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RSS feedsDo you take your web browser for granted? It's little wonder if you do. After all, it does its job well enough, letting you view and save web pages, follow links, navigate back and forwards between pages, make and store bookmarks, and so on.
Indeed, perhaps you take your browser so much for granted that you never question whether it could perform any of its functions more effectively, or why you're forever having to switch between the mouse and keyboard while you surf.
The good news is that it's perfectly possible to make your browser more powerful, flexible and easier to use by means of plug-ins. A plug-in is a small add-on feature that boosts a browser's ability in a functional way.
Some are essential for viewing particular types of web page, others are simply so useful that once you've tried them, you'll wonder how you ever got by without them.
Internet Explorer
Considering Internet Explorer's dominance among web browsers, you can be certain that a compatible plug-in is available for everything you're likely to come across on your online travels.
Typical examples include RealPlayer, Windows Media and Acrobat Reader plug-ins, all of which let you view specific file types within the browser window without having to open a separate application.
Users of Opera and, to a lesser extent, Mozilla Firefox have no such guarantee, with support for even 'standard' plug-ins frequently proving patchy or problematic.
As a rule, when given a choice, use the Netscape plug-in with Opera and Mozilla. We also recommend keeping Internet Explorer on hand for emergencies even if you are totally sold on the competition.
Beyond the basics, Internet Explorer has its own selection of custom-built plug-ins. Our particular favourite is the Google Toolbar, now in its second incarnation.
As well as providing a convenient search field, the toolbar also blocks pop-ups. This, you'll soon discover, can occasionally be self-defeating as not all pop-ups are adverts and some websites intentionally use pop-up windows to display images and without them the site may not function.
This is easily remedied, however. You can either hold down the Control key to permit a specific pop-up to appear, or click the pop-up button on the toolbar to allow all future pop-ups on this site, but only on this site.
The Google Toolbar's highlighter is another essential. Once you've queried the Google search engine and followed a likely-looking link, this feature highlights every instance of your keyword or words on the open page, potentially saving you a great deal of scrolling through lengthy pages looking for the relevant section.
We also couldn't do without the Google Toolbar's Auto Fill feature that conveniently stores your name, address, contact numbers, email address and so forth and fills in web forms with one click.
Adobe Acrobat also integrates with Internet Explorer and can save any web page as a handy self-contained PDF file. Trouble is, Acrobat costs upwards of £250, which is a high price for convenience.
ScanSoft PaperPort has a less adept but perfectly functional web-to-PDF converter that sits in the Taskbar rather than an Internet Explorer toolbar and does much the same thing.
Some web addresses, particularly links to products within shopping sites, are long, awkward to copy and typically get rendered unclickable when pasted into an email.
Just install the TinyURL toolbar button plug-in in Internet Explorer and you can convert any snake-like address to an abbreviated shortcut.
Druid is another cracker. This plug-in lets you download all files fitting any given criteria from a web page in one hit. Let's say you have a pages full of thumbnails in your sights.
Instead of having to click each one in turn to get to the image behind it and then downloading them all separately, Druid can tell Internet Explorer to grab the lot.
It's a classic case of an oh-so-obvious feature that's simply lacking in the default browser - and one that makes life much easier.
Finally, try Avant Browser, a plug-in that masquerades as a standalone browser but is in reality a monster plug-in for Internet Explorer.
It's completely free and gives you tabbed browsing and mouse gestures (read on for an explanation of these terms), which together bring Internet Explorer firmly into the realm of Opera and Firefox.
You can also easily disable pictures in web pages for faster browsing, save a series of open pages as a session to which you can return at any time and carry on from where you left off if you close and relaunch the browser with pages open.
The Google Toolbar works just fine with Avant and, because this is still Internet Explorer under the hood, all other third-party plug-ins are equally supported.
If Avant doesn't grab your fancy, try MyIE2, a similar alternative that likewise sits atop Internet Explorer and adds extra features.
Opera
Opera tends to provoke evangelical hysteria among its devotees and it's not hard to see why. For starters, consider tabbed browsing. This lets you keep multiple web pages open at the same time within a single browser window.
To flit between them, you click the associated tab in a bar running across the screen and the selected page opens in the active window.
With the oddly-named 'mouse gestures' plug-in, you can navigate forwards and backwards between pages using only the mouse. To go back a page, for instance, you hold down the right mouse button and move the mouse slightly to the left.
You can also reload pages, open new windows, and hop between tabs with the mouse. Once tried, forever smitten.
