Firefox

“The award-winning Web browser is now even faster, more secure, and fully customizable to suit your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.”
Firefox is definitely up there as being one of my all-time favorite internet browsers of all time and the developers continue to add fantastic features to an already great package. Security issues are also hastily rectified should they arise.

Main Features: Improved Tabbed Browsing, Spell Checking, Search Suggestions, Session Restore, Web Feeds (RSS), Live Titles, Integrated Search, Live Bookmarks, Pop-up Blocker, Phishing Protection, Open Source, Automated Update, Protection from Spyware and Search Engine Manager.
Tagline: “The Firefox Web Browser is the faster, more secure, and fully customizable way to surf the web.”
Link: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Safari

“Experience the web, Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use, web browser in the world. With its simple, elegant interface, Safari gets out of your way and lets you enjoy the web — up to 2 times fast than Internet Explorer.”

Main Features: Blazing Performance, Elegant User Interface, Easy Bookmarks, Pop-up Blocking, Inline Find, Tabbed Browsing, SnapBack, Forms AutoFill, Built-in RSS, Resizable Text Areas, Private Browsing and Security.
Tagline: “Experience the web, Apple style, with Safari: the fastest, easiest-to-use web browser in the world”
Link: http://www.apple.com/safari/

Opera

“Why Opera? Safe, secure, powerful and fully customizable, the Opera Web browser is faster and more secure than other browsers available on the market. Opera delivers robust security and a far-richer feature set than any other Web browser and it’s free.

Opera is the Web pioneer that delivered tabbed browsing in 2000, and Opera 9.2 features lots of other great tricks for quick navigation, including Speed Dial, a quick way to put all of your favorite daily sites at your fingertips. You can also take, save and trade Notes attached to any Web site while browsing, or Create Search shortcuts from any search field on the Web. Opera 9.25 is super fast and free, secure and stable, and offers lots of great tools for Web Developers.”

Main Features: Transfer manager, Tabbed browsing, Password manager, Integrated search, Mouse gestures, Fast Forward, Notes, Keyboard Shortcuts, Full-screen mode, Speed Dial™, Fraud protection, Integrated BitTorrent, Widgets Support and Thumbnail Preview.
Tagline: “The award-winning Opera Web browser The coolest, fastest, and most secure free Web browser available.”>
Link: http://www.opera.com/

Maxthon

“Maxthon Browser is a powerful tabbed browser built for all users. Besides basic browsing functionality, Maxthon Browser provides a rich set of features to improve your surfing experience.”

Main Features Tabbed Browsing, Anti-Freeze, Mouse Gestures, Super Drag&Drop, Maxthon Smart Acceleration, Magic Fill, Online Favorites Service, Feed Reader, Super Proxy, URL Alias, Ad Hunter and Screen Capture.
Tagline: “Tabbed environment with features such as extendible multi-language support, pop-up filter, plug-ins, skin support. Formerly MyIE2.”
Link: http://www.maxthon.com/

And with that said, let’s get on with the show and I’ll introduce my Top 10 Recommended Programs for Windows Vista for January ‘08. I may even reduce it to a ‘Top 5′ in the future and turn this a monthly event! Depending on whether or not I can come across enough great programs for Windows Vista, that is. Software doesn’t grow on trees, you know!

10. WinRAR

“WinRAR is a powerful archive manager. It can backup your data and reduce size of email attachments, decompress RAR, ZIP and other files downloaded from Internet and create new archives in RAR and ZIP file format.” — couldn’t have said it better myself.
Link: http://www.rarlab.com/

9. Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
Link: http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

8. SonicStage

A fantastic music player and a great alternative to iTunes and WinAmp. It’s also the only program compatible with my Sony Walkman Bean MP3 player.
Link: http://musicstore.connect.com/

