Internet Explorer 7 disappointed many of our users by offering far too few features much too late. After all, Firefox was way ahead with tabbed browsing, greater stability, and a seemingly bottomless pit of extensions. Then came IE7Pro, one extension with enough oomph to make IE7 worth using.
IE7's bump up to Version 2.0 doesn't actually add a whole lot more than a chance to remember what we liked about the app in the first place, but there is new support for 64-bit machines, and a hot-key combination (Control+M) that shrinks IE windows to a tray icon. In order to rustle up some revenue while keeping the program free to use, IE7Pro announced it runs search from a Google-powered toolbar, and presumably runs operations from the proceeds. Finally, Version 2 replaces the download manager with a MiniDM that's not actually so mini.
The big show, of course, is IE7Pro's major assist to Microsoft's market-dominating browser. There's a lot here--ad- and Flash-blocking, spell check (which requires installing an OpenOffice.org dictionary,) and tabbing features. Double clicking shuts down a tab, while typing a URL automatically opens it in a fresh tab. That shaves off time and steps in the course of a browsing day.... Read more
Only2Clicks is one of the few Web services I've seen lately whose name tells exactly what it does. The concept is pretty straightforward--set up your favorite Web sites, and the service will load them up in a grid, with photo thumbnails for each. You can add and remove any number of sites, and the thumbnails will be refreshed each time you reload the page. You can also re-organize the links with simple drag and drop. The idea is to set Only2Clicks as your start page, so you'll be able to quickly eyeball each site before figuring out where you want to go.
This isn't a new idea by any stretch of the imagination, and in fact Opera built in similar functionality to their browser earlier in the year with their Speed Dial feature. What sets Only2Clicks apart, however, are its tabs, which let you create as many pages of linked thumbnails as your heart desires. Each one can be set as your home page by dragging a permalink on the top to the home button on your browser.
Alternately, for IE users, there's a plugin called IE7Pro, which has an "Easy Homepage" option, which accomplishes a similar effect with pretty looking thumbnails. You can read our hands-on with it, or download it from CNET's Download.com. If you're a Firefox user, you could also use the MyPortal extension which will create a live link cloud of all your bookmarks in their correct hierarchy. This is incredibly helpful if you have all your links organized into folders. Rafe and I are partial to using Netvibes to organize our favorite sites. While it may lack the pretty thumbnails, you actually get to see what's on the page before you bother visiting, which might save you a click to begin with.
[via Lifehacker]
Make your own start pages, full of live icons to click on with Only2Clicks.
(Credit: CNET Networks)
(Credit:
CNET Networks)
Mozilla Firefox gets a lot of praise for the countless third-party extensions that add features like FTP, download management, and tab customization to the open-source browser. The most popular browser on the market, Internet Explorer, also has its fair share of add-ons, but nowhere near the number or quality of its competitor.
One new download for Internet Explorer, however, adds a number of valuable features that are only replicated in numerous different Firefox extensions. Among its many enhancements, IE7Pro adds tab management, ad blocking, Flash blocking, crash recovery, and the ability to re-open closed tabs to the Microsoft browser. Even cooler, it allows user-based scripts much like Greasemonkey for Firefox. Again, the scripts aren't nearly as impressive as Greasemonkey, but the idea is a good one.
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