If you are not familiar with how Firefox add-ons work, here is a quick introduction. Firefox is a free browser that anyone can use. But unlike other browsers, Firefox allows third party developers to come up with useful applications. These applications can be installed on the browser, and they appear to be part of the browser. For this reason, they are also commonly referred to as Firefox extensions.

Today, there are many different types of Firefox extensions available for download. Mostly, they exist to serve specific interest groups. For example, Firefox extensions for online business owners have been on the rise. These tiny but useful applications show important information about websites or web pages. Such information include traffic rankings, Google page rank and more.

Recently, GadgetAdvisor, a newly launched technology website offers another useful Firefox extension - the Google cache checker. This is a light weight application that shows whether a web page has been cached by Google. If a web page has been cached, a green arrow shows on the status bar. Otherwise, a red X is displayed.

Obviously, many online marketers will find this extension useful when they are considering whether to acquire links. For instance, when considering whether to submit a URL to a web directory, a quick glance at the status bar will let the marketer know whether the site has been properly indexed by Google or not. If the status bar shows a red X, perhaps the marketer may want to skip that directory.

Similarly, an online marketer can adopt the same approach when buying advertising on a site. If the sites contain many web pages that are caches by Google, chances are, it will have higher traffic levels.

This is also useful when buying websites. Usually, sites that are well indexed by the search engines and can supply proof of organic traffic are worth more. As you perform your due diligence and examine the site, don't forget to check your status bar to see whether the site you are buying is cached by Google or not. Perhaps the seller is trying to sell the site because it has been recently banned by Google! Fortunately, now you have an extension that will warn you before it's too late.

Sometimes, you may be running search engine optimization campaigns for new websites. With the extension installed in your browser, you no longer have to deliberately visit Google to check whether your new sites have been indexed. As you continue working on your sites, you can always monitor your status bar to see if the web pages have been cached.

As you can see, even a simple Firefox extension like the Google cache checker can come in very handy for online business owners.

You may be surprised to learn that just like the Firefox browser, the Google cache checker is also free for download. You may download and install this application from the GadgetAdvisor website with no strings attached. The only condition is that you don't host the extension on your own site. If you wish to allow other users to get their hands on this extension, simply refer them to GadgetAdvisor with a simple text link.

Gen Wright

At LCC International, a 1200 employee wireless engineering company, VP of IT, John Buckholz, has managed cc: Mail, IBM Notes/Domino and Microsoft Exchange systems in his career. But his most recent choice for messaging and collaboration is Google Apps. Why? LCC International saved 60% over bare-bones alternatives and he and his team no longer have to wake up on Saturdays to babysit servers or answer questions about email from his employees in the Middle East. Most importantly, IT has been able to focus on core not context.

Link to the Sun Java Benchmark: soupgames.net Hardware: Intel Core 2 Duo T8300 Software: Latest version of Sun Java Internet Explorer 9 Chrome 10 Safari 5 Firefox 4 Opera 11 All browsers were fully updated

When Firefox 3 was launched on 17 June, the free web browser generated 8,002,530 unique downloads in a day. It’s a hugely impressive figure that constituted a new Guinness world record, albeit in a category that didn’t previously exist.

For the Mozilla Foundation, the non-profit organisation behind Firefox, successfully encouraging so many users to download the new browser on day one was a canny way to grab headlines. But the release of Firefox 3 also marked the moment in which the cultural shift away from Microsoft’s browser Internet Explorer finally went mainstream.

Internet Explorer (IE) has been bundled with Windows since 1995. By 1999, it had become the world’s most widely used web browser, a position it has held ever since. At its peak in early 2003, IE achieved a staggering 95% usage share, leaving its onetime bitter rival Netscape Navigator as nothing more than a forgotten cyber-casualty.

But since July 2003, the level of IE’s dominance has steadily declined. Figures for June 2008 indicate that its market share is now at 73%, compared to 19% for Firefox and 6% for Safari, which is the native browser on Apple Macs and the iPhone (all other browsers have a share of less than 1% each).

