In recent posts, I mentioned that due to a problem running Flash on IE 8 after an update, I made Chrome my default browser so it would be the one to open when I click links in email messages from friends who often send YouTube videos that require Flash (and no, I don’t ever click such links unless they are from folks I know well and who use good security and the accompanying text is obviously something that person would write).

I got mail from several readers with suggestions on how to fix the problem in IE8. I’ve tried some of those and so far none have worked, but there is one more that I will try this weekend. Thanks to everyone who attempted to help with that.

I also received numerous messages from people who are fans of Firefox or Opera, who tried to persuade me that I should have chosen one of those browsers instead of Chrome. I had outlined in a previous post my reasons for the choice. As I wrote before, the real “deal breaker” for me with the other two browsers was the fact that they didn’t have a “Send Mail” link that would invoke Outlook, and Chrome did.

Fixing Firefox

Adam R. was the one who gave me a fix for that, along with other tweaks that turned Firefox into my new default browser. His advice:

“For something similar in Firefox, create a bookmark in the bookmark toolbar with the following location:

javascript:location.href=’mailto:?SUBJECT=’+document.title+’&BODY=’+escape(location.href);”

And I also found an easy way to do that. This link refers to OS X and Safari, but never mind that. Just drag the link in the grey box to the Bookmarks bar in Firefox 3, rename it from “This link” to “Send Mail” and you have a one-click way to send a link via Outlook (or, I presume, your other default email client):
http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20030326060534191 

 
Now I have a “SEND” button on the Firefox favorites bar

 
Clicking my SEND button invokes Outlook’s “compose mail” window with a link to the current page already inserted

Taking it to the Opera

After a little tweaking, I also got it to work in Opera, although not as elegantly as with FF. I had the same problem as with IE; I couldn’t drag it to the toolbar. I tried to right click it and save as a bookmark in the Links folder, but that didn’t work this time. So then I tried actually clicking the link and then dragging the URL from the address bar to the Links toolbar. That did create a link on the toolbar.

At first, though, it only invoked Opera’s own built in mail program. Luckily, you can change that in the Tools | Preferences dialog box. Click the Advanced tab, then the Programs choice in the left pane, then click “mailto” and the Edit button. Here you can tell Opera to open the mailto command with your default email client instead of with Opera, or even set it to open with another application.

Unfortunately, with this method, clicking the SEND link moves your browser to the javascript page and you have to click the Back button to get to the original page whose link you just sent via email.

Buttoning up IE8

This method also works with IE 8, but there’s an easier way. You can right click a toolbar, click Customize, and then Add/Remove Commands. In the left pane, there are icons for “Send Link by Email” and for “Send Page by Email.” Just highlight the one you want and click the Add button.

The only annoying aspect with IE’s button is that when you send a link, it’s not activated (clickable) unless you click at the end of it and add a space.

You can add buttons to IE8 that will send the link or the page via your default email client

Summary

I still have a gripe with Mozilla and the makers of Opera. It would have been very easy for them to put this button on the toolbar themselves (either by default, or as an option in the toolbar customization tool). And it’s not especially easy to find out how to add it in IE, either. I suspect many people who email lots of links are using Chrome solely or primarily for that feature.

Once you get the button/link into Firefox, it works better than in IE (where you have to put a space after the link to activate it) or Opera (where you have to click the Back button to get back to the page whose link you just sent) and identically to Chrome, where Google did that particular thing exactly right.

Anyway, A great big thank you to Adam, and I will write about some of the other tweaks he gave me for Firefox, as well as some ways to make all four browsers better, in next week’s VistaNews. Meanwhile, for the moment I’m firing up the Fox when I need to view Flash pages.

For the record, I still prefer IE 8 slightly and will probably return to it if and when the Flash problem is resolved, but with the configuration changes I’m discovering (mostly with Adam’s help), I like FF far more than I used to (and lots better than IE 7).

deb@shinder.net