SUPERCHARGE YOUR BROWSER - HOW TO USE YOUR BROWSER TO...

SUPERCHARGE YOUR BROWSER

HOW TO USE YOUR BROWSER TO...

    WE use the web for everything – from entertainment, in the form of online videos and games, to working with documents and databases in the cloud, and even keeping in touch with friends and family through our social networks. It’s no wonder then that our web browsers are the most important pieces of code on our machines today. But did you know that you can add extra functionality to this software in the form of free plugins and extensions? 
 
    Download YouTube videos We all love watching online videos. But did you know you can download your favourite videos using browser plugins?
    People who use Internet Explorer can use IE Download Helper. Get Version 3.3 of the software because the new 3.5 version puts a limit on the size of the video file for free users.
www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Download-Managers/IE-DownloadHelper.shtml

    For Firefox, we suggest Video DownLoadHelper (available on the Firefox extensions page). When you access a web page with embedded videos in it, this extension processes the links from where the video can be downloaded in either FLV, MP4 and 3GP formats in resolutions of up to 1080p.
    Chrome users can use YouTube Downloader. This works best as it creates a download button under the video you are watching. And it even works with sites like Vimeo and Dailymotion.
www.chromeextensions.org/utilities/chrome-youtube-downloader

    Control music playback Do you listen to music while browsing the web? Download FoxyTunes. This plugin allows you to control audio playback from within your browser if you use Internet Explorer or Firefox (version 18 or lower). After you install it, you can change volume settings, skip tracks and pause songs from your browser window, without switching to your media player running in the background. FoxyTunes manages this feat by mirroring your playback software in a toolbar under the browser’s URL bar.
www.foxytunes.com 

    Read lengthy articles and take notes Whenever you read an article on the web, you are often plagued by sponsors who’ve placed advertisements – in the form of links, images and pop-ups – around that piece. Evernote Clearly is an extension that strips a web page of all that distraction and leaves behind just what you want to see. You can select between light and dark themes – and if you have an Evernote account, you can even clip the article or highlight portions of it for future reference.
    EC is available to users of Firefox and Chrome from their respective extension pages. Those who use Internet Explorer can use Evernote Web Clipper after installing the Evernote program on their PC.
evernote.com/webclipper/ 

    Manage multiple tabs Incredibly powerful and yet easy to use, TabMixPlus (available on the Firefox extensions page) is a tool that helps you manage open tabs within Firefox. Once installed, you can use it to group tabs, view them as thumbnails, lock them in a position and recall pages after closing – and most of these features can be accessed with a right click inside an open web page.
    For Chrome users, there’s TooManyTabs (available on the Chrome web store) that comes with similar functionality. 

    Play Angry Birds Yes, you can play the world’s favourite mobile game in a browser. Chrome users can simply install the game as an extension and play it not only when they are connected to the web, but also when they are offline. Firefox and Internet Explorer users, however, can play the game on www.chrome.angrybirds.com. This will make the office a little less boring. Just keep an eye out for your boss.
 
CHROME Attachments.Me: This is a nifty tool that allows you to quickly save files from your Gmail account onto online services such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Box or Skydrive. The extension, which also allows you to attach files from cloud storage, creates several easy-to-use buttons within Gmail’s compose and view windows. And users are also provided with an overview of all their files saved across the services.
 
HootSuite: This is a full-featured extension of HootSuite, a program that allows you to track your social networks using a single window. Install and connect it to your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts. After that, you can use it from within the browser to keep an eye on your social media feeds, as well as tweet or post status updates.  

SplitScreen: This is a great tool for when you work with two pages simultaneously. After you install this extension, click on its icon to open a single Chrome page with two windows; each with its own URL bar. By default, however, one half serves as a blank notepad, allowing you to take notes. These can be saved as a local file, or cached automatically so that when you open SplitScreen the next time, your data is intact and you can start working from where you left off. 

MagicActions for YouTube: A “must-have” for video junkies, this extension adds several features to YouTube – the most important being its cinema mode that puts the clip inside a black box and removes all distractions from the page. And you can also use it to auto repeat your favourite song so that it plays repeatedly in a loop. Other options include sharing videos on Facebook; choice between a light and a dark theme; and volume control through your mouse scroll wheel. All Chrome plug-ins can be found at ‘chrome.google.com/webstore/category/home’ and can be installed directly within the browser. 
 
FIREFOX Thumbnail Zoom: With TZ, you don’t have to click on an image to view it in full size. Simply hover over a thumbnail to see it in a floating window. This not only saves time, but also helps you keep your browsing session neat and tidy. By default, this extension works with over 15websites including Facebook, Twitter and Imgur.  

CopyPlainText: If you’ve ever copied text from the internet and pasted it directly into a rich editor like MS Word, you’ll know what a mess its formatting can create. Most users therefore prefer to paste into Notepad before copying and pasting into an email compose window or MS Word. CopyPlainText strips away the troublesome formatting from web text and helps save some time.  

FireTube: Install this extension to turn YouTube into your personal radio station. It adds a tiny toolbar –complete with fast forward, rewind, pause, and volume controls buttons – at the bottom of the page from where you can search a song on the video service and stream it as an MP3. But that’s not all. If you want, you can even download the file in MP3 format.

Feedly: Now that Google Reader is dead, you can use Feedly to manage your RSS subscriptions. Or if you are not into RSS feeds, you can use it to just browse fresh daily content from websites like New York Times or CNN. This extension adds a Feedly button near the back and forwards buttons and clicking on it opens a tab with the news of the day. Feedly is also available for Chrome. Firefox extensions can be installed directly from ‘addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/extensions’ 
 
INTERNET EXPLORER ieSpell: IE 10 has an inbuilt spell checker, but if you’re running version 8 or 9, you should download ieSpell. This tool is a boon to those who compose emails and blog posts in their browser. Once installed, spell check can be accessed in the contextual menu that pops up after right-clicking. With ieSpell you can also highlight a word and look for its meaning on the Merriam Webster web site.
www.iespell.com/download.php 

iMacros: With iMacros you can record the actions that you perform on a web page to complete a task. For example, to access Twitter you first type twitter.com into the URL bar, hit enter, then login using an id, hit tab, enter in your password and hit enter again. With iMacro, you can record these actions, and subsequently log onto Twitter by simply replaying the macro. You can use this tool to record as many macros as you want.
download.cnet.com/iMacros-for-Internet-Explorer/3000-12512_4-10586882.html 

ALOT Radio: This toolbar is easily one of the best there is for music lovers because it allows easy access to hundreds of international radio channels. It even has a Facebook tab that allows you to keep an eye on your feeds; an eBay tab to browse through products you may want to buy; a YouTube app for video search; and a weather tab for local forecast.
download.cnet.com/ALOT-Radio-App/3000-12512_4-75147660.html 

Google Toolbar: We don’t usually recommend the use of toolbars, but this one adds several features to IE: It allows you to carry out an internet search without going to www.google.com; automatically translates text whenever you encounter a web page in a foreign language; and if you give it necessary permissions, it also gives you one-click access to your Google services including Google+.
www.google.com/intl/en_uk/toolbar/ie/index.html IE plug-ins have to be installed on your PC before they can be used within the browser.