UPDATE: Along with Firefox (as always), Xmarks is available for Chrome, IE, and Safari.
Status (as of Oct 14, 2009):
Chrome – open alpha
IE – full support
Safari – full support

Other possible uses

• Family Computers: If your like my family and every member has their own computer, you may find it useful to synchronize everyone’s bookmarks. Since I don’t have a printer hooked up locally to my computer, I am constantly using my siblings computer for all of my print-jobs. Xmarks has a feature that really makes this interesting. The feature  I’m taking about is the use of profiles. In the example of family computers, you could create individual profiles for everyone, that way when they go to any computer, they just change Xmarks to use their profile and instantly they have their bookmarks loaded.
• Password Sync: Along with syncing your bookmarks, the add-on can sync your saved passwords securely between your systems.
• Project Collaboration: Sync a folder of bookmarks between your project members, that way they’re constantly on your computer. This practice can save you time by keeping you from having to look through chat logs, trying to find that one stupid link. (btw, the instant messenger Gtalk has a great chat log search feature)

If you think Xmarks is an add-on that you would like to try out, you can find it @

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

Here’s the Xmark site (cloud):

https://my.xmarks.com/

Comments are welcome!

• Interface: Very simple and easy to setup. It initially shows up on the status bar at the bottom of the Firefox window, but after glancing at the settings, I discovered that you can place it on several other parts of the window. I chose the bookmark bar, simply because I like everything to be at the top of my screen.
• Information Displayed: You can add several different stations to Weather Watcher. I added two stations that are both within 5 miles of my house, one at the local high school and the other at the municipal air port. All of the icons display information when you hover over them with your mouse. The globe icon displays the current Doppler image. The other icons/the weather status icons display the forecast information. You can change the update time for all the information. I currently have mine set to 3 minute updates.
• Why did I choose this? Weather Watcher Live has a very simple and easy to understand interface with a good amount of customization. Highly Recommended!

Chatzilla

• I dont have too much to write about this, but as far as I can see, it’s basically a simple replacement for having a full time IRC application, like mIRC. Basically from what I can see, if you’re not big into IRC chatting and you don’t feel the need to have your own dedicated app, this is a good choice for you. A lot of software developers use IRC chat rooms as a means for supporting their users. If you’re like me and you download lots of different applications, this is good for you, so you can just click on the IRC support channel link and the chat room will open immediately.
• Why did I choose this? Chatzilla is by-far the most supported and downloaded IRC add-on. It allows a good deal of color and font modification to the chat windows. Recommended for the IRC novice, but not a replacement for mIRC or any other dedicated IRC application.

I have used Google Chrome as my full-time  browser for at at least the last six months.  Lately, as my interest in getting into web design again has peaked, so has my disappointment with Chrome. My whole issues revolves around the fact that Firefox does an awesome job at display all the resources of a web site. Also, while Chrome may have a far superior basic interface, I feel like at the moment, you cant do enough with it. Firefox on the other hand gives you access to thousands of community driven plug-ins that give the browser unlimited potential. I don’t feel like Chrome offers quite the same experience. I feel that is definitely not as straight-forward.

What have I done to customize Firefox? Here’s a list of my active plug-ins and modifications:

• DownThemAll! “The mass downloader for Firefox”
  This is a great plugin for anyone who visits sites that list tons of images all on one page, or open-directories full of “goodies”. All you have to do is “DownThemAll!”

• Fast Dial “Visual bookmarks”
  Every tab I open now has an Opera-like page with 9 customizable bookmarks, with previews.

• Personas “Themes, skins, fur coats and more.”
  A simple skinning tool for Firefox, that allows you to customize the interface with creative images and when your done, you can share them with others online, via http://www.getpersonas.com/. I personally use the Gray and Black persona.

• Download Statusbar “View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar”
  One of the big flaws of Firefox is it’s download window, but this plug-in solves the problem completely. It really makes me wonder where Google got it’s idea for their download bar on Chrome, LOL.

• Beyond Plug-ins: I compress all of my bookmarks on my bookmark bar to just their individual favicons. This worked out well because every site I visit has it’s own unique favicon, so it just made sense to get rid of the name and just leave the icon. Less is more!

Other things…

One thing I have noticed is a lot of sites that I visit do not like using Chrome, especially sites from Microsoft. Firefox seems to be able to disguise itself and work with all of those “IE Only” sites. This has worked out well for my situation, since I completely uninstalled IE8 when I installed Windows 7.

BTW, thumbs up for Windows 7!

To sum things up

Use the browser that works best for you. If you’re just a casual internet surfer, Chrome is great. It has the best interface out. Now if you’re like me and you’re looking for something more, something with complete customization without getting nitty-gritty and compiling your own browser, Firefox is by-far better.

Comments and Discussion is welcome! Please be sure to share your internet surfing setup and also if you have any suggestions, please post’em up!

-Jeremy

Here are a few Tips and Tricks for making your internet browsing experience more enjoyable:

1) Smart keywords. If there’s a search you use a lot (let’s say IMDB.com’s people search), this is an awesome tool that not many people use. Right-click on the search box, select “Add a Keyword for this search”, give the keyword a name and an easy-to-type and easy-to-remember shortcut name (let’s say “actor”) and save it. Now, when you want to do an actor search, go to Firefox’s address bar, type “actor” and the name of the actor and press return. Instant search! You can do this with any search box. I specifically use this for wikipedia (keyword w), google calendar (keyword gc), and a few others.

2) Add a keyword for a bookmark. Go to your bookmarks much faster by giving them keywords. Right-click the bookmark and then select Properties. Put a short keyword in the keyword field, save it, and now you can type that keyword in the address bar and it will go to that bookmark.

3) TwitterFox. If you use the Twitter.com online micro-blogging website, you will LOVE this! The addon places a “T” – Twitter Icon at the lower-right corner of your Firefox screen and whenever you get a “tweet”, it will pop-up and show the message automatically. But lets say you havent been on your computer all day and you get on only @ night. If open up your browser to check email, the TwitterFox icon will may have a number next to it. If it does then all you have to do is click on the icon and it will show you the rest of the items.

4) Faviconize. The Faviconize addon cleanes up and gives you more space on your tab-bar by changing your tabs into favicons. A favicon is the little icon that almost every site has (all popular sites will have them). This is convienent because it alleviates the problem of having to scroll back and forth through your tabs if you happen to have several open.

5) Sxipper. Anyone who has accounts on several different websites (wether it be blogs, forums, email, or whatever) will utilitize this addon a lot! Sxipper is a very well designed auto-form-filler and account information tracker. I use it all the time for all of my accounts accross the web. It has saved me countless times from having to type in my passwords (which btw are very well designed and long).

6) Foxmarks. This is a great tool for snycing the bookmarks/favorites of all of your computers. I use it because I am constantly switching between two different computers, and for the most part I use a lot of my bookmarks on a regular basis.

Well that’s all for now! If you have any suggestions, comments or concerns about this article, please comment or email at jmac@jmactheattack.com

Click here to download Firefox 3.0.1

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