Greasemonkey

Customize webpages

Greasemonkey is an extension which lets you run bits of code, known as "user scripts", on any web page in order to change its appearance or behavior.

Why would anyone want to do this? Here are a few examples:

• Sometimes URLs are written in plain text (for example on forums), and you have to copy and paste them into the location bar. So how about making all URLs on a webpage clickable?
• If you have a Google AdSense account, it's forbidden to click on your own ads so wouldn't it to nice to prevent yourself and other people that use your computer from clicking on your own ads?
• Or maybe you just want to easily download YouTube videos to own computer? So add a download link.

To use Greasemonkey, you need to run Firefox and install the Greasemonkey extension.

Then install the user scripts that you want to use. For the examples mentioned above you could:

• Make all urls clickable.
• Prevent accidental clicks on your own AdSense ads. (read details)
• Download YouTube videos to your own PC. (read details)

Or you could:

• Search through the repository of user scripts at Userscripts.org.
• Learn to write your own.

It's easy to activate or deactivate Greasemonkey by simply clicking on the monkey face at the bottom of your browser. However you can also just activate or deactivate individual user scripts through the menu that appears when you "left-click" on the monkey face. The menu will show the user scripts that are active on a particular site (the sample menu below shows the user scripts, from our examples, that are active on YouTube: "Linkify" and "YouTube to me").

Further reading:

• Greasespot - Official Greasemonkey homepage and blog.
• Dive into Greasemonkey - Learn more about Greasemonkey.
• Userscripts.org - Search the repository of Greasemonkey scripts.

 

If you found this review helpful, you can vote for it in the Firefox add-ons review contest.

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For bug reports, requests or other reasons,
contact me by E-mail: otto2003(at)de-voogd(dot)com