Fordham IT: ITAC Blog

Most people don’t give much thought to what browser they use to surf the internet; in fact they might not even realize how many different kinds there are to choose from.

Why should you make the switch from using Internet Explorer to another browser such as Firefox?  There are several good reasons:  security, customization, and speed.  Firefox is not only a more secure browser and faster than Internet Explorer, but it also allows you to customize your browser experience with add-ons to make your browsing experience easy and save you time.

The following are the Firefox add-ons I use at work and why I like them.  You can also download them all from the Firefox Collection that I created.

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Delicious Bookmarks integrates delicious into the browser.  For all readers who are new to social bookmarking or have not yet signed up for a Delicious account, take a look at my previous post on “What’s so Delicious About Social Bookmarking?” for more information and resources on using Delicious.

Twitterfox: I primarily use Twitter to keep in touch and share resources with other educators.  At work I use Twitterfox and Twhirl to keep up with the latest tweets (at home I prefer to use Tweetdeck). I’m planning a future blog post on the benefits of educators using Twitter, but in the meantime if you are interested in learning more then take a look at the Twitter tab on my Pageflake for some helpful links.  If you are a Twitterer, please feel free to follow me (kris10_), I primarily tweet about education, technology, and math.

Download Statusbar: Instead of getting an annoying little pop-up every time you download something from the web, you’ll see a notification on the status bar of your browser.  There are also many other features available to customize your downloads.

Session Manager: I like this add-on because it’s an easy way to restore previous browsing sessions.  This is especially helpful after a crash occurs when I’ve got multiple tabs open!

Multirow Bookmarks Toolbar: I’m a big fan of being organized and this add-on lets me further customize the bookmarks toolbar so that I can not only use folders to organize my bookmarks by groups, but I can also add multiple rows.

Evernote Web Clipper: Now that Evernote has a mobile app for blackberry, I’ve installed the add-on for Firefox.  Evernote is a neat way of saving and organizing notes and features synchronization between web, desktop, and mobile platforms.  You can also send tweets directly into Evernote!

Coral IE Tab: While most web pages that are created now are compatible with various browsers, sometimes websites need to be viewed in Internet Explorer.  This add-on is a great way of viewing a page in Internet Explorer in a tab which avoids having to open up a new window.

Colorzilla: This handy add-on lets you get a color reading from anywhere inside the browser.  If you are into graphic design or frequently use products like Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator, this add-on can save you valuable time when you need to match a particular color on a website.

FireFTP: If you are looking for a free and secure FTP client, this is an easy and intuitive option.

FoxyMeter: An unobtrusive way to keep track of the number of web pages you surf.

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Additional Ways to customize Firefox:

Browse for Firefox add-ons by catagory or collection.  There is even a collection add-on that will notify you when there are updates made to the collection.  In addition to add-ons, you can further customize your Firefox browser by changing the theme, which is the way the buttons, icons, and browser looks.   Personas are a new Firefox feature that adds an image to the top and bottom (status bar) of the browser.

Links to other Browsers:

Google Chrome
Safari
Camino
Opera (Windows) (Mac)
Opera Mini for mobile devices
Introduction to Opera Unite (an introduction to the alpha release that turns any computer into both a client and a server)
Fennec for Windows mobile devices
Flock

Browser Reviews:

Firefox 3 (CNETeditor’s choice)
Chrome
Safari 4
Opera
Flock 2.5
Links to more browser reviews
About “The browser wars”, reviews, and download links

Additional Links of Interest:

How to clear your browser’s cache and surf securely

Photo Credit:
Browser by technovore
Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic