Browser extension InvisibleHand has long been great at subtly showing you the best prices for product searches, but now it can suggest cheaper alternatives when searching for airfare as well. More »
Blog Archives
InvisibleHand Alerts You When It Finds Cheaper Airfare [Downloads]
Posted on January 31, 2011
Top 10 Must-Have Browser Extensions [Video]
Posted on November 6, 2010
Your browser of choice may have changed a lot in the past year, but luckily the best extensions for making your browser better have kept up with all the most popular browsers. Here are our cross-platform, must-have favorites. More »
Add Safari Reader-Like Powers to Firefox and Chrome [Add-ons]
Posted on June 21, 2010
25 Safari Extensions You Can Install Now
Posted on June 9, 2010
Apple’s new Safari 5 brings support for browser extensions, which the company plans to showcase on its own gallery in a few months. In the meantime, we’ve compiled a list of some of our favorites.
To learn more about using Safari, check out our Safari 101 screencast on TechUniversity (subscription required).
Web & Utilities
AdBlock
The AdBlock extension is a great way to remove unwanted content from your browsing experience. Download the extension and load your web pages without as many intrusive ads. There’s even beta options to remove Google ads and YouTube ads.
BuiltWith Analysis
The BuiltWith Analysis extension provides an insider look into a website with one click. You can see what JavaScript libraries a site uses, who provides analytics as well as other nitty-gritty details that are totally public, but often obscured in tons of HTML source code.
Invisible Status Bar
Google’s Chrome browser does away with the status bar at the bottom of your window and only shows it when you hover over a link. The Invisible Status Bar extension does the same thing for Safari!
Live CSS Editing
The Live CSS Editing extension provides a quick way to load up a page and test modifications to the CSS in real time.
Bit.ly Shortener
The Safari Bit.ly Shortener extension makes it easy to shorten a URL with Bit.ly. Simply load the URL in your browser and then click the button!
PageSaver
The Svay.com PageSaver extension will, in one click, save the visible portion of a web page as an image and automatically download it into your Downloads folder.
ScribeFire
ScribeFire is an extension for using a centralized place for posting to all of your blogs, supporting a variety of typical blog features including formatting, categories and tags. ScribeFire’s Safari Extension brings support for this right into Safari.
Snapper
Similar to PageSaver, Snapper also saves the currently viewable portion of a website as a PNG and automatically downloads it for you.
Type to Navigate
The Type to Navigate extension is pretty darn cool. If you’re browsing a page and there’s a link you want to follow, just start typing any word that’s contained within it. It’ll highlight the link and then you just press Return to load it. If it’s not the right link, press Command + G to move to the next one.
E-Commerce
Amazon.com Search Bar
If you frequent Amazon.com, you’ll want the Amazon.com Search Bar extension. It’ll add a new Amazon.com bar to Safari giving you one-click access to your shopping cart, wish list, the latest deals and a quick way to search Amazon.com.
InvisibleHand
The InvisibleHand extension will subtly let you know when it finds a cheaper price to a product elsewhere on the Internet. The list of supported retailers is fairly decent for the U.S., UK and Germany, but more are being added frequently.
Social
FaceBlock
The FaceBlock extension blocks all of the annoying ads on Facebook. I always feel a little sadness for the advertisers that are paying for impressions that I never have to see. Oh well.
safari140
This gem of an extension allows you to post directly to Twitter from within Safari. Links are automatically shortened by is.gd.
Share with Facebook
The Share with Facebook extension gives you one-click access to share your current URL with your Facebook account.
Webbla
If you use Webbla for managing your bookmarks, take a look at the Webbla browser extension, which allows you to quickly add or modify them.
YouTube Full Screen
This extension is a great way to enable full-screen support of YouTube videos if you’re using YouTube’s HTML5 player instead of its Flash player.
Productivity
Background Tabs
The Background Tabs extension will allow you to open a new tab in the background by simply pressing the V key.
Gmail Checker
The Gmail Checker extension will give you an icon and badge in your Safari toolbar to show unread messages on your Gmail account. Keep an eye on their website for updates because the next version will support Google Apps users.
GoMBoX
The GoMBoX extension transforms your Google Images experience by showcasing results in a Lightbox overlay, allowing you to see larger versions without having to leave your search results page.
