Firefox Add-Ons Boost Productivity, Online Community
Sure, people are passionate about their favorite sports team (go Cubs!). But if you really want to get them fired up, ask what Web browser they use.
There are the newbies who generally stick with the browser that came with their operating system (Internet Explorer on Windows, Safari on Mac). There are the fierce individuals who prefer lesser-known browsers (Opera comes to mind) just because they’re, well, lesser known.
And then there are people who simply demand the best browsing experience around. They’ll defend their favorite browser because they find it superior in terms of elegance, features and security. But if a better option comes along, they’ll happily switch and speak out for their new browser of choice.
We at Softwyre fall into the latter camp, always looking for the next great browser. And right now we’re impressed with Mozilla’s Firefox.
With its open-source status and rich pool of third-party customizations, Firefox exemplifies the growing community aspects of the Web. It’s also full of helpful features to make your time online more productive.
Firefox 2.0 enhances its most popular feature, tabbed browsing, with a history of recently closed tabs, the ability to reopen closed tabs, single-click tab closing, and more ways to display tabs. It also adds an open source alternative to commercial installers like InstallShield, anti-phishing features, spell checking for text boxes, search suggestions, session restore capability, and improved support for reading RSS feeds.
What really shines is Mozilla’s library of Firefox Add-ons that let you personalize your browsing experience.
Add-ons are small pieces of software that can add new features or tiny tweaks to your Firefox. They can add new search engines or dictionaries in other languages, change the look of Firefox with a new theme, help you comparison shop, share bookmarks with your friends, see the weather in a corner of your browser, write to your weblog, get news, listen to music – all from inside the browser.
More than 1,000 add-ons are available for free at the Firefox Add-ons Web site. Here are some of our favorites:
In The News
Highlight text in Firefox, right-click to see the latest related news stories. Mouse over any of the headlines to see a brief summary of the story. Click on any of the stories to have it open up in a new tab.
Site Delta
Notifies when websites are changed and highlights the changes since last visit. This extension adds a small Delta icon to your browser status bar. When you click onto it, it highlights all changed text contents of the current page (since the last time you clicked onto it). Clicking again cycles through the changes. Rightclick onto the icon allows you to add scan or ignore regions and manage pages known to SiteDelta.
BlogRovr
You don’t have time to read ALL those Blogs! Let RovR do it for you. RovR fetches posts from your favorite blogs about anything you’re browsing, and shows you summaries you can open read posts without leaving the web page you were on. BlogRovR also suggests popular items AND lets you Twitter about any site you’re on too.
StubleUpon
StumbleUpon discovers web sites based on your interests, learns what you like and brings you more. With StumbleUpon you can also connect with friends and share your discoveries, meet people that have similar interests, and check out what other people are discovering.
Hyperwords 3.6
Select any word or words on any web page. A menu pops-up. Choose from any one of the many powerful commands. And that’s it. Fully customizable menu and behavior.
Locator 0.8
Locates selected address on Google map: simply select the address, right click with mouse, ‘Locate on Google Map’ and your place will be located on the map.
FoxyTunes
Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web? FoxyTunes lets you control almost any media player and find lyrics, covers, videos, bios and much more with a click right from your browser. Supports WinAmp, iTunes, Yahoo Music Engine, Pandora, foobar2000, Windows Media Player, Xbox Media Center, Musicmatch, Quintessential, J. River, jetAudio, XMPlay, MediaMonkey, Media Player Classic, Sonique, wxMusik, Real Player, XMMS, Noatun, Juk, Amarok, Music Player Daemon, Rhythmbox and many other players.Just click on the orange note and select your player.
