extension

Web watcher

HTTPWatch Basic Edition is a free browser plug-in that collects and displays information about Web sites. It's a trial edition of HTTPWatch Professional, with which it shares many features, albeit with limitations, mostly for Web sites with nonproprietary log files. The Basic version also displays a logo banner on printouts. Both work with Microsoft Internet Explorer as well as Mozilla Firefox. You can save the information HTTPWatch Basic Edition collects as a log file and view it with an included utility, HTTP Studio.

We downloaded and installed HTTPWatch Basic for Internet Explorer. During the process, we allowed the plug-in'… Read more

Foxy backup

FEBE stands for Firefox Environment Backup Extension. It's a free add-on that can back up, save, and restore everything from add-ons and themes to, well, everything in Firefox: bookmarks, passwords, preferences, saved forms, and more--even your entire profile. You can schedule automatic backups or start them any time, and even upload saved results. It's got some extras, too.

FEBE installs like any Firefox add-in but also adds its own entry on the Tools menu, with choices to make backups, restore items or profiles, and access FEBE's options; we also accessed the options from the Firefox add-ons manager. … Read more

Web page snap shots

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multi-page vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Web Snapper gives you a few different options for your interface, which will likely vary based on your workflow and browser preference. Using any browser, you can drag and drop URLs onto Web Snapper's … Read more

Web page snap shots

Web Snapper is an app and Safari plug-in that provides a fast and flexible way to capture screenshots of Web pages. The Mac OS provides some very limited screen-capture capabilities with Grab, but Web Snapper provides many more options (especially in terms of format, and in its easy-to-use integration with Safari), and it can capture multipage vector PDFs with actual text, links, and styling intact.

Web Snapper gives you a few different options for your interface, which will likely vary based on your workflow and browser preference. Using any browser, you can drag and drop URLs onto Web Snapper's … Read more

Opera goes to 11 with an extensions API

Editors' note: This post originally stated that the Opera 11 beta was not yet available for Linux. In fact, Opera 11 beta 1 for Linux is available for download here.

Opera may be getting most of its attention these days from its mobile browsers, but that doesn't mean that the company is ignoring its desktop browser. The first beta for Opera 11 introduces a long-missing extensions API in a lightweight profile similar to those that run on WebKit-powered browsers like Chrome and Safari.

Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux, Opera 11 beta 1 debuts other minor but useful changes. … Read more

Bargain-hunt with Window Shopper browser add-on

Like it or not, the holiday shopping season is upon us. Luckily for those of us who dread the thought of wandering through crowded malls and department stores with Christmas music assaulting our ears at every turn, this nifty little tool called the Internet is here to help save our sanity. Still, scouring dozens of Web sites for the very best deal on that perfect gift is exhausting on a whole 'nother level. To that end, Superfish--a visual search engine developer that just raised $4 million in funding--has created a nifty app called Window Shopper.

Window Shopper is a … Read more

Quit smoking With Quitomzilla

Everybody knows how hard it is to quit smoking cigarettes, and how important it can be to succeed. Now there's an app for that, or an add-on, to be specific. Quitomzilla from Quitometro is a free Firefox add-on that can help smokers kick the habit by counting down the time until or since Q-Day; by telling them how much money they're saving or could be saving by not buying cigarettes; and by nagging or bragging on themselves with paste-in messages.

Quitomzilla installs and configures like any Firefox add-on. We installed it, restarted Firefox, and clicked Add-ons on the … Read more

Mozilla develops social skills with F1

As Flock and RockMelt duked it out for social-networking addicts' attention, browser kingpin Mozilla quietly introduced last week a new add-on for Facebook, Twitter, and Gmail users. Called F1 (download) and created by Mozilla Messaging, the division of Mozilla that manages the e-mail client Thunderbird, the secure and unobtrusive add-on provides fast sharing of URLs via a dedicated navigation bar button. It mimics one of the best features found in social-networking browsers without having to deal with hassle of switching browsers, although the add-on is definitely still a bit rough.

Once installed, F1 will create a button on the right … Read more

Extensions raise the volume in Opera 11

Opera, the longtime underdog browser favorite, released a rough alpha version of its next-generation browser today.

Opera 11 alpha for Windows, Mac, and Linux is notable at this point for bringing extensions to the closed-source browser, a feature not in earlier versions of Opera that has been a key selling point for Google Chrome. Extensions, which add extra functions to browsers, have recently come to Apple Safari, too.

Opera 11 alpha's extensions are also a further indication of the standardization of extension coding. WebKit-based Chrome and Safari use extension formats that are nearly-identical combinations of JavaScript, HTML5, and CSS, … Read more