add-ons

In their never-ending quest to steal your credit card and bank account numbers, passwords, Social Security numbers, and other sensitive personal information, malware purveyors go wherever the eyeballs are. Lately, the bad guys have increasingly been targeting the links served up by Web search engines.

Two computer security firms recently issued press releases touting the dangers of searching for popular terms, such as the names of starlets or items in the news. Barracuda Labs' 2010 Midyear Security Report highlights the risks of entering a popular topic in Google, Bing, or Yahoo. The company entered thousands of search terms in these … Read more

TabSense, a fast-moving Google Chrome extension, fights the distractions inherent to multiple tabs and windows. Similar to Mozilla Firefox's upcoming "Tab Candy," this Chromium extension efficiently declutters your work space by organizing your tabs all in one spot. While it has a few glitches that need hasty fixing, this new tool is handy for anyone who finds themselves navigating through multiple windows and tabs.

The TabSense icon at the right-hand side of the address bar opens a page filled with boxes that represent your open Chrome windows. Each box contains a list of the window's tabs. … Read more

Similar to Mozilla Firefox's upcoming "Tab Candy" concept, Google Chrome add-on TabSense helps manage your tabs in a streamlined, organized manner. Though in its rookie status--there are still minor bugs--the extension is definitely worth keeping thanks to its simple utility. After the lightning-fast install, a rounded/rectangular icon will appear to the right-hand side of the address bar. A message will say that settings can be configured through the extensions option of the tool menu. In this menu users can uninstall and disable; however, the "options" link takes you to a blank page that merely … Read more

Originally a Firefox add-on, FindThatBand has gone Chrome. Instead of hopelessly searching for music within the endless black hole which is the Web, Google Chrome users can now find their favorite bands by highlighting text.

To find the band, simply highlight its name and hit CTRL twice. A pop-up will instantly appear with a list of 11 music resource sites. This list consists of MySpace, Last.fm, Pandora, Wikipedia, Hype Machine, Amazon, iTunes, Discogs, allmusic, iLike, and Grooveshark. (Last.fm is a CBS site, as is CNET.) Between all of these sites, it is highly likely that you will find … Read more

Remember a few weeks ago when YouTube made a big deal about its new music video page that sorts out every single music video that's hosted on the service? You can now put it to far better use with a new Firefox extension called Scrolling Lyrics Player (SLP) that turns each video page into a honest to goodness karaoke player.

Once installed, SLP will sit just to the right of any YouTube video and do a search for the lyrics of whatever music video or song recording you're watching. It then syncs that up with the timing of … Read more

Google now offers an extension for Chrome that automates the process of adding the secure Google search site as a search engine to the Chrome 6.x branch. Google SSL Web Search is an extension, still in beta, that works with Chrome 6.0.419.0 and later on Windows and Linux computers.

First released in June 2010, installing the extension opens up a configuration window with a single button that will open Chrome's "add search engine" window. Here, you can set a keyword to speed up your use of Google SSL Web search. There are also … Read more

One of the best features in the Thunderbird remix called Postbox was the deep and fluid integration of social networking contacts into the desktop e-mail client. Thunderbird itself has begun to get a taste of that power with Thunderbird Contacts, a version of Mozilla Contacts, a Firefox add-on that made the browser more socially aware.

Thunderbird Contacts is so new that Mozilla is still switching between that name and "Contacts for Thunderbird" in its blog post announcing the add-on. Whatever it's called, it pulls your cloud-stored contact info from numerous sites into Thunderbird, and then merges the … Read more

StayFocusd is a Google Chrome extension that helps Internet procrastinators focus on their work instead of browsing copious amounts of time-wasting material. This add-on is useful when you want to limit how much time you spend on a particular Web site, or even the entire Internet. StayFocusd is customizable and intuitive--it's simple to create detailed Web-surfing guidelines--but beware: this extension is harsh; make sure you really want to block your sites.

After downloading the add-on, a round blue icon will show up on the right-hand side of your address bar. While you are on the site that needs blocking, … Read more

Yoono makes the task of managing multiple different social-networking accounts less of a headache. Using several instant-messaging programs because your coworkers like Google Talk whereas your friends use AIM can also mix you up.

Like Digsby and VoxOx, Yoono combines social networking with instant messaging. Sure, there are social site applications like TweetDeck that let you follow your friend's Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace accounts--not to mention the numerous all-in-one chat clients such as Trillian and Pidgin, which are very popular around the CNET offices. Yoono, however, combines all of these functions into one sleek desktop app. Those who do … Read more