How do I view/set the transient message status bar in Firefox and Chrome?

Question

I added a new transient status bar message to my HTML document (specifically the 5 links listed in the table, see code below) and it worked fine in IE but when I viewed the document in Firefox or Chrome the message did not appear. All that I saw was the URL link. Can someone show me how I can get the transient status bar message to show in both Firefox and Chrome?

Here is my code:

<table>
<tr><td colspan="5"><img src="logo.gif" alt="The Civil War Journal" /></td></tr>
<tr><td>
   <a href="cwj.htm" class="Links" 
      onmouseover = "window.status='Go to the Home Page'; return true"
      onmouseout = "window.status=''; return true">Home Page</a>
</td>
<td>
   <a href="#" class="Links"
      onmouseover = "window.status='View Current Events'; return true"
      onmouseout = "window.status=''; return true">News</a>
</td>
<td>
   <a href="#" class="Links"
      onmouseover = "window.status='Go to Feature Articles'; return true"
      onmouseout = "window.status=''; return true">Features</a>
</td>
<td>
   <a href="#" class="Links"
      onmouseover = "window.status='Go to the Civil War Form'; return true"
      onmouseout ="window.status=''; return true">Forum</a>
</td>
<td>
   <a href="form.htm" class="Links"
      onmouseover = "window.status='Subscribe Today!'; return true"
      onmouseout = "window.status=''; return true">Subscriptions</a>
</td></tr></table>

Answer 1

Sorry, can't be done without the user changing a browser setting:

This property does not work in default configuration of Firefox and some other browsers: setting window.status has no effect on the text displayed in the status bar. To allow scripts change the the status bar text, the user must set the dom.disable_window_status_change preference to false in the about:config screen.

This is for Firefox, I assume it's the same in Chrome. Changing the status bar is considered a risk security-wise, and will be less and less supported. Consider using a title attribute for a verbose explanation of the link:

<a href="cwj.htm" class="Link" title="Go to the Home Page">

it will appear in a tooltip when the user hovers with the mouse over the link.