11 great Firefox add-on free games to waste (use) your time

Firefox today is the first choice of the informed web surfers. Firefox is fastly racing ahead IE in the browser race. It is true that with the introduction of IE 7 and Safari, its pace has slowed down, but it is still the popular browser of people who use Internet more than average persons.

One of the reason of its popularity is its open source nature. That is, add-on applications developed by third party can easily be integrated with it to customize it as per your needs and requirements. This blog has previous written posts on various firefox add-ons like ScreenGrab, Hyperwords, Sparky, SiteAdvisor and many others.

Here we are going to let you know about 11great firefox add-on games, which you can play within your browser. No need to download heavy flash files, no need to spend big bucks purchasing them and absolutely no risks of adware, spyware and other sorts of malicious scripts generally associated with various games.

But let it be clear, that these are not very hi profile games. These are simple, light weight desktop games, but surely have the potential to keep you involved for hours.

So here goes the list. It is in no definite order.

Xoom: A simple racing game, which offers two tracks - beginner and advanced. The controls aren’t very much like steering.

Clines: A clone of the colored lines game you’ve seen here and there. The goal is draw a line of five balls of the same color, which then disappear and give you points.

Mozteroids: Nice graphics. It is like a modern version of the old “Asteroids” game. You drive a spaceship, which can spin, thrust, stop, and shoot. The target is to blow up the approaching asteroids before they collide with you.

Cards: A collection of card games like Solitaire. It also includes games like Aces Up, Double Klondike, Double Solitaire, and many more. This is a very complete solitaire implementation, with your choice of about 29 different solitaire card games. Also has a full feature set; undo, hints, scoring, automatic “smart” card moving, and more

Froggr: It will bring memories of the classic arcade game, Frogger. But here, the movements are a bit smoother and game is slightly more challenging.

Mines - Another classic game - Minesweeper - in your browser window.

Pag-Man: Remember the famous addiction of nineties. This new avatar comes with a two-player mode also.
PingPong - For those people who find playing Pong against other people too difficult, you can just play against the computer.

PONG! Multiplayer: Play a game of the classic game Pong while chatting with people online.

Snake - A clone of the popular game Snake and Worm.

Xultris - Bringing the love of the colored block game Tetris to your browser.

Hyperwords | A great firefox add-on

I like Firefox, and I love firefox add-ons. This blog has posted several posts about various firefox add-ons in the past. Some of them are mentioned below.

• Sparky
• SiteAdvisor
• SearchStatus

I have added a separate label, which you can find in Categories on by right sidebar. Recently I have found another one. Its Hyperwords.

With Hyperwords, you can easily search more information about any word or phrase on your screen. You can search for photos on Google Images or Flickr. You can also translate that into many languages. You can search Wiki entries, you can do search queries and much more. All this can be done form the same window. You don't have to open another website for that.

Its really convenient. Try it.

Sparky | New Alexa Toolbar for Firefox

Firefix is the browser of choice of millions of the savvy Internet users around the world. But one of the astonishing shortcoming of firefox has been the non-availability of the Alexa Toolbar, which helps to increase the traffic statistics of a website.

There have been a few webtools as a replacement of Alexa Toolbar. One of them being SerachStatus, a firefox add-on, already discussed on this blog here.

Now there a toolbar for firefox also, which has been announced officially by Alexa. It is more of a status bar than a tool bar, which shows traffic graphs in your status bar. You can download Sparky for firefox here at http://www.alexa.com/

SiteAdvisor | Get pre-warning about malicious sites with this firefox add-on

Are you concern about the security of your systems. No we are not talking about the viruses, but the spywares and identity theft scripts.

Although there are many programs and scripts, which clean your systems, but most of them are post-facto. They operate, when you are infected.

One of the programs, which give you a pre-warning, i.e. warning before getting attacked by a malicious site, is SiteAdvisor. This plug-in performs a background check on the Web sites you visit and raises a flag, whenever you visit a dubious looking site. It also gives you a warning icon next to potentially dangerous results from popular search engines, along with an icon in your status bar that shows the risks and annoyances associated with the page you're viewing.

