I use a special firefox browser extension to view vintage bicycle auctions and bikelist.org. I first download the Firefox Extension called "Webmail Compose". (In firefox, select Tools Menu, Extensions, then 'Get more Extensions'.) This tool that allows you to go to ANY Web mailer (i.e. Yahoo!, Gmail!) by left-clicking a mail URL (not just the stupid netscape mailer), or right-click to select a particular mailer to send email (any of 8 different mailers : yahoo!, hotmail! gmail! netscape!, etc. )
It is this second option I redirect to get me around the web MUCH FASTER. I reprogram 2 of the mailer options so that I can :
(a) select any text URL, then open as an URL. extremely useful on bikelist.org which does not convert URL's into real links.
(b) select any Ebay auction number, open that auction right away.
(c) you can dream up your own searches, i.e. search for a book on amazon, for example.
Note that option (a) does not work with URLs that have arguments (i.e. & character). Nowadays many Ebay URLs are all text so it works with ebay. If the Ebay URL has ampersand (&) arguments, i.e. it has an auction number, i just select the auction number ALONE and open it right away. Also, if someone posts an auction number to bikelist.org, you can go to that auction selection and two right-clicks.
After you have downloaded webmail compose, select any text on a web page, right-click, and select "WebMailCompose ... Settings ... Open all new content in ... "NEW TAB"". Then select the WebMailServices tab and pick 2 mailers, and set the strings. I don't use Hotmail or Netscape mailers, so I reprogram it as follows :
[/] Enable Hotmail ^T
[/] Enable Netscape http://ebay.com/
So I use the hotmail option to open any http URL on the web (without arguments), and I use the Netscape option to open any ebay auction (with argument number). Other things are possible, i.e. you could use webmail to invoke a google search, for example.
Good Luck !!
- Don Gillies
San Diego, CA