The Internet is full of threats like cross-site scripting attacks and clickjacking. A lot of these attacks work by injecting scripts in Web pages that you don't even know are there. You can give yourself a modicum more protection by running a Firefox plug-in called NoScript.

NoScript blocks all scripts from running until you authorize them. Let me show you how it works.

Go to addons.mozilla.org and search for NoScript or get it from Download.com. Install it as you would any add-on. Once you have it installed, look in the bottom right corner at the little S with the cross-out symbol.

Clicking on it brings up a submenu that lets you choose how to handle scripts on the page you're at. The safest way to go is not to allow any scripts. You'll never fall victim to code that doesn't run.

But some sites won't work without scripts so, the next safest thing is to temporarily allow only the scripts you need or trust. A lazier and slightly less safe method is to temporarily allow all on a page.

The next more convenient level, but also less safe is to permanently allow scripts individually or all for a page. This becomes necessary for things like your Bank's Web site or Google Docs where you don't want to constantly allow scripts every time you launch your browser. If you permanently allow scripts from a site, you're putting your trust in that site that it will never allow itself to be infected by a malicious script.

The worst thing you can do is globally allow all scripts. You might as well not run NoScript at that point. If you have allowed a script on a page and you change your mind about it, you can always choose forbid, to start blocking it again.

Running NoScript means you're going to have to do a bit more thinking about pages you surf to. It was enlightening when I first started running NoScript to see which of my banks and utilities worked just fine without scripts and which became disabled. If nothing else, NoScript gives you more control over what risks you expose yourself to on the Net.

Thanks to garysimmons on Twitter who pointed to a Lifehacker article from the awesome Gina Trapani on how to force your old add-ons to work in the beta version of Firefox.

Big warning! You're removing a safety net when you do this. Be prepared to deal with bugs, crashes, and security risks if you do this.

OK. Here's how to do it.

Go to the Firefox address bar and type about:config.

Click the button promising to be careful.

You're promising to be careful...RIGHT?

Right-click anywhere on the screen, choose new, then Boolean.

Name your new preference extensions.checkCompatibility. Press OK. Then set it to false and press OK again.

Now right-click again anywhere choose New and Boolean and make the name of this one extensions.checkUpdateSecurity and set the value of that one to false.

Great! You've just instructed Firefox not to check the validity of the extension and to tell update security to go take a flying leap.

If you're sure you want to do that, restart Firefox.

Now all your add-ons should load quite nicely. At least if they don't crash the whole browser. Don't forget you turned off the capability to ensure secure updates. So do be careful.

One last tip, several people wrote to me about the Add-on called Nightly Tester Tools. It allows you to use otherwise incompatible add-ons in beta versions, although it doesn't seem to get Firefox 2 add-ons to work in Firefox 3.

Like most Web browsers, Internet Explorer 8 has add-ons. But sometimes you may want to get rid of them, even if just temporarily. IE 8 has made it easier to disable and enable your add-ons. Here's how to do it.

Let's say you have the Google Toolbar running in IE 8. You should see an X to the left of the toolbar. It's the familiar X that usually means you can close something. In this case, you'd be right to guess that. Click that X and you'll disable the toolbar.

Now that can be dangerous if other add-ons rely on the one you're disabling. So IE 8 gives you a lovely list of any dependent add-ons and the option to disable them at the same time. Once you've made your selections, press the Disable button and the add-on will disappear.

What if you want it back?

Go to tools and select Manage Add-ons.

Select the type of add-on, in our example from above, it would be a toolbar.

Scroll down until you find your toolbar. And press enable.

IE 8 will suggest re-enabling any related add-ons you disabled earlier. Press enable again, then press close.

In the case of the toolbar, even though I had enabled it, it still didn't show up. I had to go to View, select toolbars and select the Google Toolbar to make it viewable.

If you want to browse through all the add-ons available for IE 8, visit www.ieaddons.com.

Go to addons.mozilla.org and search for SimpleSearch. While it's still in the experimental stage, you'll have to log in to use it.

After you've installed the add-on, go to a page on the Web and highlight a word. Right click and highlight the search option.

Choose the search engine you want.

And you'll be taken to that search.