Instapaper
If you love Instapaper, check out Instafari, a simple one-click way to save an article to your Instapaper account.
InstaPaper Greystyled and Article Tools
The Greystyled and Article Tools extensions provide you with a cleaner style for your Instapaper.com account. Once the extension is installed, just visit instapaper.com to see the changes.
Google Reader – Simplified
If you’re a fan of Google Reader and the GreaseMonkey scripts that give it a simplified look, check out Lucidica, an extension that’s based off Helvetireader.
Safari Reload Button
If you’ve ever wanted to move the reload button for Safari out of the URL window and into its own button, the Safari Reload Button extension does just that.
Search Preview
With the Search Preview extension, you can preview the web pages that show up in your search results. This extension works with Google, Bing and Yahoo.
Toodlethings
If you use Toodledo for your task management, the Toodlethings extension re-styles the web interface with clean buttons and easier to read fonts.
For more great extensions, check out the Safari Extensions blog and keep an eye on Apple.com for its showcase that’s scheduled to premiere later this summer.
Have you written your own extension or found others? Share them in the comments below!
The HTML5 Readiness Chart Highlights How Well Your Browser Handles the Future [Infographic]
Posted on May 13, 2010
We’ve said for a while that HTML5 will change the way you use the web, but not all browsers are ready for the big change. This interactive chart highlights which features are still missing in your browser of choice. More »
YouTube Offers No-Flash HTML5 Videos for Chrome and Safari [Streaming Video]
Posted on January 21, 2010
If you're running Chrome or Safari as your main browser, Google's now offering up YouTube videos without Flash. That's right—fewer system hangs, browser crashes, and other issues, and just straight-up video through HTML5 standards.
Google has previously allowed Chrome, Safari, and Internet-Explorer-using-Chrome-Frame browsers to try out a few HTML5 video demos at its site, but now Google's given you the option to always play videos through the h.264 codec, if they're available. If they have ads, or aren't available in h.264, YouTube will serve up the standard Flash player—though that's been upgraded, too, with a nice video format chooser in the lower-right corner.
The notable missing piece here is Firefox. Firefox does support HTML5′s video streaming through Ogg Theora, a non-patented, license-free codec that its makers consider more free, while Google, and Apple, have moved their sites and browsers toward supporting h.264 streaming.
Enough web politics! If you’re rocking Chrome, Safari, or Chrome Frame inside IE, head to YouTube’s HTML5 page to sign yourself into the beta. If you’re signed up for other YouTube lab projects in the TestTube section, you might want to sign yourself out of them—except for Feather, which works fine with HTML5 and makes it even lighter and snappier.
Is HTML5-powered YouTube a better fit for your browsing? Like the Flash player better? Tell us your take in the comments.
Introducing YouTube HTML5 Supported Videos [YouTube Blog via Google Operating System]
Helvetimail Gives a Minimal Facelift to Gmail [Gmail]
Posted on September 15, 2009
Firefox/Chrome/Opera/Safari/IE: Gmail’s already got several great themes, but if you’ve never been satisfied with Gmail’s clutter, the Helvetimail user script transforms Gmail into a Helvetica-based, stripped-down interface.
(Click the image above for a closer look.)
Helvetimail is a logical—if obvious—step in the latest craze of applying minimal designs using the Helvetica font to popular web applications (see previously mentioned Helvetical, Helvetireader, and Helvetwitter). To use the script, you’ll need to enable the Minimalist theme in Gmail’s themes settings. Then, depending on what browser you’re using, you’ll have to install the user script. (Firefox users, if you’ve installed Greasemonkey, just click the user script link on the Helvetimail page to install. For the rest of you, the script’s author has instructions for various browsers.)
Helvetimail is probably the least attractive of the Helveti-bunch of user scripts we’ve seen (I love the look of Helvetical), but if you’re a big fan of the user-contributed, minimal Helvetica designs, it’s worth a look.
Helvetimail [Josef Richter]
Safari 4 Leaves Beta, Calls Itself “World’s Fastest Browser” [Downloads]
Posted on June 8, 2009
Windows/Mac OS X: Apple’s Safari 4 web browser left beta today, boasting itself as “the world’s fastest web browser.”
