Firefox to IE7 look - tutorial

[fediafedia]

OK, I think we all use firefox, and newer IE7, because firefox is faster,safer, more reliable and more expendable then any browser present these days. But we are customizing everything right? This is a tutorial on how to perfectly make firefox look like vista. Why? Because we want a vista look in our XP, and because the skin to be used - is one of the most popular and most efficient of all. Also i wanted to share with you guys the best addons and settings I use...

You can see in the preview typical screenshot of Internet Explorer in Vista, and pimped firefox! Some similarities there huh?

Step 1:

:download: Download FireFox(5.7 MB) Every computer must have firefox installed - is it a mac, or linux or PC!

Step 2:

Once you installed firefox, you will see the default theme, but no tabs - go to Tools>Options>Tabs and check the "Always show the tab bar"

Step 3:

The most important thing - download and install Vista Aero skin , once you installed it - go to Tools>Add-ons>Themes and select to use Vista-Aero - restart firefox.

Step 4:

You will see the new look, once you restarted firefox, but this is not enough for a vista feeling, follow next steps to make firefox even more closer to IE7

Step 5:

Right-click menubar and select "customize" - then just drag and drop the elements that you don't need from firefox to the window, or those that you need - from the window to firefox. I recommend just leaving navigation bar, search bar, and bookmarks.

Step 6:

Download and install Personal Menu and myFireFox & Vista-aero Modifier. With personal menu - you can right-click the menubar and select to hide it! You can always unhide the menubar by right-clicking areas near navigation panel and deselecting hide menubar.

myFireFox & Vista-aero Modifier is the perfect addon for this theme - You can simply click on tools on the right top side, and select theme settings - from there you can customize the theme.

Step 7:

Optional addons:

Firefox Showcase - allows you to see all open pages thumbnails when pressing the showcase (4 squares) button integrated in Vista-Aero theme.

Firesomething - a great addon for firefox - it allows to change the window title - for eg Windows Internet Explorer instead of Mozilla firefox, there are other funny integrated names - like "Mozilla Firebadger" and "Mozilla Poweroyster"

And that's it! With the add-ons mentioned above you'll have perfect IE7 Firefox!

You can download alot more useful addons - here are few that I recommend:

Dictionaries

These addons allow to have a spell-checking sequences in firefox when typing - very useful, and supports almost every language!

Fasterfox - just amazing addon - it speeds up firefox very much - pages load in seconds:

Internet Explorer loading it's own home page: ~6 secs

Firefox with FasterFox addon loading Internet Explorer homepage: ~2 secs

I chose IE7 homepage - because I think it's very overcrowded with useless eyecandy (m$ fails again) - and perfect for testing (other pages like DA load instantly on firefox)

AdBlock plus - this adblocker can block any annoying add (especially flash ads, that are heavy to load for some connections)! And it saves settings for websites - when you come back - the ads are gone.

FoxyTunes - very nice music player - the controls are integrated in the statusbar - so no extra space is needed.

The addons do not slow down firefox, I personally have about 12 add-ons - and no affect on the browsing experience! But if you install too much add-ons - firefox may slow down...

More firefox related tutorials and news:

Pimp Firefox for the best DeviantArt experience!

=mozilla on DeviantArt

Comments and suggestions are welcome!

Note: real Internet Explorer from Vista Ultimate was used during the development of this tutorial, but i assure you that I used it for no more then 4 minutes (security and reasons) I always use firefox!

[weEvil]

This is sweet. I like the new explorer interface, but not the bloat.

Don't care if it looks like IE on the surface, what matters is that its Firefox at the core!

[spacesurfer]

Here's another called myFirefox.

This one and Vista Aero are probably the two best IE7 look-a-like skins. Very well done.