7. TextPad

TextPad is an award winning text editor for Windows XP and Windows Vista. It’s certainly a much better alternative to Windows’ built-in NotePad and WordPad. An absolute much download for web designers who spend the majority of their time coding up templates in HTML and programming complex applications in PHP and JavaScript.
Link: http://www.textpad.com/

6. Spybot: Search and Destroy

Spybot: Search and Destroy is a program dedicated to eliminating all the nasty spyware and malware that resides on your computer. A fantastic piece of software and comes very highly recommended if you intend to keep your computer safe and sound from spyware.
Link: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

5. AVG Anti-Virus Professional

Security protection against viruses, worms, trojans and potentially unwanted programs.
Link: http://www1.grisoft.com/doc/products-avg-anti-virus/us/crp/2

4. ZoneAlarm Pro Firewall

Shield yourself with an unrivaled firewall enhanced with powerful anti-spyware and unique identity protection services.
Link: http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_zap.jsp

3. SmartFTP

SmartFTP is an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client which allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet. Much better than its closest competitors, CuteFTP and FileZilla, in my opinion.
Link: http://www.smartftp.com/

2. Firefox

A genuinely incredible internet browser that, in my humble opinion, sets the standard for all current and next generation web browsers. Firefox is an absolute shining example of how it should be done. And this is coming from someone who has tasted what Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, Maxthon, Netscape and a wealth of other browsers have to offer. Get Firefox now!
Link: http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

1. Adobe Photoshop CS3

Adobe Photoshop CS3 — without a doubt the finest graphics editing software available today and an absolute must for digital photography enthusiasts and web designers. Sadly, it doesn’t come cheap, though. Adobe Photoshop CS3 currently retails for the rather terrifying price of US$649 and Photoshop CS3 Extended Edition retails for US$999. Unless, of course, you are upgrading from a previous version of Photoshop, whereby you are eligible to purchase at a discount price.
Link: http://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop/index.html

I have yet to take it for a spin myself but I’m very eager to do so later this evening and see just what it’s all about; especially when it issues such a bold statement as:

IE7Pro is a must have add-on for Internet Explorer, which includes a lot of features and tweaks to make your IE friendlier, more useful, secure and customizable.

Well–say no more! Additional security and extra customization options sounds very intriguing. Perhaps this little add-on for Internet Explorer 7 can help sway me into returning to IE7. We’ll just have to say.

Please do be sure to post a comment regarding your experience with IE7Pro 2.0, if you do decide to try it out for yourself, and let others know what you think.

The official explanation for the ‘Firefox companion for eBay’, and just exactly what it was designed to do, goes a little something like this:

“Keep an eye on your eBay trading wherever you are on the web when you install the eBay Companion for Firefox. It’s a free tool built with eBay users in mind that will help you get more out of your buying and selling.”

A little cryptic, you might say. It certainly doesn’t give away a whole lot as to just what it is that this add-on does. Fortunately, there’s more:

“Be a better bidder! You’re always securely signed in so you can check out your progress whenever you like. Customise your alerts so you stay on top of your bids. Be told when an auction style format listing you’re bidding on is about to end.”

That’s a little better! Basically, what the ‘Firefox Companion for eBay’ plugin does it allows you to keep entirely up to date with any and all items you might be bidding on, selling, or perhaps just watching. It’s entirely up to you. You are also keep notified of any message you might have received from eager customers or sellers you might have contacted recently. Obviously, being able to keep on top of all customer enquiries and the status of your items is very, very helpful, especially if you’re one of those dedicated eBay users who sell goods on eBay for a living.

As you can see, a few of the items included in my recent log include: Mario Party DS and The Legend of Zelda: The Phantom Hourglass, both of which were Christmas gifts for my wife, Call of Duty 4 for Xbox 360, which was a gift for my cousin, and a brand spanking new copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3 which was an early Christmas present for myself.

Nothing I could possibly say would ever do this fantastic invention the justice it deserves so I urge you to go ahead and check out this phenomenally helpful Firefox add-on by heading over to it official page over at Mozilla. Enjoy, and happy trading on eBay!