Not much has changed from Safari 4 since we took you on a hands on look at Safari 4 beta—except for the fact that Safari 4 has hopefully lost the significant "crashy" aspect—which Apple has claimed is the case.
As for their claim of browser speed domination, it seems like we hear the same song and dance every time someone updates their browser these days; it didn’t dominate on speed when we ran our browser speed tests on Safari 4 beta, but we'll hit you back with an updated speed analysis ASAP. If you've been putting Safari 4 through the paces during the beta—or you were just really quick to grab this download—let's hear what you think of it in the comments.
Safari 4 [Apple]
An Exhaustive Look at the Web Browsers of Today and Tomorrow [Browser Wars]
Posted on March 6, 2009
Maximum PC takes an in-depth look at the stable and beta releases of the big names in the browser wars, rounding up in all 9 incarnations of browser’s competing to be your gateway to the web (Firefox 3 and 3.1 beta, Internet Explorer 7 and 8 beta, Opera 9.6 and 10 beta, Safari 3 and 4 beta, and Google Chrome). We recently walked you through our browser speed tests, putting the latest and greatest browsers through the paces, but if you’re looking for a more in-depth examination, the MaxPC article is seven pages full of charts and graphs thoroughly evaluating each offering. [Browser Battle: Nine Browsers of Today and Tomorrow Compared]
Foxmarks Bookmark Syncing Available for IE, Safari [Downloads]
Posted on February 5, 2009
Windows/Mac: Foxmarks, our favorite way to keep Firefox bookmarks synced across computers, is now offered for Internet Explorer and Safari, giving anyone with multiple computers or browsers a pain-free way to keep it all together.
Foxmarks offers basically the same type of background bookmark-syncing awesomeness for IE and Safari as it does for Firefox, with a few key exceptions:
- No password syncing: A tough break, but not too hard to overcome by using Dropbox as a cross-platform password syncer.
- No syncing bookmarks to your own server: Probably not a deal-breaker for most users, but we hope it makes a showing some day soon.
- iPhone sync only for Mac Safari: Actually, this isn’t a feature Foxmarks even offers for Firefox, so it’s kind of a bonus.
If you’re still down to try out Foxmarks in its newest forms, head to the Foxmarks downloads page and grab your appropriate installer. I lack a Mac system, so I’ll be stepping through an Internet Explorer setup below.
Double-click the installer, accept all the standard “Do you want …” and “Allow …” prompts, and you’ll be asked to either create a Foxmarks account or sign in with the one you’ve got. After verification, you’ll end up at this simple screen, familiar to Foxmarks veterans:
The default action, if you simply hit “Synchronize,” is for Foxmarks to merge any favorites you’ve got on your system with anything backed up in your Foxmarks cloud. That’s fine for newcomers, but I generally like to get rid of all of the pre-loaded MSN, Windows Live, and similar bookmarks, so let’s hit “Change sync settings” and switch it up:
After that, Foxmarks gets going. Instead of installing an icon in Internet Explorer’s bottom status bar, Foxmarks plants itself in your system tray. You’ll see it pop up a notification when it’s done grabbing or placing bookmarks to/from the servers. Right-clicking this icon gives you access to your Foxmarks settings, can open up your web-based bookmarks browser, and close down the Foxmarks process. It seems to run whether or not you’ve got IE up and running, which is somewhat memory insensitive, but also convenient for those who open and close their browser regularly.
The Foxmarks options are similar to what Firefox users have been used to: a quick-sync button, choices on how and when Foxmarks synchronizes, and, best of all, the same kind of computer-by-computer selective bookmark syncing, or “profiles.”
And here’s the advanced options, where you can change your encryption demands, force a server- or computer-wiping sync, and turn off that Foxmarks tray icon. Turning off the icon still lets you at the Foxmarks options from IE’s “Tools” menu:
Here’s a video tour of Foxmarks features, composed by Walt Mossberg of the Wall Street Journal/All Things Digital. It’s somewhat introductory-level, but covers a lot of ground (and here’s his full, positive review of Foxmarks’ functionality).
Safari users, be sure to tell us how Foxmarks is working for you. Does tri-browser Foxmarks open up a new realm of synchronized browsing? Waiting for just one more platform (noting that mobile access is, of course, already covered)? Give us your reviews in the comments.