Microsoft had become complacent. The first iteration of IE6 was launched in August 2001 and wasn’t replaced by a full IE release for over five years. The debut of the much-hyped IE7 in October 2006 failed to have an impact on IE’s overall market share. Indeed, by that point, Firefox - which was first released in November 2004 - had highlighted just how archaic IE’s interface was.
With its inclusion of tabbed browsing, integrated search box and - thanks to its open source architecture - the option for users to customise it with over 5000 third-party add-ons, Firefox quickly became the technophile’s browser of choice.

In contrast, the muted response that met the release of IE7 offers some clues as to why IE no longer enjoys the ubiquity it once had. Beyond incorporating some of the features that were the catalyst for many users switching to Firefox in the first place, IE7 offered little innovation.
Curiously, IE did have the opportunity to introduce tabbed browsing years before Safari and Firefox popularised it. NetCaptor, an alternative IE interface that was first released in January 1998, incorporated tabs at the bottom of the browser.

If a user wanted to have multiple pages open at once, they were able to use this neat solution as opposed to having to open numerous windows. It was, and remains, an elegant solution but one that IE belatedly embraced only after other browsers highlighted its usefulness.
But IE7’s limitations are more than just anecdotal. Its lack of standards compliancy means that it fails the Web Standards Project’s Acid2 test, which identifies flaws in web browsers: any browser that follows the World Wide Web Consortium HTML and CSS 2.0 specifications will pass. The test is based on whether a somewhat startled-looking smiley face is displayed correctly.
In October 2005, Apple’s Safari was the first browser to make the grade, something that Firefox, Opera and others have also since done. IE remains the only major browser that’s not Acid2 compliant, forcing web developers to insert conditional code to compensate for the differences between IE and other browsers.

Internet Explorer 8, which has been available to download in Beta since March and is expected to be officially released in 2009, comes at a critical moment in IE’s history. Microsoft’s IE development team have already confirmed that it is Acid2 compliant. It also has integrated developer tools, meaning that HTML, CSS and JavaScript debugging can take place directly from the browser.
A feature called Activities assists copying and pasting between web pages, while WebSlices will allow users to subscribe to a specific element of a web page, which can then be viewed from the Favourites bar (think Mac OS X’s Dashboard).

There are some well considered security touches, from safer mash-ups to domain highlighting, which automatically highlights a site’s owning domain to help users identify attempts at phishing. Handily, IE8 will also offer a Firefox-style crash recovery mechanism: if the browser crashes, any web pages being viewed will be salvaged when the browser is restarted.

But, given Microsoft’s closed-source approach to software development, what IE8 won’t do is reflect the open and adaptable nature of Firefox, which users are able to pimp with everything from blog editors to PicLens’ 3D wall.

IE remains couched in old web thinking. As long as that continues to be the case, it’ll risk losing yet more users to Firefox, whose market share has increased from 14% to 21% over the last two years. What began as a cool alternative for in-the-know webheads may be on its way to beating one of the world’s largest corporations at its own game.

To read the original article, visit the Zeta Blog.

Zeta Editorial

If you are not familiar with how Firefox add-ons work, here is a quick introduction. Firefox is a free browser that anyone can use. But unlike other browsers, Firefox allows third party developers to come up with useful applications. These applications can be installed on the browser, and they appear to be part of the browser. For this reason, they are also commonly referred to as Firefox extensions.

Today, there are many different types of Firefox extensions available for download. Mostly, they exist to serve specific interest groups. For example, Firefox extensions for online business owners have been on the rise. These tiny but useful applications show important information about websites or web pages. Such information include traffic rankings, Google page rank and more.

Recently, GadgetAdvisor, a newly launched technology website offers another useful Firefox extension - the Google cache checker. This is a light weight application that shows whether a web page has been cached by Google. If a web page has been cached, a green arrow shows on the status bar. Otherwise, a red X is displayed.