You can take full advantage of this handy feature simply by typing in a simple maths sum into the Google search box which is located to the right of Firefox’s address bar, like so:

As you can see, all that was required of me was to punch in a standard sum and Firefox does the rest, producing the answer in a handy pop-up. How cool is that?

Special thanks to Matt Cutts for pointing out this cool Firefox tip in one of his more recent blog entries concerning Google Reader subscription tips.

This is very handy as it allows you to scan files and folders for viruses before downloading them, which will obviously help drastically cut down on the amount of potential viruses and generally unpleasant scripts finding their way onto your computer’s hard drive.

Here is a brief excerpt taken from the official Dr.Web Anti-Virus Link Checker web page over at Mozilla.org to help whet your whistle:

This plugin allows you to check any file you are about to download, any page you are about to visit with online version of Dr.Web anti-virus!

The Dr.Web Anti-Virus Link Checker tool for Firefox is completely free and available at the following link: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/938

Just go ahead and visit the link above and you will be able to download the extension; from there you will be asked to restart Firefox - accept and Firefox will do the rest. When everything has restarted you will notice that whenever you press your right mouse button on a link or a file, that a new option will be available towards the button of the menu which allows you to scan the corresponding file or link you clicked on.

The Dr.Web Anti-Virus Link Checker tool will then go onto scan the requested file which can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, and possibly more if you are scanning a particularly large file. After the anti-virus checker has finished it will provide you with a full summary of the file; and most importantly, either a bright green “Clean” or ” bright red “Infected” message.

That’s pretty much all there is to it, really. Just don’t forget to take full advantage of this new anti-virus function in Firefox next time you opt to download that file that you feel might feel is a little suspicious…

Have fun and enjoy a much safer browsing experience!

The only problem with the constant back-and-forth method of checking on your Google AdSense earnings however is that it can become a bit of a chore to keep opening new tabs and logging in to your reports overview page only to find that today’s profits have only increased by a measly one cent in the last five hours! Firefox has crashed on me so many times while attempting to check my AdSense earnings now - presumably because its getting so tired of seeing the same page over and over again.

God bless Firefox add-ons!

With Firefox comes the fantastic ability to install any add-ons and extensions you like and personalize your Firefox installation the way you see fit. One of the most useful Firefox add-ons I have managed to come across in the past year is definitely the AdSense Notifier extension which was first released back in 2005 from what I can tell. It’s a great plugin and definitely deserves your attention if you are a webmaster looking to get the most out of Firefox and AdSense.

While, it won’t help with increasing your profits in any way, it will be able to keep you up to date with how your CTR, total clicks, eCPM, impressions, and overall profits are coming along for that day by displaying a handy little message in the lower right section of your Firefox window. Upon installing AdSense Notifier for Firefox you are given the option to configure it to your tastes by telling it just what kind of information regarding your AdSense earnings you want to be displayed in this tiny portion of your screen. Personally, I like to keep it very basic by only allowing AdSense notifier to display the total earnings for the current day; I find that this generally allows me to keep my Firefox status bar much more neat and tidy and means I can fit more junk in this area if need be. I currently have roughly nine plugins installed that are also using this area to display data; these include: Alexa ranking, Google PageRank, SEOQuake shortcuts, Stylish shortcuts, a screenshot capturing tool, and a few other bits and pieces.

What does AdSense Notifier look like?

As I said in the previous section: I currently only allow AdSense Notifier to display my total earnings for the day in the status bar so obviously this means there won’t be a whole lot to see. However, I’ve included a screenshot for your viewing pleasure:

That is AdSense notifier stripped down to its basics which is how I prefer it whereby it only displays my current AdSense profits for the day. However, I’m aware this isn’t for everyone and alot of you out there would much prefer to be able to find out much more about your earnings at a glance; fortunately AdSense notifier provides you with the ability to customize quite pretty much everything. Here is what it looks like when I have pretty much every setting enabled:

Sadly, the AdSense terms of service prohibit me from displaying certain information regarding my AdSense earnings such as impressions, CTR and total clicks which is why the figures are all blurred out. Hopefully you get the general idea, though.

