Tag: add-ons

40 productivity tips for Firefox

April 17, 2009 by Jason

1. Auto-complete websites
Go to the address bar (Control-L) and type the name of the site without the “www” or the “.com”. Press Control-Enter, and it will automatically fill in the “www” and the “.com” and take you there. For .net addresses, press Shift-Enter, and for .org addresses, press Control-Shift-Enter.

2. Turn your bookmarks into keywords
Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.

3. Speed up your downloads
Download Manager Tweak Extension adds extra functionality to the existing Download Manager to help you download faster.

4. Search faster
To search with lightning speed just highlight the word or phrase with your mouse and drag the highlighted text into the search bar. Firefox will then automatically load up the search in a new tab, so you can stay informed faster. Read More»

Supercharge Firefox

January 26, 2009 by Jason

If you are a Firefox user (and if not, why not…?) then here’s possibly one of the most useful add-ons ever well, for web users like me at any rate. It’s called UrlBarExt and it’s available in Windows, Mac and Linux versions. Here’s what it can do. A set of discrete icons appears at the end of the address box and from left to right they copy the current address or URL to the clipboard, shorten the displayed web address to a Tiny URL (or the web shortening service of your choice, Bit.Ly, cli.gs etc). It will search the currently displayed site using a keyword (right-click on the icon to open a search box), go up one level to the website’s root or home page, tag or bookmark the current page from a menu of popular tags, navigate through sequential pages (really handy when web pages are numbered, like those in my Boot Camp archives), and surf anonymously, using a proxy server. It’s highly configurable and like all the best things in life, completely free, so give it a spin, it’s really impressive once you get used to it.
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Five great add-ons for Internet Explorer

August 28, 2008 by Jason

Add-ons are programs that add features to a web browser or change the way it works. If you’ve ever wished Internet Explorer could do something new or differently, chances are there’s an add-on out there that will fulfill your wish.

I must have tried out hundreds of add-ons over the years. In this column, I’ll talk about five add-ons that I use every day. They have all earned a place in my add-on stable because they really have made my online life easier, and I miss their presence when using somebody else’s computer.

Power users love IE7Pro

IE7Pro is a free add-on for Internet Explorer 7 that is indispensable to me in my day-to-day work. It adds a raft of new abilities to the web browser, including advanced management of tabbed browsing settings, a simple download manager, spelling checks of text you enter in web forms, autoscrolling of webpages, quick searching of page text, ad and Flash blocking, custom keyboard shortcuts, and much more. Read More»

Uncover Firefox secret add-ons install button

December 24, 2007 by Jason

Not all Firefox themes and extensions available on the web are properly served by the server so they are easy to add. Sometimes they are offered as regular .XPI (extensions) or .JAR (themes) files.

To install these, you need to either drag the file to the Add-ons Manager (Tools menu, Add-ons) or select File/Open File… and browse for the file.

There’s yet another easier and more logical way: unhide a secret button in the Add-ons Manager that will let you browser for extension or theme files stored in your computer: Read More»