Shrink your browser top for more usable space!

I like to optimize my computer setup for usability - and these days, with cloud computing marching onward, most use involves a web browser. One thing that's bugged me is how much screen space is taken up by the "top" of browser windows - the title bar, menu bar, URL bar, and bookmarks (and other assorted crap) bar, not to mention the tabs - it's too much waste! So I've done a little tweaking, and check out the photo to see the difference: by (1) changing the navigation buttons to "small without text," (2) rearranging the various bars and buttons, (3) removing the bookmarks bar (I use a customized homepage which contains all my links, more about that in another post), and (4) collapsing the menu using the Tiny Menu Firefox add-on, I've reduced the "overhead" (ha ha) from a bloated 108 pixels to a slender 54 pixels. And it definitely works, at least for me - but then, I hardly ever use anything in the Menu (File, Edit, View, etc - even Bookmarks), so that last tweak might not be for everyone. It's something to at least consider, when you're online - get your browser out of the way, and let the content through!

3 comments:

Yant Martin-Keyte said...

Brilliant tips, this has been frustrating me for ages.
One other thing I did was remove the Google search box as you can search direct in the navigation box (I think thats the name)

Unknown said...

OR try Safari 4 ... www.apple.com/safari

Michael said...

That doesn't change anything about the space, trhaynes. That post just reeks of fanboy!