Friday, June 24, 2005

Firefox Extension I Like

Some useful Firefox extensions I discovered recently:

Aardvark


Their website explains this best: "Clean up unwanted banners and surrounding 'fluff,' especially prior to printing a page." It has already saved me a good bit of paper and I rarely print out webpages. There is a demo you can try on that page without downloading anything.

GooglePreview


An extension that inserts thumbnail previews of websites into Google and Yahoo search results. Thumbnails are provided by thumbshots.org and alexa.com. Very useful for if you can remember what a website looked like and some keywords, but don't remember the title or address. That was the whole reason I downloaded it and I plan on keeping it now.

SearchWP


Adds a buttons bar that lists each word in the searchbox to easily find them in page and gives a highlight button so you can highlight search terms just like Google Cache does. You have to add the toolbar and button where you want them by customizing the toolbar area after you install.

SearchBox AutoUpdater


Automatically update the Firefox searchbox when you're searching directly in the search engine, very useful in combination with SearchWP from the same author.

ViewRenderedSource


It gives you a visual representation of source code (color coded and blocked) that Firefox actually uses to render a page including javascript generated html.

And some extension I have been using for a long time:

Tab Clicking Options


A very simple and small tab extension. Mainly I just use it to allow double clicking on a tab to close it but it can do lots more (and that is just optional). Its not nearly as full featured as some other tab extension, but it does all I wanted and more.

Web Developer


This is a must for anyone who works with HTML or CSS and is still useful for people who don't. This is always the first or second extension I install when I start on a new installation of Firefox.

Google PageRank Status


Shows the current page's Google PageRank just like you see in Google IE toolbar, except without the toolbar and having to use IE.

OpenBook


Makes organizing bookmarks in the correct place from the beginning easier.

Flat Bookmark Editing


Makes editing bookmarks easier by providing access to all the bookmark fields right inside the Bookmarks Manager.

ForecastFox


Gives you weather conditions in the status bar and alerts you to severe weather warnings. I have already posted some about this extension. It's not really a necessity, but I like it and we don't even have much weather other than hot and dry most of the time around here.

Saturday, June 18, 2005

ForecastFox

I saw some new icons when using the Firefox extension, ForecastFox today.



I guess they think 102° F is hot. Well, it is. So hot that the only time I will spend outside is going to and from my car. But we have had worse. It sucks.

Monday, June 13, 2005

Do Google Ads Help Fund Spyware?

eWeek.com has an article that says:

"A security researcher says Google's search-based ads play a part in browser toolbars that violate the company's stand against spyware and questionable download practices."

I have no doubt its true. And I am sure Google is deleting these accounts as fast as they find them. I know lots of spammers use it on their spam sites.