If you have not make the switch to Google Chrome because of the extensive extensions library in Firefox, here are a few must have extensions in Google Chrome that might make you reconsider your decision.

Installing Extensions in Chrome

First of all, you need to have the latest beta version of Google Chrome before you can install any extensions.

(Linux users can go to the Google Chrome main site to download the beta version. Mac users, sorry, the extensions feature is not available to you yet, as of this post.)

To install Chrome extensions, visit Chrome Extensions page and click on the extensions that you want to install. It will install automatically. The best thing is, no restart is required.

Okay, here comes the list.

1. Gmail Checker

If you are like me, always going back and forth with wanting to know when a new email arrives, this is the add-on for you.

2. IE Tabs

For Web developers who need to view their work in IE, this extension will be useful to you. This extension make the site believes you are still using your Atari 2600 an older version of IE to surf the web.

3. Google Wave Notifier

For those who have Google Wave and have been actively using it, this is a great extension for you.

4. Google Calendar Checker

Just like the Gmail checker, but this one displays appointments.

5. Xmarks

No matter which browser you use (Firefox, Chrome, Safari or IE), you can now sync all of your bookmarks with this handy extension.

6. Docs PDF/Powerpoint Viewer

If you are an avid Google Docs user, you have probably used the Docs Viewer before. This extension makes viewing PDFs in your browser even easier.

7. Evernote

Evernote is one of those applications made to feed the inner pack rat in us all. Taking a quick snippet of a page for later review is now possible on Chrome.

8. Send from Gmail

Makes Gmail your default email address when you click on a “mail to” link. A small but handy extension.

9. One Number

Check Google Voice, Reader, Gmail and Wave all with one extension. Obviously if you choose this extension, you will not need a couple of the other extensions in this list.

10. Google Tasks

One of the main reasons I didn’t use Tasks in my Gmail or Calendar is, it was kind of a pain to open up my one of those applications to jot down a note. This add-on made Tasks much more usable.

11. Avairy Screen Capture

When you click on the icon in the toolbar, quite a few options are displayed in the drop down menu. After you make a screen capture, the image will open up new window. In the new window you can use the different tools and editors to make adjustments.

Alternative: Picnik

12. Better Gmail

Better Gmail is very similar to the Greasemonkey script for Firefox. It lets you tweak your Inbox to make it less distracting or more user friendly.

13. ChromeMilk

Access your Remember the Milk reminders right from the Chrome toolbar.

14. Facebook

Log into your Facebook account via this handy little extension to gain access to chat, notifications and other basic features.

15. