Firefox is great on its own, but we love us an addon that makes it even more powerful. Wikilook fits the bill, making it a snap to look up definitions for unfamiliar words.
Sure, you can just google a term or head over to Wiktionary and key in a search, but Wikilook will do it for you without ever leaving your current page. It's dead simple to use: hold down shift and hover over a word, wait patiently for a second or two, and the definition appears right before your eyes.
Quick links are presented for the Wikipedia match and key terms in the definition itself are also linked for you, and yes - you can even shift-hover text in the definitions if there are words in them you don't understand.
Firefox is already pretty amazing, but we're always looking for another add-on to make it even more kick-ass. Enter CyberSearch, an update of AwesomeSearch which adds tons of search functionality to your browser. It even displays results right in the Awesome Bar's drop-down.
Search results without Adsense ads? Oh, it's possible.
CyberSearch also lets you set up keyword or letter patterns that tell it to restrict sites to specific URLs - preface your search with 'techy' and you'll only get results from Lifehacker, CyberNetNews(go figure), and Download Squad (we had nothing to do with that, we swear!).
Since it's built on Google's API, you're still getting the same results you'd get if you went to Google first anyways. Hello, efficiency!
Anyone that blogs about websites and has tried before knows that getting a decent screencap of a web page can be tricky. Enter FireShot, a Firefox extension that makes quality captures child's play.
Install the add-on and you're given FireShot creates a tiny menu on your navigation toolbar that gives quick access to full-page and visible area capture functions. It does a great job at rendering pages, even those with Flash animations. Support for saving as PNG, JPEG, GIF, and BMP is built-in, as well as exporting to just about any editor.
What really sets FireShot apart, though, is the integrated upload feature. Select it, and you can resize your image on-the-fly and post it to FireShot's free image hosting repository with minimal effort. If there's one feature that helps sell a piece of software to us, it's how much time and effort we can save by using. FireShot makes putting browser screencap online so easy we almost feel lazy doing it. Almost.
Have you ever accidentally visited MySpace? Yeah, we probably have too, though, it was never a noticeable problem. In fact, we can't even remember it happening, but it seems like it has to have happened... right?
Well, this Firefox add-on promises to detect MySpace in Firefox, and provide a pop-up menu to stop unsuspecting web-browsers from hitting up the social network. The plug-in is obviously a joke, but we found a great use for it anyway -- avoiding phishing.
It's called AmIOnMySpace.com? and it can be used to detect the real MySpace site. If for any reason the message doesn't pop-up upon first visiting the social network, you're not on the real site. The biggest problem with using this as a way of avoiding phishing sites is that it doesn't alert users when leaving MySpace, so it's still possible to get attacked from within.
We've talked about web browsing at work before. We all do it, it's a fact of life.
But what happens when you're browsing the interwebs and you click a link...and all of a sudden something pops up on your screen that would make your mother cringe? You quickly close the window, look around, and hope that nobody else saw it. Well at least that's what we do.
Not a good feeling is it?
No-NSFW comes to the rescue for the Firefox Browser. Just a warning, it doesn't work with Firefox 3 YET, but once it goes gold, this should be one that gets ported over.
Basically, No-NSFW warns you that a link could be or is Not Safe For Work (NSFW). If you find a page that is NSFW and the add-on doesn't pick it up, you can right click on the link and add it.
When you get home, it's safe to be unsafe, naturally. If you use the same computer at work and home, simply disable the add-on when in the comfort of your own bathro...er living room.
Safari always had an interesting and convenient way of searching for text: it dims the background and highlights text-matches throughout the page. It's too bad Firefox can't couldn't do that. It's now possible to easily add that functionality to everybody's favorite open-source browser thanks to a recent mozillaZine post.
The install process is pretty simple if you use the better set of instructions and files, and it shouldn't take more than a few minutes of copying, pasting, and mouse clicking to complete. The animation process in between "Next" clicks is also fun, and if you're still on the fence about it, you could check out a video or two on the custom feature.
