IE7's Official Add-On site

Filed under: Design, Developer, Internet, Security, Utilities, Windows, Blogging, Productivity, Microsoft, Freeware

IE7's Official Add-On site

by Jason Clarke Oct 30th 2006

With the introduction of both Internet Explorer 7 and Firefox 2 recently, one thing is certainly clear - the browser market is finally starting to become interesting again, after years of being stagnant. It really was Mozilla's Firefox browser that shook the sleeping Microsoft behemoth into realizing that it wasn't adequate to simply sit at IE6.

Of the notable things that Firefox has been doing better than IE for awhile now, one of the most important has been browser extensibility, or add-ons as they're now known on both browsers. For Firefox, we've had the Firefox Add-Ons site for some time now. It keeps an index of recently submitted add-ons (previously known as extensions). Previously there wasn't an analog in the IE world, in terms of an officially sponsored IE Add-On site.

Now there is; Microsoft now maintains Add-Ons for Microsoft Internet Explorer, the equivalent of Firefox Add-Ons but for IE. Although currently extremely short on content (actual add-ons), the site is organized nicely and is easy to get around. One frustration for me is that IE add-ons are distributed as executable files, and are actually added to my Add / Remove Programs listing. I'd much prefer for IE add-ons to be distributed in a custom format, and managed from within the browser, as Firefox does with its XPI distribution format.

Tags: add-ons, IE Add-Ons, IE7, IeAdd-ons, Internet Explorer 7, Internet Explorer add-ons, InternetExplorer7, InternetExplorerAdd-ons, Microsoft, MS, MS IE7, MsIe7

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

rtms said 1:28PM on 10-30-2006

You might want to add that for many of these so called Add Ons, you have to pay to use them, whereas Firefox is free. Big difference there for me at least.

Christopher Carey said 3:26PM on 10-30-2006

Looks like only old people use add ons in Internet Explorer. nice.

Featured Time Waster

Civiballs is a beautiful, soothing physics puzzle Time Waster

I have an absolute weakness for physics games, and while Civiballs isn't the strongest physics-based game, what it lacks in the physics department it makes up for a few times over in style and fun.

In Civiballs, you are presented with a few colored balls, and your goal is to get those balls into the same-colored urn on the level. The "civi" part of Civiballs is that there are 3 sets of levels to play, each representing a different civilization. While the civilization doesn't affect gameplay, the artwork for each level is beautifully themed to it's appropriate era.

To play the game, you are given only one tool - a sword with which to cut the chains that are holding the balls. The puzzle part of the game is in figuring out what order, and with what timing to cut each chain. Do it right, and all the right balls end up in the right urns, with no stray balls entering an urn (a no-no). Do it wrong, and you get to start over again.

Civiballs is not terribly deep on gameplay; the entire game can be completed in about 15 minutes. But if you enjoy this type of game, it will be a very enjoyable 15 minutes.

View more Time Wasters