Obviously, many online marketers will find this extension useful when they are considering whether to acquire links. For instance, when cons
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idering whether to submit a URL to a web directory, a quick glance at the status bar will let the marketer know whether the site has been properly indexed by Google or not. If the status bar shows a red X, perhaps the marketer may want to skip that directory.

Similarly, an online marketer can adopt the same approach when buying advertising on a site. If the sites contain many web pages that are caches by Google, chances are, it will have higher traffic levels.

This is also useful when buying websites. Usually, sites that are well indexed by the search engines and can supply proof of organic traffic are worth more. As you perform your due diligence and examine the site, don't forget to check your status bar to see whether the site you are buying is cached by Google or not. Perhaps the seller is trying to sell the site because it has been recently banned by Google! Fortunately, now you have an extension that will warn you before it's too late.

Sometimes, you may be running search engine optimization campaigns for new websites. With the extension installed in your browser, you no longer have to deliberately visit Google to check whether your new sites have been indexed. As you continue working on your sites, you can always monitor your status bar to see if the web pages have been cached.

As you can see, even a simple Firefox extension like the Google cache checker can come in very handy for online business owners.

You may be surprised to learn that just like the Firefox browser, the Google cache checker is also free for download. You may download and install this application from the GadgetAdvisor website with no strings attached. The only condition is that you don't host the extension on your own site. If you wish to allow other users to get their hands on this extension, simply refer them to GadgetAdvisor with a simple text link.

Gen Wright

So you need a web host. You might - quite naturally - turn to Google to seek the information you need. What you will notice is pages-upon-pages of professional looking review sites.

Just what you need right…?

WRONG!

The large number of reviews for web hosting companies is a reflection of the explosion of growth the web hosting industry has seen over the years since the conception of the internet.

It's also testament to the fact there is a considerable amount of money to be made selling web hosting services. Both the hosting companies and savvy affiliate marketers are endlessly vying for a piece of the action.

The top hosting companies will proclaim endless examples of positive reviews and testimonials, why wouldn't they? Many of these same hosting companies are at the top of the rankings on review sites for one reason.

They're paying for it!

As a rule-of-thumb, any web hosting review you see online is likely to be biased and slanted towards the hosting companies that are paying the highest commissions.

But what can you do about it?

While there is no silver bullet solution for finding the perfect web host, we can offer a few practical tips, that will help you separate truth, from hype.

• Ignore the hype; be aware that most "reviews" are written by affiliates, web hosting companies themselves. Recognize that some paid directories rank hosts by how much they're pay in listing fees. In truth, to say all reviews are slanted is unfair, just be aware of the market reality and don't base your selection solely on review sites returned by Google.
• When reading a review site, try and determine if the site is in any way affiliated to the web hosting company. Often viewing the page source will reveal the true nature of links. To achieve this select View->Page Source in Firefox and View->Source in Internet Explorer
• Be wary of reviews that only list positive comments. Try and find sources with both positive and negative scores for a more objective comparison.
• Reviews left by actual customers are more reliable than other sources, but avoid the testimonials on a web host's site. A host is naturally not going to post many negative reviews about themselves.
• Some web directories can be helpful, especially if you want to compare price, features and service, but others accept advertising and so should be treated with a healthy dose of skepticism.
• Always seek more than one source of information when doing research. General web hosting forums and blogs are good sources of information, as is reading other people's experiences in older threat. Post specific questions too if you like, just be careful that the person replying to your query is not in fact be pushing their own products onto you.
• Spending some time in the forum of a hosting company can also be useful. Look for common reoccurring themes in the post topics. If a lot of people are complaining about the same problem, it reveals something about the host's true nature.
• Finally - don't spend too much time over-analyzing. Choose one and go with it. You will soon learn through your own experiences. Consider any host that you sign up with on a "probation period", where they have to earn your trust. If you are not happy, quickly cut them loose and try another web hosting company.

Mark Chidester

Today I'll show you how to install themes for Firefox: Themes: addons.mozilla.org Enjoy!