add-on

This free IE add-on captures JPEG images of bookmarked sites in the event that the tagged site changes or disappears. We were impressed by its stellar performance and ease of use.

InternetScrap introduces a toolbar to your Internet Explorer window that contains only two buttons. We would have liked to have seen a better use of the remaining space, but you can't have everything. The first button on the toolbar lets you manage scrapped (bookmarked) Web pages. There you can customize a hot-key combination for operating the program. The settings menu lets you opt to scrap the entire Web … Read more

Maxthon and Maxthon Classic are Earth-2, alternate-reality versions of the Internet Explorer engine, topped with customization features that more closely resemble Firefox. Especially popular in China, it's one of the most popular browsers around. It renders pages fast and comes loaded with features--as if Firefox came with 90 percent of its most popular plug-ins.

The differences between the two versions are not readily apparent. Maxthon 2 features loads more customization ability, but sacrifices a bit of stability for the privilege. Its design is stylish compared to the old version, and its new approach to accessing functions makes it more … Read more

One of my buddies just tipped me off to a must-have tab management add-on for Firefox. It's called FoxTab, and it's a cross between Mac OS X's Expose, Windows Vista's Flip 3D, and the thumbnail view in Google Chrome. When you've got a lot of tabs open in Firefox, this offers a quick way to jump to the page you want without having to eyeball the name of each one.

To toggle it on you just hit a small keyboard shortcut and it zooms out all the tabs into a giant wall. You can also … Read more

Me.dium is a free social networking tool for Firefox and Internet Explorer with a twist. It lets you browse the Internet alongside your friends, and even make new ones.

The interface is modern without being obnoxious. A sidebar and a toolbar appear in your browser window. The top panel of the sidebar is a map that lets you view what sites your friends are visiting. The bottom panel of the sidebar lets you view your friends profiles and send messages. Me.dium will definitely appeal to Facebook users because you can send messages directly to your Facebook friends from … Read more

Think that every conceivable useful feature not included in Firefox has been created? Not likely. At least now, though, we can take attachment drag-and-drop off the list with dragdropupload.

The add-on works with most major Web mail services and message board systems. Once installed, simply go to your Gmail, for example, and "compose" a new message. Hit the "add attachment" button, and instead of browsing through your complex file tree from there, you can grab the file from Windows Explorer and drag it over the file location box in the page. The plug-in supports multiple files, … Read more

This is one of the best Firefox extensions around and makes tabbed browsing even better than it already is. Tab Mix Plus can change the close button on each tab feature, control the rows of tabs when you exceed the width of the browser window, and almost everything else associated with tabs. Use your scrollwheel to browse tabs, or control tab switching via mouse gestures. You can specify where Web pages will open--in the background or the foreground, in a new tab or the current one--based on how they were created: by clicking a link, typing an address, or using … Read more

Last May, I described the CallingID add-on for the Mozilla Firefox browser. It lets users see at a glance the address or location of the server hosting the site their visiting, and it even offers a color-coded security rating.

Unfortunately, the add-on doesn't work with Firefox 3, and the vendor's site doesn't offer any information on or help with this problem.

While looking for a solution to the CallingID glitch, I discovered Shazou, a Firefox add-on created by Chuck Durham at Seisan that goes one step further by showing the location of the site's server on … Read more

This Firefox extension takes a stab at solving a common Web problem: finding again that which you had found before. WebMynd adds two very useful functions to your browsing: site-by-site recording of where you've been, and integrating your history and Delicious bookmarks into specific Google searches. It's the Back button with brains.

The site-by-site recording creates a timeline view of your browsing and a photo browser-like display. Want the site you found Friday after lunch? Rewind using the Reel view. Looking for the site with the purple logo thing? The Grid view is good for your visual memory. … Read more

The problem with opening PDF files in Firefox is that it tends to slow down your performance, especially if you open a number of them. This simple little extension gives you complete control over PDF files in a Toolbar button.

Rather than stick you all alone with a browser-jarring PDF file, the PDF Download extension provides you the option to: download the file locally, open it with Firefox using the PDF download options settings, view the PDF as an HTML file in the browser, bypass PDF Download, or cancel the link. The first two options are self-explanatory, while the "… Read more