Upgrade Firefox

With all its fantastic extensions, Firefox has become an all-round genius. CHIP has tracked down the 25 best add-ons for you—and packed them on the issue DVD.

The latest stable release of Firefox, version 3, has been out for over a month now. CHIP gives you the latest extensions that add all the functions you need to make your Web surfing experience stress-free and fulfilling. With version 3, Firefox has fully embraced the add-ons experience. The Add-ons dialog box, accessible from ‘Tools | Add-ons’ now comes with a ‘Get Add-ons’ tab, such that users no longer have to navigate to the website (addons.mozilla.org) to get them. It even has a handy search field.

Complete comfort

To ensure that you surf more comfortably and make the Fox fit for the Internet of the future and hassle-proof, the first thing to do is to check out the following add-ons.

Sometimes, it is really annoying to click on countless links while searching on the Internet. With ‘Interclue’, you need not go through this unnecessary step—hover your cursor over a link, and a small icon will appear next to it. When you hover over that icon, it opens up a pop-up window that shows a preview of that website. You can enlarge the window as desired, or send the links directly via mail or even save them as bookmarks. An alternative to ‘Interclue’ is ‘Cooliris’. While ‘Cooliris’ is merely a pop-up window, ‘Interclue’ has the advantage of notifying the user about potentially harmful websites that contain malicious content or are phishing scams. However, while the ‘Cooliris’ preview displays the Web page as it will appear on your Web browser, the ‘Interclue’ preview displays only the bare basics—text, images and links. Which add-on will best suit your purposes is up to you, depending on your preferences. (see full story link)

Security on the Web

Firefox developers patch security loopholes in the browser regularly. However, hackers always find new leaks in no time. Use security tools for this purpose and protect the fox from all those dangers yourself.

JavaScript presents an enormous security loophole. The problem is when you deactivate these functions, most websites will not be displayed correctly any more, especially in the age of interactive Web 2.0. With ‘No-Script’, you can determine the websites on which scripts may run—namely which websites should always display scripts and which are supposed to be blocked.

am-packed Multimedia

Listening to music, viewing pictures and storing videos—all these multimedia functions can be undertaken by Firefox effortlessly with the right add-ons.

With ‘FoxyTunes’, you can upgrade your Web browser to include a slim audio player. The tool uses any player installed on the PC for playing and can even access Internet services such as last.fm. With different skins available from the manufacturer’s homepage and diverse setting options like cover artwork display, ‘FoxyTunes’ is a very flexible tool to use.

Community tools

The world of social networking survives exclusively on community spirit, and people who actively participate in blogs and forums. The only problem is that the number of such sites has grown immensely in the past few years—and new ones are being added each day.

It is barely possible to get an overview of all the activities on such sites. In order to make searching for the latest news easier, we have helpful tools like ‘BlogRovR’. If you store interesting websites, sorted according to topics of your choice, it will gather news and comments automatically. Besides, the extension can also be used as a track-back display.

Extensions for developers

Specialized web programs are a must if you want to tinker about with homepages or work with servers. Luckily, there are extensions for Firefox which makes the working a lot easier.

The extensive add-on ‘Firebug’ is available for analyzing websites. No action on a site will ever go unnoticed by this tool; Firebug lists hidden processes as well. If you want, it can also change the entire look of a website for you. There is a special add-on for this purpose though—with ‘Stylish’, you can edit the look of any site with the help of CSS. Alternatively, it is possible to download ready scripts from the manufacturer’s website.

Firefox add-on packages

Comfort: All-in-one sidebar, DownThemAll, Interclue, Cooliris, IE Tab.

Security: Adblock Plus, FoxyProxy, NoScript, Secure Login.

Multimedia: FireShot, FoxyTunes, Gspace, PicLens, Video DownloadHelper.

Community: BlogRovR, ChatZilla, Locator, ReminderFox, SamePlace.

Professional: Firebug, FireFTP, Stylish, SQLite Manager, Web Developer, Greasemonkey.

(full story Link)