You have probably noticed this yourself: when you do a search on Google there tends to be a lot of unfilled, unused, or otherwise blank area to the right of the search results that could be used for better things. Things besides ads that might relate to your search. Such as Wikipedia summaries for your search term, or related images and videos, and dictionary definitions. That would be nice, wouldn't it?
Well, If you've ever had such dreams of grandeur, that wish has been fulfilled.
It's called Google Extra, a Greasemonkey script that adds just that extra functionality you've been looking for in your Google searches. Let's say you search for the term "monkeys." Not only are you served your usual search results about "monkeys" on the left, but results from an image search, video search, a Wikipedia entry on "monkeys," and the dictionary definition of what monkeys are on the right.
The nice thing is, you can organize the stack of result boxes in any way you want. So, if for convenience's sake, you preferred a dictionary definition at the very top before your image results, you can do that. The script remembers your preferences, locking in every last ounce of goodness from your searches. That, and the extra results load after your primary ones, which keeps the experience quick and snappy without a noticeable increase in page load times.
The world of web browsers is a very unfair place. Internet Explorer isn't the best, yet everyone's using it, and it seems like Firefox gets all the cool add-ons and customizations. The Opera web browser is popular, but primarily with the mobile crowd, and as for Safari, well, it's nice. Safari add-ons aren't exactly the latest craze, but the few that exist are fairly useful.
Introducing: Safari AdBlock, the open source way to avoid internet ads. It's free and (like someone we know on too much rum) easy. To install, simply point your browser to the Safari AdBlock page at SourceForge and hit "Download." The rest is pretty self explanatory. Safari AdBlock should successfully block most ads, although one may get through on occasion. Theoretically, this should decrease a page's load time since you'll no longer have to load ads, but there's a lot that goes into load times so you may not see any increase in performance at all.
Safari AdBlock works with Safari 3 and runs on Leopard (not Tiger and Windows). Those looking for a paid option should check out Pith Helmet, which costs $10 and works with both Tiger and Leopard. If you'd like to further customize your Safari, check out Pimp My Safari.
Put those thinking hats on and grab those browser based ideas you have been storing in your head, the Firefox add-on contest is open.
Firefox's annual Firefox Extension Contest, Extend Firefox, will give developers the chance to win the Ultimate Firefox Developer Kit which will include a trip to anywhere in the world, a Macbook Pro, bags and tshirts. Judges are looking for the next great web innovation that can really affect the live of many people and their online experience through a Firefox Add-on.
The contest runs up until December 31st 2007, after which a panel of judges will base their decisions on user experience, creativity, innovativeness and use of open standards to award 3 grand prizes, and 21 runner up prices. Winners will be announced on January 15th 2008. So fuel up, and get going! And don't forget to drop Download Squad some info on your Firefox Add-on creation! Check out the rules and criteria on the official website.
Meebo, the web-based instant messaging application that runs across all major IM networks has released a Firefox add-on giving users a browser sidebar for easy chatting.
The Meebo Firefox add-on makes it much easier to chat with friends while browsing online. No more switching from application to application or from the Meebo homepage to the page browsing. The sidebar gives users a visual notification, the side pane pops open, when contacts send you an instant message. No more pasting links and uploading and sending images either, the add-on allows for dragging and dropping links and images right onto contacts you wish to send them to.
It would be nice to have all actions take place in the sidebar, but one drawback with the new add-on is that when IMs are sent and received you are instantly booted to a Meebo Firefox tab that must keep open at all times in order to remain signed in. Meebo's line of web based IM tools include Meebo; a web based IM for all networks and MeeboMe; a way to chat with people directly from a website.
Surfing and buying online just got a little better with Mozilla and eBay. The two companies have just released a special eBay targeted version of the Firefox browser with the little help of an Addon.
The new Mozilla Firefox eBay edition has a few add-ons that make this browser unique:
Real time updates on bidding with a sidebar
Status alerts
eBay specific search
eBay account guard support
eBays goal with this partnership is to ensure bidders are always securely signed in, so users can stay on top of bids and actions with little effort. They also want users to always have eBay activities available on screen within a quick glance for notifications of immediate updates.
