It's wild that it's taken this long, and it still requires some fussing around by the user to enable the feature (for now), but at least it's here. And with it we can make the smoothest Google declutterer of all! Previous iterations here: Because everything in the universe is dumb by default, you first need… Continue reading Firefox finally supports custom search engines
Category: Tech
Get a damned dashcam already!
You ever come across a traffic jam caused by people who were in a small accident and then left their rides in the road? They're endangering themselves and others and causing traffic issues by blocking a lane or three. What are they even doing? Well, they want to preserve the "crime scene", so to speak,… Continue reading Get a damned dashcam already!
Declutter your favorite online shops with uBlock Origin
One of the many ways to leverage uBO is to manually block annoying elements on sites you frequent. Take, for instance, the following single-product page from opticsplanet.com. Amidst all the information you want, there's a bunch of up-selling nonsense that can be removed to greatly simply the page down to only what you want: information… Continue reading Declutter your favorite online shops with uBlock Origin
Stop using Dropbox to send phone photos to your laptop or desktop
There's a much simpler way to do it that doesn't involve a third-party corporation that probably gets half its money from selling user data¹ and the other half from providing a small amount of space and trying to upsell you more. Behold: LocalSend. It's a free and open-source application that makes it very quick and… Continue reading Stop using Dropbox to send phone photos to your laptop or desktop
Insert "special" characters in Windows slightly less horribly
Emojis are clearly so important to human discourse that there's not just one simple keyboard shortcut for them but two: and . But what about all the various international characters you might need to use every so often? On Macs you simply hold the key down and it prompts you with a tooltip to pick… Continue reading Insert "special" characters in Windows slightly less horribly
Use Task Scheduler to add admin-privilege startup items
Windows prevents things that need admin permissions from running with normal startup methods ⸺ like adding a shortcut to an app to the startup folder within the Start menu. To force it to happen anyway, you'll instead need to load up the Task Scheduler and create a task that runs the desired app with the… Continue reading Use Task Scheduler to add admin-privilege startup items
Smoother Google search results declutterer
But not that smooth since it kind of requires that you (a) use DuckDuckGo for searching to take advantage of their so-called bangs, (2) often add !g to those searches whenever you foresee bad results, and (d) that you install an extension. I previously posted a userscript-based solution for automatically sending you to Google's cleaner… Continue reading Smoother Google search results declutterer
Remind yourself to close that Twitter tab with CSS
It's hard to give up something you're addicted to. And with social media being specifically tuned to be as addictive as possible, replete with algorithms tuned to try to steal every waking moment of your life, you may need outside help to quit. Well, here's how you can create a constant reminder, however silly, that… Continue reading Remind yourself to close that Twitter tab with CSS
Screenshot individual website elements with your browser
Being so used to various "draw a box around this portion of your screen to capture it" tools, I didn't even notice browsers have started to offer this functionality directly. Navigate to the desired element in your browser's inspector in your preferred manner and then right-click it. One of the options will be to screenshot… Continue reading Screenshot individual website elements with your browser
Declutter and de-AI Google search results
Back in May of 2024, Google silently added a way to get back to a list of search results like things used to be. Forget AI. Google just created a version of its search engine free of all the extra junk it has added over the past decade-plus. All you have to do is add… Continue reading Declutter and de-AI Google search results
Can't paste in iCloud on a PC?
I can do copy and cut operations from icloud.com apps, so why not paste? Maybe that works for you, but you're tired of not being able to paste into certain login forms around the web. The solution in either case is simple: Don't paste your clipboard contents ⸺ replay it. First, you'll need AutoHotkey installed.… Continue reading Can't paste in iCloud on a PC?
Do you know who maintains your browser extensions?
Who maintains [your browser extensions]? Is it the same entity that maintained it when you first installed? Are you sure? I'm 100% sure you don't know these things, but you probably should! Because there's a dirty little (well, not so little) secret in the browser extension realm: Many people, maybe even most people, developing a… Continue reading Do you know who maintains your browser extensions?
Get a new IP address from Verizon Fios
Note: This process may be different depending on your router. I'm using the one Verizon gave me a few years ago, their Quantum Gateway (model G1100), because I'm too lazy and cheap to bother changing it out. It's just me and my cats in this house anyway, so what use do I have for a… Continue reading Get a new IP address from Verizon Fios
Dark mode for PDFs in Firefox
Firefox is unique in its handling of PDF files: it uses an open-source JavaScript-based viewer. This gives you a little more access to modify how a PDF is displayed than you'll get out of other browsers. Due to security concerns, however, your browser extensions that inject stuff into the current page aren't allowed to operate… Continue reading Dark mode for PDFs in Firefox