A new idea is delicate. It can be killed by a sneer or a yawn; it can be stabbed to death by a quip and worried to death by a frown on the right man’s brow. - Charles Brower
Top 5 Browser Accessories
Those who surf the net regularly would agree to the fact that surfing is incomplete without the accessories. These accessories are so important sometimes that your total time to download and read/listen/view some content may be exponentially proportional to the availability/non-availability of this plug-in in need. As a very heavy net-surfer, due to work related as well as personal needs, I have come across quite a few of these accessories. Some of them were very useful to me and some of them are OK and some of them are spy-wares as well as data-collection tools for marketing sites.
Over the years I have become wiser by being extra careful on what I download and install as plug-ins. My browser contains all the following tools as I use them almost daily. I use them at least once or more. Without further adieu, let us see the top 5 in my opinion and the reasons for the same.
1.Yahoo Companion/Google Search Button
Shockwave Flash & Macromedia Plug-ins
Real Player/Windows Media Player
Adobe Acrobat Reader
pcANYWHERE EXPRESS Plug-In & WinZip
At # 5, a close tie between pcANYWHERE EXPRESS Plug-In & WinZip
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The reason for this is due to the type of work I do. Sometimes, I have to login to my PC at work and vice-versa. This plug-in lets me type in the IP address of the machine I want to login and bingo, I am in. I will be able to all the duties I want to do in the remote PC. This is a very novel tool that makes my life a lot easier. This Plug-in is a free downloads and can be downloaded with ease. You can also access other stuff such as VNCViewer via port 5800 and a browser but I feel this to be great
WinZip is an excellent tool, especially when you want to download compressed files in the net and want to view the extracted content and all. To know more about WinZip, take a look at this awesome review by TiC https://mouthshut.com/readreview/39119-1.html. If you are a Windows XP/2003 user, you may not need to download WinZip as a separate tool as Microsoft has come up with free compression tools here too.:-) My sincere regrets to Winzip Computing Inc.!
At # 4, a must have tool called Adobe Acrobat Reader
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As a person searching a lot of technical articles, I am an extreme user of Adobe Acrobat Reader. I use to read at least 5-10 Adobe documents at a minimum. This makes web reading of these documents easier. The plug-in also comes with a lot of printing, viewing and zooming options to suit your needs. You can freely download this tool from Adobe website. I am a user of Adobe Acrobat too, which is handy in creation of documents. I format my documents in word and click on the acrobat create Icon and there I go.
If you are not keen, sites like Google, AlltheWeb and DogPile give you view HTML options to ease your pain.
At # 3, a close tie between Real Player and Windows Media Player
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For any music/streaming video lover, these tools are a must. If you have these plug-ins, you can view all the content within the browser. Both these tools have free versions. Real Player comes with Real One Player for which you may have to pay a premium.
I listen to music quite often and watch some streaming news all the time. The Yahoo! Finance newscasts as well as news by NDTV etc are of importance to me. Hence I use both these plug-ins very heavily. For a separate review on WMP9, see TiCs wonderful review again.
At #2, Shockwave Flash & Macromedia Plug-ins
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Many of the websites of usefulness are Flash enabled or MacroMedia Enabled. To view these content rich sites, you need to have these important plug-ins. As many of the sites I visit daily have Flash content, I use this plug-in extensively. While some of the later browsers come with these tools embedded in them, it is better to check and download, if it is not part of the package. Mostly this can be done on an install-on-demand basis.
A must have tool.
At #1, Yahoo Companion/Google Search Button
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You can use either of these. If you are a big-time yahoo user, the Yahoo! Companion becomes an inevitable tool for browsing. It is as though you are non-existent without this tool. Yahoo! Companion is an on-demand tool that can be downloaded from Yahoo! Web site. I use Yahoo! Companion for News, Financial Info, Stock Quotes, Movie News, Mail and IM purposes.
Google Search Button is the single best browser companion I have come across. As most of you would agree, what can be better than a browser based search, without typing a URL? I use it at least 30-60 times at a minimum. This may increase as time goes by. I am non-existent surfer, without this tool. Such is this tool.
This comes with
Normal search tool
News Link
Highlighter
Search Within Page Option
Page Rank & Page info
That’s about it. Other tools I considered of including but excluded are as follows.
Blink Bookmarks
GuruNet
Ad-Aware
Norton WebServices
Zone Alarm(Firewall Protection)
Hotbar(Beware of this spyware. Pretty useful if you don’t mind tracking)
Microsoft’s IE Web Accessories & Office viewer Tools
Internet Answering Machine(If you are using dial-up)
BOTTOMLINE
I could go on and on. In my opinion, the items I have mentioned above are my favorites. I am sure many of you would have your own favorites.
I hope you liked my review. Try to chip in your comments, if you have time.
Kalil