The new version is ready to download, and available here.
We're big fans of Backpack, the online PIM organizer with a pioneering KISS philosophy from the wildly successful 37signals. At times, however, Backpack can appear too simple, making it seem like the only way to interact with the service is through its pleasantly minimal web interface. Fortunately, this is entirely not so, and we just stumbled across two handy Firefox add-ons that bring quick navigation and easy clipping to this increasingly useful online info organizer.
First up is Backpack Pages, a simple toolbar button that acts as a simple drop-down bookmark menu for all your pages. As usually with any external Backpack tool, simply enter your username and private API key to get the ball rolling.
Second is a really useful add-on especially for users of Google Notebook or any other web clipping tool out there: Backpack Publish (pictured). Setup is again pretty standard, and now you can select text on any webpage and use this add-on's menu to create a List Item or Note to add to any of your pages without breaking your workflow.
SnipIT allows users to email selected pieces of text in Internet Explorer. Email clients that are currently supported with SnipIT are Microsoft Outlook, Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, and Gmail. Microsoft released this little IE add-on last week, and sites like Download.com have it rated pretty popular already. I always find myself doing the copy and paste thing from websites into multiple text files that sit on my desktop. If they were contained in my inbox by a tool like SnipIT, I would be forced to act on them immediately. Too bad it only works in IE on a PC, because this seems like a useful little plug-in for all web users.
These Firefox extensions are great for the type of person who is constantly copying and pasting while in Firefox, perfect for bloggers. The first one is Auto Copy.
Auto Copy is a great extension that makes copying and pasting anything mere child's play. If you wish to copy something, all you need to do is highlight the text that you wish to copy. And that's it! What you just highlighted is now on your clipboard awaiting the paste command. The part I love the most about Auto Copy is its built-in paste shortcut key functionality that uses the mouse wheel. Those who use Linux know what I'm talking about. All you need to do is press the mouse wheel down while hovering over the area that you wish to paste to.
One thing that you might notice about Auto Copy while using it is that it will also copy the formatting that is with the text that you are trying to copy. For example, if you are copying some text from the header of a website, that has over-sized bold text that is several different colors, it will bring the size, boldness and color along with it. This may not show up when pasting into a small text field, like a Google search, but it will show up if you are posting to a rich text field, like a blog post. To get around this, all you need is the Copy Plain Text extension.
With Copy Plain Text and Auto Copy together in action, you are ready to copy anything and paste it anywhere, in Firefox that is. Auto Copy also has built-in support for Copy Plain Text. All you have to do is check the box for it in the Auto Copy options. And there is also a shortcut to Auto Copy in the Firefox status bar. If you do not want something copied to the clipboard you just need to click on the small image of a note pad (shown above with a green check mark on it). When the green check mark turn into a red X, and Auto Copy is off.
Many of us have heard of YubNub and its sheer awesomeness. However, if you haven't heard of it, YubNub is this great search engine that allows you to search multiple websites for anything from one place. So, instead of going to Google.com and searching for AllSnap (a great program by the way), for example. Then, something else strikes your fancy and you want to search del.icio.us for something fun. All you have to do in both cases is go to YubNub and use their commands to search any website for anything. Literaly... You can search any site. If the command does not exist for a certain site, just make it! It only takes a minute. And I also took the honor to create one for Download Squad. Just use dls before your search term and you will search, you guessed it, downloadsquad.com.
Anyway, this is such a great search engine. So why should you have to actually go to YubNub.com in order for you to use it? The answere is, of course, you don't. That little search bar in the upper right-hand corner of your Firefox browser is about to get a whole lot better. Just head on over to this site here and click on YubNub and start searching any site from your one search bar. In fact, you can just do what I did and delete all of the other search engines from your search bar, because YubNub in the first and last search engine you need.
We've talked about web 
SnipIT 
Many of us 
