Firefox add-ons

URL Tooltip is a simple add-on that performs a simple function. It shows a pop-up tool tip with the URL of whatever Web site link you're hovering over. You can set the font size, and toggle wrapping long URLs. That's it.

But by putting the power of URL preview into your mouse, you can then hide your Status Bar. Assuming you don't use it for anything else, this can save valuable screen real estate--especially in Netbooks.

URL Tooltip is a one-shot wonder, but that doesn't mean it's not a handy tool to have.

This past year felt like a rebuilding year for Firefox add-ons, with two new frameworks implemented to help guide the future of extensions. Personas gave Firefox on-the-fly theme-switching, and users can expect it to be part of the stable version of Firefox 3.6 when that gets released. Jetpack takes a similarly-minded approach to feature add-ons, allowing programmers to create feature-rich add-ons from little more than HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Expect JetPack to eventually be part of Firefox by default.

In no particular order, here are eight other of our favorites:

Weave Sync is another project from Mozilla Labs, although … Read more

There's no reason to take the Web as it comes. Not when there are Firefox add-ons that turn Web pages into putty that you can shape as you wish. These three--Zotero, MashLogic, and RSVP Reader--let you gather and store all or parts of Web pages, open a customizable info box for whatever topics you encounter, and convert a block of text into a string of phrases that flash in a box at a speed you control.

Turn your favorite pages into collections A few days ago, I wrote about three add-ons that go bookmarks one better by … Read more

Delicious Bookmarks is an add-on for Firefox that functions as a virtual filing cabinet for your bookmarks. If you love surfing the Internet, this tool will help you organize your bookmarks and discover new sites of interest.

Delicious Bookmarks shows its value as soon as we installed it. Since we weren't familiar with Delicious Bookmarks, we went to the About section of the product's Web site and found what we needed to get started, plus plenty of other great information. To use Delicious Bookmarks, you need an account with Delicious, which is part of Yahoo, so if you … Read more

Web pages aren't getting any smaller, but there are usually not more than a few paragraphs or a couple of images of particular interest on any given page. Firefox add-ons ICyte (also available for IE), Wired-Marker, and Trails let you save all or sections of Web pages and share your snippets with others.

ICyte makes sharing easy Most of the time, sharing Web content means sending someone a link via e-mail, chat, or phone. The ICyte add-on for Firefox and Internet Explorer lets you highlight the important content on the page before you share it, or you can save and send portions of the page rather than the whole enchilada.

You must provide your name and e-mail address to use the service. After you download the add-on and restart Firefox, two buttons are added to the left of the address bar. Click the left button to create a Cyte for a new or existing "project." Here you can assign tags or a note to the Cyte. Click the button on the right to open your Cytes in the sidebar.

The Cyte entries in the sidebar show a thumbnail of the page, its name, the name of the project, and its comments and tags. When you click a Cyte to reopen it, a banner appears at the top of the main browser window showing the same information along with the date it was saved and a Live View button that returns to the original page. You can hide this banner to view more of the page itself.

Click the gear icon that appears when you hover over a Cyte in the sidebar to open its drop-down menu with options for editing the Cyte name and other data (but not the page itself), creating a copy, deleting the Cyte, sending it to someone via e-mail, or embedding it in a Web page. You can also share the sites you designate as public with others via RSS, Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks, though I didn't try these features.

… Read more

RSS is great technology, but one of its shortcomings is that it doesn't always represent all of a site's content stream. Many times there are parts of a news or content site that change either through an editorial hand, or with items chosen by users. A new Firefox add-on called AlertBox helps track these "scraps" of content, and can be used to keep an eye out for any changes. This includes things like price changes, edits or updates to a news story, and the top stories on content sites.

To make sure it's not looking … Read more

Here's a must-have Firefox add-on. Called Multi Links, this extension lets you simply right click and drag your mouse across the screen to select multiple links at once. It's just like selecting multiple files on your computer, and highly effective for tearing through a page of links you want to look at or save for later.

By default, selected links open up in new browser tabs, although you can go into the options to choose whether you want them to open up in new windows, or be bookmarked instead. You're also able to change the color scheme … Read more

If you're the type of person who uses a lot of search engines and doesn't mind having a toolbar installed, you might want to check out Firefox Super Search. This Firefox-only add-on puts the power of 160 search engines in one toolbar, with about 70 that can be searched right from the toolbar itself.

If you're used to Firefox's built-in search box, this is a pretty big step up both from selecting one engine at a time and having to add additional engine tools from Mozilla's catalog. It's also laid out in a really … Read more

Google Calendar has quickly become one of my favorite online tools. I can schedule meetings quickly and it integrates seamlessly into my workflow. It's a great service.

But I want more from it.

That's why I've been sifting through Mozilla's Firefox extension database trying to find some add-ons that take Google Calendar to the next level. Whether they enhance its usability or just improve its effectiveness, there are a handful of extensions that work quite well.

Better GCal After I installed Better GCal, I was extremely impressed by what it offered. From a new skin to little extras like week numbers and collapsible headers, it makes Google Calendar just a little better. The extension not only made me more organized, but the calendar became far more readable.

GCal Popup GCal Popup is a really neat idea. Instead of forcing you to open a new tab to add an event to your Google Calendar, you'll only need to open the extension and it will display your Google Calendar over your current Web page. Input the event you want to add to your calendar and once you're done, you can close the extension and go back to work.

GCal Popup is designed to make it convenient to add events to your Calendar and it succeeds. But beware that it's an "experimental" extension, so it might cause some instability issues. That said, I haven't experienced any such problems.… Read more