SiteAdvisor was founded in April 2005 by a group of MIT engineers who wanted to make the Web safer for their family and friends. The pro version of this McAfee service adds features such as e-mail and IM link checking for $20 per year.

The free version is available for download at PCWorld.

PacMan comes to Firefox | Be game with this addictive firefox add-on

Most of us, who had seen the era of PC286 and 386, will remember the favourite timepass PC-Man. I should aptly say it a time-destroyer, instead of a time-pass, because I myself had spent hours before the screen just to surpass my previous highest score.

Now, there is firefox, extension available for this rivetting yet simple game. You can download this firefox add-on from mozilla site.

Mozbackup | Backup your history, passwords, settings with this free webtool

Few of the most annoying thing for a computer geek during re-installation of OS or setting up a new computer is the backing up of bookmarks, transfer of emails and transfer of passwords.

But, if you are using firefox, there is an easy solution. Now, you can backup your history, passwords, downloaded file lists, setting etc. using MozBackup. The interface is easy to use and lightweight.

MozBackup is a simple utility for creating backups of Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla Thunderbird, SeaMonkey, Mozilla Suite and Netscape profiles. It allows you to backup and restore bookmarks, mail, contacts, history, extensions, cache etc. It’s easy way to do Firefox backup, Thunderbird backup …This program is freeware and works on Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003. It’s developed in Czech republic.

Online Games Toolbar | Waste your life with this Mozilla firefox add-on

Consider yourself warned | This firefox add-on is a real time waster for life.

The free Online Games Toolbar lets you play many free online games directly from your browser with easy access to an endless stream of flash games and other popular online web games. It gets updated daily on its own to let you discover tons of new online games for playing directly from your browser for free.





The Online Games Toolbar is a Firefox add-on (although it is also available for IE). It is a third party development program. Although it is claimed to be totally spyware / virus free, but the gaming arena on net is always full of risks, so go ahead on your own risk.

FullerScreen | Hide your toolbars and status bar with this Mozilla Firefox add-on

We all have used the slide-show mode of Powerpoint to make the desktop full-screen. But can the browsers do that. Off-course yes, if you are using Firefox, the versatile net browser. This feature is specially useful in case you are making a presentation.

You need to download this firefox add-on and just have to press the F11 key to toggle full screen mode and normal mode. Or alternatively, you can click a special button on the extreme right of your status bar to go full screen. To return to the normal mode, just scroll your mouse to the bottom, the status bar will appear and you can easily click the normal mode button.

It also provides a slide show feature which, if you are willing to mess about with CSS and HTML a fair bit, will give you basic Powerpoint type functionality from within the browser. Quite smart.

Save Money with these 20 Firefox add-ons

Add-ons and extensions of Firefox, developed by third party make it so popular. This blog has already published many posts on Firefox add-ons like Searchstatus, CoolIris, Firefox Showcase, pdf Download, Joey, Fasterfox, Answers and IE Tab.

But do you know that Firefox add-ons are a great way to save your money also. How...?
Recently, SavingAdvice has compiled a great and very useful list of 20 useful firefox add-ons for the same. The list is categorized into following categories.

• Cell Phone Minute Minders (3 add-ons)
  
• Grocery List Generator (1 add-on)
• Product Price Comparison (5 add-ons)
  
• Mailable Browser Tabs (1 add-on)
  
• Customizable Charts (1 add-on)
  
• Travel Price Comparison (2 add-ons)
  
• Deal Alerts (3 add-ons)
  
• Local Deal Finder (1 add-on)
  
• Be an eBay Sniper (1 add-on)
  
• Save Money by Saving Time! (2 add-ons)
  

You can check out this list here.

Mozilla Firefox add-on Blog

Firefox add-ons are always a treat to watch and use. Although many of them are just fads, but a few of them are really useful. A few of such add-ons like Searchstatus, CoolIris, Firefox Showcase, pdf Download, Joey, Fasterfox, Answers and IE Tab have already been discussed on this blog.

