Extension Watch: Make Firefox netbook-friendly with Meerkat

Productivity Sauce

You can optimize Firefox for use with your netbook by manually tweaking the browser's settings. But why bother when the Meerkat extension can do the donkey job for you? Once installed, Meerkat performs a few optimization tricks that reclaim valuable screen estate. According to the developer, the extension frees up about 60 pixels. This may not sound like much, but 60 pixels make a big difference on the netbook screen where every pixel counts. So how does Meerkat do its magic? First of all, the extension hides the status bar when there is no browser activity. It also replaces the main toolbar with a single menu button and reduces the navigation bar icon size. That's pretty much it. Before you install the extension, though, you should restore Firefox's toolbars to their default layout; otherwise Meerkat may refuse to work. In Firefox, choose View -> Toolbars -> Customize and press the Restore Default Set button.