pics.fefoo is now mobile friendly

If you've ever tried to use pics.fefoo on your mobile device it works but there are certain features which make it a little difficult to use it. Try the new version which has been specially designed to work on your mobile device. For now most of the changes are being done for the mobile devices.

Now you can scroll through the categories on the smallest possible screen. Also made sure that there is almost no scrolling required while you view the images. Since there are quite a few changes don't forget to click the "Report a bug" link in case you find any bugs or have any suggestions. You can also leave a comment on this post.

There are a few changes for desktop edition specially in the auto-resize code and also fixed the navigation code using the keyboard. Finally fixed a bug with the navigation which was happening since version one.

Will try and keep updating the list with what all has been implemented so far.

• Added the new "rising' tab. It shows you images which might hit the homepage.
• Should work on iPhone, iPad, Chrome on Android, ASOP browser.
• Made changes to make it work on Opera Mini
• Better support for tablets
• Comments and links to stories now open in a new tab
• Now play youtube links
• Fixed code to display imgur albums and gallery
• Use keyboard shortcuts "j" and "k" or "Shift + PgUp" and "Shift + PgDn" to move between images and also move to next page.
• Fixed the resizing code and image navigation code.
• Use arrow keys (left and right) to move between images. 

Some updates to fefoo.com are live

With many of the search engines no longer available the list of search engines on fefoo.com was becoming stale. I have updated the list. The auto updater will currently not work as there are still a few more updates that I need to make before the auto updater will kick in.

To manually update the list and get the new UI for Google Chrome. Goto http://fefoo.com and press Ctrl + F5. This will force an update and you will get the latest files from the server. The UI for Google Chrome was updated a while back but I am not sure everyone got it as I did not set the auto updater on. If you do a manual update you should be able to use the new UI.

There are other things I wanted to update before the major release but its better to release things that are ready than wait endlessly for the major release.

Here is a list of updates to the search engines.

* Web search engines removed: Cuil, Wikia, Lexxe, ChaCha
* Web search engines added: Blekko, Yippy
* Added YourOpenBook.org to social search. This one enables you to search for status updates on facebook.
* In the MP3 and Music section most of the search engines that are dead have been removed. There are too many to list.
* Removed Blogdimension and Bloglines from the blogs category.
* Rapidshare category only has one search engine left the rest are history.
* In the realtime category Collecta has been removed.
* In the answers category added Quora
* In the Encyclopedia category removed PowerSet
* Added Yelp to local search category

New version of pics.fefoo.com uploaded

Just uploaded a new version of pics.fefoo.com to the server. Here is a list of whats new in this version.

1) You can use the keyboard to navigate. Use PageUp/PageDown or j/k to navigate between pictures.
2) You can directly post to twitter or like an image on facebook.
3) Few UI changes.

Have been working on a quite a few other things for the next big version but for that I need your feedback. Also if you know of other picture subreddits that you like do leave a link to that subreddit in the comments.

If you like using pics.fefoo.com don't forget to reddit/tweet/facebook about it. Don't forget to leave your feedback or feature request in the comments.

You can also follow the development on http://twitter.com/fefoo.

Shifting webhosts for fefoo.com

Today I will be shifting the webhost which hosts fefoo.com. If you face any problem getting through please do leave a comment here.

Started work on a special mobile version of fefoo

After trying to use fefoo on the mobile it is clear that I need to make a special mobile version which is touch friendly and needs a very different way of interaction. Have been thinking about it for a while but lets see when I can get it out.

More feedback questions

Questions: I don't even know if there is something that can be done about it, but the following sites make the toolbar disappear: spezify, baidu, answers.yahoo.com and a few more sites.

The simplest answer to this is that nothing can be done. The frame removing scripts on these sites removes the toolbar. In the near future I plan to make fefoo as a browser extension. Till then I don't think anything can be done about it.

Question: Maybe the script simply tries to get the favicon from the site, but the following sites don't show the favicon in the toolbar: docjax, gazhoo, about and a few other sites.

There can be a number of reasons for it. The favicon location has changed. Favicons are encoded in a format that the browser does not display. On one browser it might work and on another browser the icon might now work.

Feature request: Propose popular searches as I type in the search box
Its already there in the code but just not polished enough to be turned on for everyone. If you use fefoo from the browser toolbar you should get a list of popular terms as you type.

Thanks for your amazing bug reports. I have tried to fix all the broken sites. On some of the sites the code is right but its not working. Since most of these sites get the results using "AJAX" the code which runs without JavaScript is broken on the server side. Hopefully they will fix it in time. I will remove the sites in case they still don't work in the next few weeks.

If you have a bug reports/feature request/ideas don't forget to send it across. You can email the ideas and requests to fefoo@googlegroups.com or join the Google Group http://groups.google.com/group/fefoo if you have any questions or want some help. You can also send it out using the feedback form.

Getting a lot of good feedback and bug reports

Over the last few days I've been getting quite a lot of bug reports and feedback from a user. Please do leave you email address in the feedback form. It makes it easier to get back to you. Am not sure if you use twitter or follow this blog. I will try and answer one of your questions here.

Why should I add fefoo as the default engine even when it only searches on Google?
When you add fefoo as the default engine it uses Google without the toolbar on top because personally 95% of the times I want to search on Google. Thought the toolbar is helpful in most cases I would not like to be stuck with it on every page. To turn on the toolbar while you search from the search bar add a ":" (colon) in front of your search. Now if you are searching for ": Baby Shark Song" just add a colon in front of the search. This will force fefoo to show you the toolbar.