I have to admit that I am a person that NEEDS the status bar to be there at all times even though it can be disabled. When it comes to the Windows operating system, one of the first settings that I’ll change is to enable the Status bar by pressing pressing Alt+V (opens the View menu) in Explorer and click on the Status Bar to activate it. The same thing goes for web browsers such as Internet Explorer and Firefox. If you haven’t noticed, recently the Status bar feature is considered to be obsolete because it is taking up unnecessary space even though it’s only 25 pixels high. The Status bar is not enabled by default in Windows 7 and even on the latest Internet Explorer 9. As for Windows 7, since the Details pane is enabled by default, there is no reason to have the status bar anymore.
In fact, you can’t even find a permanent status bar in Google Chrome and in Mozilla Firefox versions 4 and above. The permanent status bar in Firefox has been changed to show and hide when it is needed. For example when you move your mouse to a link, a temporary status bar shows the URL of the link that the mouse is hovered on, then hides away when you move your mouse away from the link. According to Firefox developers, the Status bar has been replaced with the Add-On bar which can be enabled from View > Toolbars > Add-On bar or press the hotkey left Ctrl+/. When the Add-on bar is enabled, it shows the small icons of add-ons that you have installed in Firefox. However when you move the mouse cursor to a link, the URL temporarily shows up on top of the add-on bar, not inside the add-on bar.
I’ve received an email from someone asking me if I know of a way to restore back the missing permanent status bar in Firefox 4+. If you’re also someone who would like to see the old status bar back, fortunately there is an easy way to do it without hacking the core of Firefox.
All you need to do is install the Firefox Add-on called Status-4-Evar which will bring back some of the old status bar items, giving you more control over the built-in Firefox features, and provide new alternatives.
1. In Firefox 4 or newer, simultaneously press Ctrl+Shift+A which will bring up the Add-ons Manager.
2. Type Status-4-Evar at the Search all add-ons bar at the top right and hit enter.
3. Or simply visit the Status-4-Evar Add-on webpage directly.
4. Click the Add to Firefox button, then the Install button for Status-4-Evar and finally restart your Firefox 4+ web browser.
When you’re back in your browser, Firefox 4+ now shows the permanent status bar that you normally see in Firefox 3.
Actually, the Status-4-Evar bar is quite configurable and there are some other useful functions that can be placed there including Status Text, Download Progress Meter, and Download Status items. These functions call all be edited to look different, provide different snippets of information, and they can be moved wherever you want. Press Ctrl+Shift+A to bring up the Add-ons Manager and click on the Status-4-Evar Options button to configure these settings for yourself.
@Decent60 You have to completely update your operating system, including in Windows 7 SP1. Additionally you should update to Java’s latest version of their JRE, and the latest version of Flash player.
SP1 has made adjustments to the way Win7 manipulates memory allocation. All versions of test beds for current and future versions of JRE, Flash (NON-IE) and FF will use a fully patched test machine before release. Using FF 4.x.x with older versions of these things can lead to significant memory leaks.
Be sure you are using the latest software and make sure you
Thanks for the great tip–worked like a charm–very happy
Has Mozilla removed this extension? I get a message that could not find any matching add-ons.
is there any extension in chrome that would give a statusbar like firefox,
can anyone help me ?
thanks
the computer/laptop monitor is not getting smaller and smaller, why do they need to get rid of the 25px status bar? is it really just to follow other only? sigh.
There is one thing that I would like to see. I am horrible at finding out this stuff but there seems that Firefox 4 has a memory leak. I’ve left it on a webpage that has no ads, nothing that changes or adds extra content for 4 hours. It jumped from 244,234k memory to 1,700,000k of memory.
Has anyone here experienced that here?
Thank you, Raymond! I forgot to disable auto update on our second computer and lost status bar and zoom add-on when it updated to FF 4–at least you’ve solved one of my problems. Appreciate all your helpful articles.
Hi,
Many thanks for this tip.
Its a small thing, but it was driving me crazy!
Peace
Fine minds think alike :
Want the old ‘Status Bar’?
Posted on March 29, 2011 by The Guru
blog.ffextensionguru.com/2011/03/29/want-the-old-status-bar/
There’s an extension for that: Status-4-Evar. I wrote about this handy extension back in January before Mozilla re-did things in Firefox 4 Beta 11 and 12 by putting connection status messages and link targets in an over-lay above the add-on bar. But for those of you who rather have this appear in the ‘status bar’ can do so with this extension. A couple notes, in the toolbars menu it will still be listed as add-on bar. Also, you can still hide/unhide the add-on status bar via CTRL+/. The extension is only for Firefox 4 and 4.2 (developmental/future Firefox 5).
Thanx for the information ray :)
Mozilla’s add-on bar is a poor ‘replacement’ for the status bar – I don’t want popup distractions. They seem to have removed the status bar for no good reason – just copying Chrome?
I found the status-4-evar add-on a while back and it works well.
The ‘padlock’ sign for secure websites which used to be in the status bar is still missing though – the htpps colour coding in the address bar is fine but not good for users who have had drummed into them for years “look for the padlock in the status bar…”
sorry to ask,but can i know where is the winners name list on vipre anti virus. any way can u add on the vipre anti virus testing results here. i wish to know more about the vipre anti virus. does it have the same security like kaspersky or norton,avira or avg?