Fun with Firefox
Firefox is not a secure alternative browser but also has many extensions which makes browsing all the more exciting, says R Prathap.
As a fast and versatile browser, Firefox has been slowly gaining ground in the internet arena. More than the performance, it has been used more as a secure alternative browser, if your primary operating system is windows. If you are still not using Firefox for browsing the web, go download it free from http://www.getfirefox.com
You can do more with Firefox than just browse the web. There are add-ons available, called extensions that either better your browsing experience or make you more productive. To get started with extensions, on the firefox browser click on Tools, Extensions and Get More Extensions.
Popular extensions
Gmail Notifier: Do you have an e mail account in gmail and wish you could get alerted every time a new e mail arrives? Gmail Notifier does exactly that in the background and alerts you with a small icon in the status bar of the browser.
Forecast fox: This extension would be very useful for weather buffs. It provides weather-report icons within firefox. Also, you can customise the location of these icons in the browser. It provides an icon for current conditions, next to it for today’s forecast and a third for tomorrow’s forecast from accuweather.com. You can setup profiles for different locations to toggle between the forecasts. It also helps in instantly finding the weather conditions of a new place.
StumbleUpon: This is a cool little extension that lets you discover interesting websites on any topic. Clicking on Stumble! You will get high-quality pages matched to your personal preferences. These pages have been explicitly recommended by other StumbleUpon members with similar interests.
FoxyTunes: This is a must-have extension for users who like listening to music while browsing the web. FoxyTunes adds remote controls inside Firefox for the media player of your choice. It supports almost all media player and appears on the status bar. So you can select and listen to your favourite music without leaving your browser.
DictionarySearch: This extension allows you to quickly search the meaning of a word in Firefox. These definitions are provided by Dictionary.com. This is particularly useful if you like reading on the web and search meanings of new words you encounter while reading.
Broadband speed test
diagnostics: Lets you check download and upload speeds of your Internet connection. In addition, it lets you troubleshoot and isolate problems of your broadband connection. This is a nice extension to quickly get the network configurations of your system as well.
IE View: Some websites tend to load properly only in Internet Explorer. IE view helps you view these websites in IE without actually having to launch the browser. Once you select a website with IE view, it gets automatically loaded every time in Internet explorer. This is a very convenient extension to test your own website compatibility with just a click away.
TabMix Plus: Tab browsing feature has been another strong reason for firefox’s popularity. TabMix Plus extension adds more power to the tab browsing with features like session management and crash recovery. So you don’t have to worry about losing those important websites that you were surfing when your system hung.
PDF Download: When you are browsing the web, you tend to click on a link pointing to a pdf file. Loading a pdf file directly in the browser will make you wait long and might even crash your browser depending on the pdf’s file size. With this extension, you can see the file size in the dialog box that appears just after you clicked on a pdf link and then choose to download the file or to view it as an HTML page.
DownloadThemAll: It is a bulk downloader that allows you to copy everything you want from a website at once. Whether you need to grab handfuls of thumbnails from a picture album or a page full of interesting MP3s, this tiny applications gets them all with a single click.
source: www.deccanherald.com