If you tend to visit the same websites when you first fire up your browser - for example, you might habitually check a news site, the weather, your Hotmail inbox and your own home page - you can shortcut this procedure by saving a bunch of pages as a browser 'session'.
Next time you launch Opera, just open the saved session and your favourite pages will load afresh in their respective tabs.
In fact, even if you don't save a session or you have to shut down your browser or computer in a hurry, Opera can be configured to 'continue from last time' upon every restart.
Alongside the address bar, Opera has a search engine field where you can enter keywords and quickly query Google or an alternative service. It also has a built-in pop-up stopper.
Strictly speaking, these are all integrated features rather than plug-ins but they amount to the same thing. Indeed, Opera is pre-configured to be fully featured.
One optional extra that we do recommend, though, is Powermarks, a bookmark manager that lets you search and organise internet bookmarks by keyword and content rather than through a folder hierarchy alone.
Like all browsers, Opera lacks inherent support for the likes of Shockwave Flash, RealMedia and QuickTime but the appropriate plug-ins can be installed (see below).
However, you may have to do some manual copying of files into folders and some plug-ins, notably Acrobat Reader for viewing PDF files within the browser window, are known to be troublesome. Installation routines are discussed in full on the Opera support pages.
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox - or Firebird as it was called until recently and Phoenix as it was known before that - is the browser component in the Mozilla suite of internet applications, available as a separate download.
It's a stripped-down browser configured primarily for speed, although it does come with tabbed browsing, a pop-up stopper, an integrated search field and a download manager as standard, much like Opera (and unlike Internet Explorer).
Beyond this, thanks to its open source heritage and legions of enthusiastic proponents, a vast selection of additional plug-ins, or 'extensions' as they're called for Firefox, is available.
The idea is that you can customise Firefox precisely to suit yourself, neither hampered by inherent shortcomings nor forced to accept superfluous features.
If you've tried Opera, one plug-in that you'll want to install immediately is mouse gestures. In fact, you'll find several different versions available here, although they can generally be used together to add specific enhancements.
For instance, the Tab Scroller plug-in lets you hold down the right mouse button to navigate between web page tabs by scrolling the mouse wheel.
The 'Reload Every' plug-in automatically refreshes an open web page according to a schedule, which is ideal for pages with frequently-changing content, like news sites or webcam feeds.
Quick Note lets you scribble notes or copy content from web pages into a simple text application that runs within the browser as a tab, sidebar or floating window.
Session Saver lets you save a current configuration of open tabs, Opera-style; and Tab browser Extensions lets you rearrange the tab order with drag and drop.
Some web pages are designed so explicitly for Internet Explorer that they won't open properly (or at all) with Firefox. However, the IE View plug-in provides a quick way to open such rogue pages in Internet Explorer.
Alternatively, use the Preference Toolbars plug-in to fool the page into thinking that it is actually dealing with Internet Explorer. This toolbar also has options to turn off garish web colour schemes, kill Flash movies and more.
SpiderZilla is a great tool for downloading the contents - images, movies, whatever - of an entire website in the background, going as 'deep' as you like, and there's even an unofficial but perfectly functioning Google toolbar for Firefox.
With some 150-odd extensions to play with, this is the ultimate browser for tweaking.
Get plugged
Whichever browser you prefer - the ubiquitous Internet Explorer, supercharged Opera or design-your-own Firefox - plug-ins make everyday surfing more pleasurable.
Better still, with everything we have discussed freely available at least in demo or trial mode (see Opera pricing details below), you should have no hesitation in trying the lot.
So be bold with your browser and make it work for you. We guarantee that you'll never look back.
Where to get plug-ins
Opera 7.23 is available in two versions: free, but supported by advertising that runs banner-style in the top-right corner; or registered, which costs £24. See www.opera.com. For a list of Opera plugins, see www.opera.com/docs/plugins. For help installing them, search the Opera Knowledge Base at www.opera.com/support/service.
At the time of writing, Firefox 0.8 was still in the 'beta' (pre-release) stage of development, so expect it to have a few bugs. See www.mozilla.org/products/firefox. For Mozilla/Firefox extensions, including those mentioned in this feature, see extensionroom.mozdev.org and texturizer.net/firefox/extensions.
If you use Windows on your computer, you already have Internet Explorer installed as standard. Updates and patches can be downloaded from www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp.
RealPlayer
Windows Media
QuickTime
Flash Player
Google Toolbar
Systran
Adobe Acrobat
PaperPort
TinyURL
Druid
Avant Browser
MyIE2
Powermarks
More plugins can be found here:
www.winappslist.com/internet/plugins.htm
download.com
See also:
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