’s a problem with dragging links in Win7 please file a bug report so the devs can get it fixed. Granted, it may be a case of Win7 doing things just a little too differently than earlier versions.
That’s just a guess since I don’t use anything newer than XP, and I only use XP in a VM because an app won’t work under Wine.