If you use Firefox as your web browser of choice, I have got some great free add-ons for you that just might enhance your web browsing experience. (If you don't use Firefox...well...you really should seriously think about changing...it's the best!) As I have mentioned here before, there are hundreds of free add-ons available for Firefox, so it is always fun to investigate them once in a while as new ones are being added all the time.
One important one that I have written about here before is the McAfee Site Advisor. This one has saved me from spyware, spam, and probably some virus attacks. Simply put, when you do a Google search, Site Advisor grades each site that your search pulls up, with a green check mark (if its OK) and a big red X if it is not. It is a great way to avoid sites that can harm your computer.
Another one I like is the Google Preview, that shows you a snapshot of the web site before you click on it. It works with both Google and Yahoo searches. Still another one that I have written about here before is Tab Browser Preferences that gives you greater control of the tabs on your browser.
Now for some new ones:
My new favorite is Foxmark Bookmark Synchronizer. This cute little add-on is very similar to the FolderShare program I wrote about a few days ago. But, instead of synchronizing folders across two or more computers, Foxmark synchronizes your bookmarks. Now you can have all your bookmarks on all your computers synchronized as one. It works automatically in the background whether your computers are on or off. If you have added a new bookmark in one computer and the other is off, it will synch them up when you turn the other on. Finally, a workable way to have all my bookmarks in one place.
Another new one that I just installed today is Adblock Plus. I can't give it great marks yet because I only just installed it, but so far it seems to work. It it designed to block those pesky advertisement that pop up in a middle of your reading a web page. Although Firefox does a good job of blocking ads that want to pop up when you load a page, it doesn't seem to work well for those ads that show up in the middle of a session, like on CNN or CBS Sports. Adblock Plus supposedly will do just that. And, if an ad does happen to pop up, you can right click on it and it will never pop up again.
The third new one that may be useful for you is Clipmarks. It allows you to bookmark certain parts of a web page and save it rather than bookmarking the entire page. I have used it mostly to gather information about blogs that I intend to write in the future.
If you would like to learn more about these and other Firefox add-ons, a good starting place is the list of recommended Firefox add-on page on the Mozilla web site. Happy browsing!!
PS: Mozilla has just released an Alpha version of the new Firefox Version 3. It is so preliminary that they recommend that you don't download it yet for testing. It should be finalized and ready for consumers in about one year.
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