Latest from the firefox is that they have started a blog especially focussed on fire-fox add-ons.

As they say...

"This blog will be used to keep add-on users and developers up to date on the latest news and information regarding add-ons and addons.mozilla.org. Stay tuned for information on Firefox 3 extension compatibility, upcoming changes to the site, and a few surprises."

Check it out here.

SearchStatus | A firefox add-on or an alternative to Alexa Toolbar for IE

Do you use Firefox and still wanna reap the benefits of using Alexa Toolbar for increasing your Alexa Rankings ? Read on...

We all know, well I presume so, Alexa toolbar is available for Internet Explorer users only. So what do we, the firefox users, do. SearchStatus, a firefox add-on is probably the alternative.
In fact, SearchStatus is actually meant for providing you the site's various rankings in one go. It provides you information like PageRank, Alexa Ranks, and Compete.com Ranks. You can also check the Alexa incoming links, Alexa related links and many backward links from Google.

Besides all this, the download page of SearchStatus also mentions that
SearchStatus users form part of the panel of toolbar users that contribute towards Alexa statistics.

I don't know how far it is true because the Alexa website doesn't mention anything about it.

But it is for sure, that for the last three weeks or so, I have witnessed an unprecedented increase in my Alexa Rankings after installing SearchStatus.

How not to speed up mozilla firefox | Disable Link Prefetching

Link Prefetching is a Firefox feature which allows it to pre-load all the links on the current webpage being browsed. The purpose of it is to load the next page clicked by you a bit faster. Know more about link fetching here.Although a nice feature for faster browsing, it sometimes is counter-productive especially for those who pay to their ISP on a pay-per-byte basis. They may like to consider disabling this feature of Firefox so as to save on the bytes transferred. But how ?

Here is how...

You just have to type about:config into the address bar, and scroll down to ‘network.prefetch-next’; double click on it to set the boolean value to false.

Free Webtools: Two cool Mozilla firefox add-ons

One of the reasons, although their are plenty, for Mozilla firefox spreading fast is its being open-source, i.e. it allows you to download hundreds of extensions to strengthen your browsing power. Two such extensions are mentioned below.

1.Cooliris Previews

Many times, before clicking a link, you wanna know, what will be found ahead. Install Cooliris and after that if you hover your mouse over a link a small blue icon appears. Clicking on the icon opens a new window which shows a preview of the page and you can decide whether you want to go there or not. Just like snapup. There are several options available in the pop-up window.

2. Firefox Showcase

It overcomes the Firefox's shortcoming of thumbnail views in case of .tabbed browsing. Once you install the extension, you get various options for displaying tabs in thumbnails.c

Free webtools: Speed up Mozilla firefox

Every Firefox user must have got irritated when your browser just hangs on clicking a pdf link.


But, thanks, this Firefox add-on makes life simpler by opening the pdf file in your pdf viewer application instead of the browser itself.

Just install the pdf extension from here.
and
go to Tools > Add-ons > Select PDF Download > Click Options > Click ‘General’ tab > Check ‘Open PDF box’ button > Navigate to ‘PDF opening’ tab > Check ‘Use OS default viewer’ box button > OK.

You might also be interested in Lifehacker's great compilation of top Firefox configuration tweaks about

• How to modify Firefox's configuration (about:config)

• Session restore

• Tab width before scrolling kicks in

• Tab close buttons

• Fetch only what you click

• Limit RAM usage

• Turn off chrome tooltips

A few other tips for speed-up of Mozilla firefox are available on this blog here, here and here.

Free webtools: Increase your Mozilla fire-fox performance with Firetune

I like to search for better and faster browsing methods. I am sure, you too like that. You can find a useful tip and a post about Fasterfox for speeding up Firefox elsewhere in this blog.

My friend Subhash has come up with a nice tip to increase your bandwidth utilization by 20 percent in windows XP.

