LifeDev

So, I’ve been digging the Firefox 2.0 RC2 somethin’ fierce. I read Gina’s review of the latst release candidte and I had to give it a whirl. It’s got a better designed interface, it appears to be much faster, and… wait for it… built in spell checking. (That last feature alone sold me.) The only problem: A slew of my extensions aren’t compatible yet, and they’re vital for my job. So, unfortunately I was going to have to switch back to the the previous version.

Until I talked to Thomas.

Thomas told me that for some extensions, you can just make one small fix to the code and it should become compatible with the latest version. So, I tried it out on my favorite extension: Aardvark. It worked! Here’s how I did it.

CAUTION: TRY THIS AT YOUR OWN RISK

Some extensions might go a little nutty, and might even crash your browser or computer. Only do try this method if you are daring and would sit on a public toilet without a layer of toilet paper between you and the seat.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

1. Download the plugin, and change the extension’s file type from .xpi to .zip.

2. Open the zip file and look for something like “install.rdf” or “setup.rdf”. The key is the .rdf.

3. Open the .rdf file in your favorite text editor.

4. Look for the line . Once you find it, change the max version number to “2.0″.

5. Save the file, and re-zip the contents of the old folder.

6. Now, this step is a little tricky. You have to change the extension of the file from .zip back to .xpi. I wasn’t able to do this on my desktop, so I had to upload the entire zip file onto my webserver via ftp, change the filename there, and download back to my desktop.

7. Once you have renamed the file to xpi, open up Firefox, open up the add-ons file, and and drag the updated extension to the add-ons browser.

8. Restart your browser, and see if the extension works.

Hopefully your new and updated extension will be working swimmingly along with the kickin’ new Firefox 2.0. If it doesn’t, don’t say I didn’t warn you. :)

Thanks again Thomas!