extension

Firefox, for all its great functionality and superior performance, has long been a laggard when it comes to managing PDF content on the Web.

Apple's Safari and Microsoft's Internet Explorer browsers both give users the option of reading Portable Document Format content within the browser, while Firefox forces users to navigate to PDFs through its Downloads window. Not very convenient.

Leave it to Firefox's online community, however, to remedy this failing. While there are a range of Firefox plug-ins to help manage PDFs documents, two stand out for me.

The first, Download Statusbar, doesn't actually enable … Read more

Our time with this free torrent downloader was brief because a glitch prevented it from working properly. FoxTorrent is a Firefox add-on that appears in your Tools menu.

According to the four-step guide that details how the program works, you're supposed to be able to click on a torrent, and the program automatically starts the download process. But in our tests, we continually received an error message stating that the Red Swoosh service was missing. No details were given about what that service was, but we were given the option to reinstall it. Even after this "fix," … Read more

This video downloader successfully downloaded video files from our favorite Web sites. But it's important to note that this program simply downloads the file; you'll need to install a separate program to play the video if you don't already have a player available.

Flash Video Downloader for Firefox adds an icon to both your navigation toolbar and your status bar. It also can be found in your context menu. If a Web site is not supported by the extension, both icons will be deactivated and gray-colored. They're ready to go when the icons are blue. Downloading … Read more

Slingpage is a free program that lets you send your favorite Web pages to your friends while you're browsing, but they have to be a Slingpage member as well, making this tool not quite as useful as we'd hoped.

Once you install the program, you have to create a free account which requires personal information. The program does have a very professional user interface, with bright, colorful buttons residing on a toolbar. It includes a search field, a button to sling the page to your friends, a chat feature, and a button for adding a note to the … Read more

We admit we got caught up using this Firefox extension to grab screenshots and edit them, including the capability to easily add text and draw on the image.

FireShot for Firefox places a nondescript button on your Firefox toolbar. The button contains a drop-down menu with options for editing and capturing screenshots, and accessing your preferences. The program also installs tiny, almost transparent, shortcut icons on your status bar. The shortcut icons let you edit, upload, copy, and e-mail captured screenshots, and these were very handy for handling images on the fly. In our tests, clicking the toolbar quickly brought … Read more

Combine Web browsing with finding shopping deals and collecting coupons for bargains. This toolbar brings it all together.

The AAfter Toolbar installs quickly and easily. Its not the best design we've seen for a toolbar, and it takes up more viewing real estate than seems necessary, but its not as cluttered with buttons as many other toolbars. We like that it doesn't try to be all things to all surfers. Instead, it focuses on its search engine and shopping deals.

The toolbar performed well in all our tests, quickly returning search results and responding quickly when we clicked … Read more

You can dig deep into the rankings of search results with SeoQuake, a free toolbar that can help you determine how to better position your Web site and marketing efforts. Analyze page ranks, number of links, and many more details as you unearth a treasure trove of data about site domains and pages.

SeoQuake installs a colorful, data-packed toolbar to Firefox's window. The icons and numbers will be unintelligible to the uninformed user, but users skilled in SEO techniques will immediately appreciate the wealth of detail this add-on provides. Click on any of the toolbar icons while visiting a … Read more

If you find yourself browsing dozens of Web pages at once, this free add-on offers a handy way to manage all those open tabs.

FaviconizeTab is a behind-the-scenes add-on for Firefox 1.5 and newer. It quickly transforms the size of a single tab into nothing larger than the Favicon already displayed on it. Users can simply right-click any open tab, select the FaviconizeTab option, and the tabs shrinks instantaneously. The same action quickly returns the tab to normal size. Although that's the sum total of FaviconizeTab's functionality, the program worked without flaw in our tests.

When Internet … Read more

ResizR is a free Firefox add-on that lets you resize images that you see on the Web. While it did perform its function, we found it awkward to navigate.

After reading the publisher's description, we were disappointed to find that it only works for JPEG images. However, once we found a Web image, all we had to do was right-click, and select the ResizR option from our context menu. But instead of letting us resize the image from the same Web page we found it, it took us to a new Web page. The resizing options were few, and … Read more