Getting to the front page of Digg certainly isn’t an easy task as the Digg community is considered to be quite a tough crowd to please where news articles are concerned; but when it does, you will no doubt notice an insane amount of traffic heading your way - provided that the news story that reached Digg’s front page was pointing to your site, of course.

Traffic generated from Digg is capable of crippling websites on a shared hosting environment and even dedicated servers simply because the sheer amount of visitors Digg sends your way is too much for your box to handle and completely brings it down; this is also known as the “Digg Effect”.

You may also find, if you’re a website owner, that over time as your website becomes more and more popular that visitors will happily submit various news articles that are written on your site to Digg.

How Firefox’s built in RSS Feed feature can alert you of being “Dugg”

One of the easiest ways to find out whether or not someone has submitted your news article is to take advantage of Firefox’s built in RSS Feed subscription feature. First off we need to make our way over to Digg’s search page, http://digg.com/search, then input the URL of your website into the search field and set the remaining three options to “URL only”, “Upcoming Stories” and “Sort Newest First” from within the drop-down boxes like so:

Upon pressing Digg’s search button you will be presented with all of your website’s upcoming stories that had been submitted at some point in the past in reverse chronological order. The reason for why we want our articles to be displayed in this order is because it will mean any stories that are submitted in the future will immediately rise to the top of the list and generally make it much easier for us down the line.

I’ll spare you the list of upcoming stories I have listed under my profile but I will point out the little RSS Feed icon that Digg sports just to the right of your submitted stories:

Subscribe to the RSS feed for this search, and your RSS reader will let you know when you have been dugg, before it ever gets to the front page.

By subscribing to the RSS Feed for this search, you will be notified via your RSS reader, of when any new stories are submitted to Digg; and because this feed only displays your current articles in the upcoming stories queue, you will be given ample time to prepare for the “Digg Effect” should any stories reach the front page of Digg.

This is also something you can customize even further by, instead of subscribing to your website’s upcoming stories, subscribing to Digg’s “Front Page Stories” RSS Feed so you are only notified when your articles reach the front page. Go for whichever suits you best.

I’ve included a brief excerpt from the official Alexa Sparky web page which basically details what the add-on is all about, in a nutshell:

Sparky is a free FireFox browser plugin built by Alexa, that accompanies you as you surf, providing useful information about the sites you visit without interrupting your Web browsing. Learn about Website Traffic Trend information — Is this site getting more popular, or less popular?

Now, if the Alexa Sparky sounds intriguing enough for you so far to warrant a test drive, we can continue onwards to the installation part: To install Alexa Sparky, simply follow the link located towards the bottom of this article which will take you directly to the official home page of the plugin. From there, you need only click “Install Now” and Firefox will do the rest. How easy was that?

Here’s a screenshot of Alexa Sparky for Firefox in action taken while I was browsing around a few of the other sites under my network:

As you can see, after the add-on has been activated it creates a handy little preview of your current Alexa Rank statistics in numeric and graph form.

You can view the official Alexa Sparky add-on page which contains a full summary of the extension plus a download link over at Mozilla.org: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5362

I highly recommend it and I’m sure you will find it useful, too.

Some people want to keep their browsing-style based on SDI applications like Netscape Navigator 4, so, this will help them. This provides an alternative to some people, who want to use Gecko based browser and don’t want to use tabbed browsing feature.

While I honestly can’t recommend installing this Firefox add-on — I love being able to take advantage of tabbed browsing! — if you decide that you’d rather go without then please feel free to check out Tab Killer’s page on Mozilla’s official Firefox add-on and extensions website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1938