There is another tool Firetune, which optimizes your system based upon your connection speed, which makes it probably better than Fasterfox. However the fact that Firetune is not an add-on and you have to download a 1MB file from here, might make it less popular among some users.

Free webtools: Firefox add-on for webpage acess through Cellphones

Now, Mozilla is exploring to provide you online space called Joey page, where you can store any information, related to any website (or a portion of website), which you can later access from your cellphone. This information may be static or dynamically changing also.

For instance, suppose a website provides you dynamically changing online scores of some sport activity. You can store that portion on your Joey Page, and retrieve the current score through your cellphone. This way you get the latest updates on your cellphone and also do not encounter the ads and other unrelated stuff available on the original page.

It is possible through a Mozilla Firefox add-on. For more information, visit infoworld or mozilla.org.

Mozilla Firefox browser for Mobile Phones

We all love Mozilla, don't we.
APC Magazine has reported that Mozilla is planning to launch a Firefox browser for Mobiles and developers are already working on it. In a recent interview, Mozilla CEO Mitchell Baker said that one of the things people like most about Firefox is the ability to change and customize it and they want to bring that to the mobile version, along with the ability to give users a full web experience.

"Most tech enthusiasts have wondered why web browsers on mobile phones suck so much. Mozilla Foundation CEO Mitchell Baker has been thinking about it too, and looking at how Firefox can be ported to mobile platforms."

However, baker also told that it is a long term goal and not something that we should expect to see soon. (Oops!).

Fasterfox: Mozilla add-on to speed up for Firefox

Firefox is beleved to be a faster browsing experience than IE. But would you want to speed up Firefox also. There is another post on this blog just for that.

Still not satisfied, try Fasterfox, the built-n Mozilla Firefox add-on.

The Mozilla website says

"Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay."

In short, Fasterfox allows you to,

• Suppress popups opened via Flash plugins
• Provide HTTP Pipelining for very noticeable speed increase
• And many other features

For those, who are not much familier with pipelines, DNS, load times etc., they have simplified life by providing a few preset settings for optimum performance. You can choose any preset condition like Default, Courteous, Optimized or Turbo-charged (the fastest one).

I really find it speeding up my system and worth giving a try.

Use Internet Explorer within Firefox

Every serious blogger, at one time or other, has to tweak with his template and whenever you do so, it is suggested that you should check it in all available and prevalent browsers, especially Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Now a die-hard fan like me finds it very irritating to open IE, just for this purpose. Then this convenient Fire-fox add-on (IE Tab) comes to my rescue. It is a superb attempt by Mozilla to be one-up against the competition.
The First screenshot shows the area around my system tray. A left-click on the IE icon changes the currently open tab into Firefox (and then this IE icon changes to Firefox icon). To open it into IE, now I have to left-click at the same spot (where now a Firefox icon is available). i.e. it acts like a toggle switch.
The second screen shot is of the open tabs, where an IE icon confirms that the tab, although open in Firefox, but actually is currently using IE platform.
The third shot is of the download site, where you can download the IE Tab add-on.
It is a highly recommended add-on for all Firefox lovers, who are forced to live with IE. Thums-up Firefox.

Speed up Mozilla Firefox

How did you like my recent post in which I had compiled some tips for speeding up your Windows XP. Now is the turn of your Mozilla.
Mozila’s Firefox browser can browse much faster than other browsers. Why wouldn’t you make it even faster?
Mozilla firefox blog has come out with a few tips for increasing the speed of your browsing. They claim them to be increasing your speed by upto 40%.
I have given them a try and found some definite change. I cannot attach any percentages to that, but definitely there was a noticeable change.
Why not try these tips out for yourself. They are grouped into two categories; Simple and advanced.
Go, check them out.

To speed up Firefox you have to make a little minor tweaking. You can make Firefox perform up to 40% faster for page transfers. With just a few clicks and some typing, you can experience faster browsing and surfing Firefox. 1. Open the Firefox “config” page: click into the Firefox Click to read more