Worthwhile additions to your Web browser
They go by many names: plugins, extensions, add-ons, bookmarklets. Whatever you want to call them, they are extra functions that you can add to your Web browser. The best browsers for adding stuff is Firefox and Chrome; the worst is Internet Explorer. But, even with Internet Explorer, there are ways. While you can certainly go crazy with these add-ons, be warned that they do take up extra resources. So, if you have an old machine and you like having a gazillion tabs open at the same time within your browser, you may want to severely limit your add-ons. Here are the ones I use on a daily basis:
- to make reading Web content easier: Evernote Clearly and Readability
- to capture screenshots (including automatically scrolling a long webpage): Pixlr Grabber
- to create a short URL for a webpage: bitly (if you are wondering why anyone needs this, leave a comment and I'll explain)
- to manage my passwords: LastPass
I also have an auto-syncing cross-browser bookmarks manager since I use a number of personal and work devices daily and want to have a consistent and organized set of bookmarks: Xmarks.
All the ones mentioned here have Firefox and Chrome versions. If you are using Internet Explorer and are looking for an excuse to switch, this post might be your ticket.
