FireFox

Recently I made the switch from Internet Explorer to Mozilla FireFox for my web browser. Admittedly I only changed because we use it at work and I was told I had to start using it, but since changing over I think it would be impossible to go back. There are so many awesome add-ons that are available through FireFox that you can use to customize it, that Internet Explorer just seems dull and out of touch with how interacting with the internet should be.

I am currently using a few of these add-ons that I think are pretty cool; they are search word, Foxy Tunes, and Me.dium. Search word lets you assign a letter in your address bar to a search engine that you commonly use. By doing this you can go to where you normally type in, lets say wikipedia.com, and instead simply type, w “wikipedia search”. Essentially it saves you the step of typing in the search engine address and replacing that step with an assigned letter. I currently have g for google, w for wikipedia, and d for websters dictionary.

Foxy Tunes is an add-on that allows you to control whatever music player you use through your actual internet page. This saves you the trouble of flipping back and forth from iTunes to your internet page by letting you hit play, pause, skip, or adjusting the volume all at the bottom of your internet page where it normally says done. It will also connect you to a web page that displays information about the song that is playing including the lyrics.

Me.dium is a bit more out there as far as the use of it goes. Basically, Me.dium allows you to see what websites people are looking at and if your friends are on it with you, the ability to chat like AIM. I think watching the demo video and looking at their site are probably the best way to figure out exactly what it is, but I think it looks like it could have some really cool uses for making the web a less lonely.