Internet custom styles

Most websites are not designed with the tablets in mind. They may have a very stripped down 'mobile' version that lacks certain features, usually accessed by a specific link on the page (list of useful mobile websites), a version specific for the iPhone/iPod Touch, and a regular version that does not fit on the tablet's screen. Below are some ways to make the regular version more usable and to access the iPhone version.

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[edit] Customizing userContent.css

With MicroB, Just like with Firefox, you can customize the way the browser displays websites by changing the file userContent.css in the user profile folder. This can be used to force web pages to fit on the Internet Tablet screen. This is similar to the "fit to screen" option in Microb, but may look better in some cases. It also has the added benefit of having site-specific customizations. Forum member Brontide has collected various tips here. Editing this file requires basic command line skills.

[edit] Greasemonkey extension

The Greasemonkey extension for Microb allows even more customizations. Besides changing the way a website looks using style sheets you can change the way a website works, by running custom javascripts in the browser. There are many ready made scripts you can install.

[edit] 'Stylish' extension

With some work the Stylish extension for Firefox can be used in Microb. This extension basically does what is described in the the 'Customizing usercontent' section above, only with an easy GUI. Using this you can install ready-made customizations. For a how-to see this forum post.

[edit] Using a proxy

A proxy is a program that sits between your webbrowser and a website, and filters or changes the content. This way ads can be blocked, and any website can be turned into low-bandwidth/mobile version even if they don't support it on their own. A proxy can either be running locally on your Internet Tablet, such as Privoxy (see: Ad blocking), or on a different computer. Here are some free proxy servers running on a different computer that you can try:

[edit] Accessing iPhone versions of websites

It is possible to change the 'user-agent string' of the browser. This is what the browser uses to identify its type to a website. Websites usually detect this to decide which version to show. If you let the browser identify itself as iPhone you will see the iPhone version, if it exists. To do so make two bookmarks and copy this in the 'Address' field of the first one:

about:config?prefname=general.useragent.override&prefvalue=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28N8x0+like+iPhone%3B+U%3B+Linux+like+Mac+OS+X%3B+ARM%3B+en%29+AppleWebKit%2F420%2B+%28Gecko%2C+like+KHTML%29

and this in the 'Address' field of the other one:

about:config?prefname=general.useragent.override&prefvalue=Mozilla%2F5.0+%28X11%3B+U%3B+Linux+armv6l%3B+en-US%3B+rv%3A1.9a6pre%29+Gecko%2F20070807+Firefox%2F3.0a1+Tablet+browser+0.1.16+RX-34%2BRX-34_2008SE_2.2007.50-2

Note: To make these lines fit in the wiki they are broken up into several lines, but they should each be on one line.

Use the first bookmark then to put Microb into 'iPhone' mode and the other to restore the default setting.