Tech & Biz

Firefox Add-Ons Allow Quicker Browsing Through NowPublic

by Roy C | February 14, 2009 at 04:32 pm

205 views | 34 Recommendations | 9 comments

NowPublic denizens, there are several browsing tools that are add-ons to the Mozilla Firefox browser that I prefer to the Explorer. The Firefox browser works more quickly on my computer but I would use Firefox even it were a bit slower because of these add-ons.

CoolPreviews let me look at all the competing stories without leaving the page. This speeds up the whole process and lets you stay focused. CoolPreviews sets up a small box when the cursor hovers over a small blue icon that appears next to a link. The box appears with the page within, and I can read the page, post and return to where the whole interaction started. You can also stack the previews on the side for future reference. For future reference, instead of CoolPreviews stacks, I prefer Read It Later.

Read It Later is a way to temporarily bookmark a site to look at later, avoiding adding extra tabs or having to bookmark it. Once downloaded and activated, a blank check-mark appears on the URL bar. You click on that and it gets stored. You click on an icon in the upper right of Firefox and the whole list comes up.

CoolIris is a tool that allows Google image searches to be displayed on a virtual wall, and you only have to click your way through the pictures to move. You can move them closer in and out and keep track of them as well as favorites. You must look at this one. Aesthetically, it is the most amazing thing I have seen on my computer.

I like my Foxmarks. Foxmarks is an on-line registration of your favorites. With this I can keep multiple computers up to date as far as bookmarks are concerned by using Foxmarks and I can use the on-line service when using a public computer, even with the Explorer, so I don't have to look up various sites I want to look at.

Last, but not least, the research tool, Zotero, is a great way to keep track of multiple types of documents and favorites all in the same place. You can cross-index and keep mutliple entries cross-referenced in a variety of ways.

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amyjudd

at 17:19 on February 14th, 2009

Some good information here

Roy C

at 18:04 on February 14th, 2009

Thanks. I was wondering how many of you might find it a bit annoying trying to go down that whole list of stories and keep trying to come back to the page after posting something.

That whole mess can be avoided.

Blue Crush

at 21:51 on February 14th, 2009

Thank you for posting. I could really use ReadItLater, I'm bad for having a dozen tabs open for each page.

Rob Walker

at 06:37 on February 15th, 2009

Very cool, I'm totally trying out coolpreviews and read it later.

Blue Crush

at 09:35 on February 15th, 2009

I've installed coolpreviews, now I'm playing around with it, it's sooo cool. I love it! Installed readitlater too, haven't used it yet.

Roy C

at 09:47 on February 15th, 2009

Yeah, that is how I feel about them. When I first read about them looking at the long list of add-ons and such as Firefox, I wasn't sure that it really made a difference, but use proved useful, to coin a phrase.

Rhonda J Mangus

at 09:50 on February 15th, 2009

Thanks for this information, Roy C! Great stuff!:)

René

at 11:23 on February 28th, 2009

Great add-ons, unfortunately they only work on the new versions of Firefox which will not work on the older versions of Mac OS X 10.3.xx. Which is strange since they do work on these versions on the website demos. That's how I know they are great add-ons.

Zoetero worked, but I took it off my blogs, since it was intrusive and added too much code where I didn't want it. including ad links on individual words. not my ads, somebody else got the credits.