Friday, February 28, 2014

INTERNET SPECIAL ..................Extensions and Tricks to Supercharge Your Browsing Experience


Extensions and Tricks to Supercharge Your Browsing Experience 
 
Just downloading the latest version of a web browser does not guarantee the best web experience. There are a ton of tricks & useful extensions you should use - you’ll save a lot of time and effort.

Adblock Plus
This is the first plugin anyone should install on a browser. it integrates with your browser and actively blocks various advertisements visible on a website. This lets you focus on the content of the website and even saves your bandwidth that would have been used to download advertisements images/videos.
Lightshot
At times, you might want to save an image on the website or a portion of a webpage for reference. However, a number of websites block download/ saving of embedded images. With Lightshot this issue is solved - it lets you capture a screenshot of a selected area on any webpage. You can even take screenshots of videos and flash based content from a webpage.
Feedly
For those who love to stay updated all the time using RSS feeds, Feedly is highly recommended. Not only is it great for reading the feeds, but also lets you sort and organize feeds and categories in an easy to use interface. You can quickly share an article over social networks or save it for reading later in apps such as Evernote or Pocket.
LastPass
Available across browsers, last pass is a password manager that remembers passwords for all the websites you visit. The data is synced with your lastpass account across multiple computers on which the same account is used. It even helps you improve your online safety by generating strong passwords as you signup for websites.
Turn Off the Lights
If you love to watch streaming videos, this is a must have add on. It places a lamp icon in your browser - click on the lamp and the page automatically fades to black highlighting only the video. It works with majority of video streaming websites and even gives the option to automatically darken the page when you click on the play button.
Evernote Web Clipper
The clipper works with your Evernote account. It lets you save webpage content to your account with a single click. You can save just the article, only the image or a PDF of the full webpage for reading later. The plugin even lets you set reminders for notes and you also get tools to annotate on the saved content before sharing.
Forecastfox
Forecastfox integrates with your Chrome or Firefox browser to keep you updated regarding the weather. In Chrome, it displays the weather along with the current time every time new tab is open. In Firefox it displays the weather on the status bar and offers various customization options including display icons, weather data and days of forecast.
Disconnect
Unknown to most users, a number of websites track search and browsing history when you visit them. The Disconnect plugin for Chrome/Firefox notifies you of such websites along with details on what kind if information they are tracking. You can choose the block data being sent to these websites for tracking using the plugin.
MakkhiChoose
For online shopping enthusiasts, this plugin makes it easy to compare price of a product across Indian ecommerce websites. The plugin displays a blue rupee tag on the left side when you visit a product page of any ecommerce website – click on the blue tag to view prices of the product from other websites along with direct link.
Gmelius
The Gmelius add-on enhances your default Gmail interface. It removes all the ads and gives option to customize the colours, footer, chat, labels, icons etc. It even adds a useful ‘Scroll to top’ functionality and gives the option to remove the people widget and use the space for reading/writing mails. You can even restore to old compose window using it.
 Quick Tips for Your Browser
With Chrome,
you can actually talk to your browser and have it appear as text
https://www.google. com/intl/en/chrome/ demos/speech.html
Use the Tab key and Shift + Tab to quickly shift between different fields on a webpage. To open the link of a field, press Enter when it’s highlighted. Accidentally closed a tab? Press Shift + Ctrl + T to open the last closed tab. Keep using this combination to open al previous tabs in that session. Use Pipe (a Facebook app) on Chrome/ Firefox to transfer files up to 1GB to your Facebook friends.Get
it from http:// facebook.com/pipe 
The Unknown Browsers
MAXTHON Maxthon is a browser that you’ve probably never heard of, but it actually suports all the new web standards and is quite speedy. Other nifty features include various cloud services (cloud sharing of files, syncing data across devices), a reading mode that gets rid of all distractions on a webpage (including ads) & a night mode that dims all the bright white web pages automatically. EPIC Epic is a web browser built in India with a focus on privacy. It doesn’t store passwords, cookies, history, shortcuts or any sort of cache. It simply clears everything every time you close the browser. It also includes built in anti-tracking features, ad blocking and has no support for additional extensions (making it faster and less susceptible to attack).
Browser Specific Extensions
Buffer for Chrome Buffer lets you schedule updates on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn for better response. It can be set to post an update when most of your Facebook friends are online or at a time when you usually get the most response from Twitter. It even tracks and shows clicks, retweets, likes and shares of your status.
Browser++ for Opera
Although this add-on is currently in beta, it is highly recommended. You can search all open tabs and then instantly switch to the one with the relevant search result. It even lets you create notes within a browser tab. You can even view a list of your last 50 closed tabs and search through the list to find and open a specific closed tab.
DownThemAll for Firefox
Firefox comes with a built-in download manager with limited functionality. The DownThemAll plugin offers a number of features that makes it a great download manager. It adds batch download, one click download, drag & drop and also works in private browsing mode. Extensions that work with Smartphones
AirDroid
While Airdroid is not exactly a browser extension it deserves to be mentioned here for its functionality. It works with an Android app and uses a browser tab to let you control the phone. You can transfer content to and from the phone, send and view messages, organize contacts and even install apps from within your browser window.
PushBullet
The pushbullet extension for Chrome/Firefox works in conjunction of an Android app. It mirrors all the notifications from your smartphone to your browser as pop-up windows. You can even transfer data to the phone, send addresses to open in Google maps, add a checklist/reminders in notification tray – all without unlocking your phone.

Hitesh Raj Bhagat & Karan Bajaj ET140219

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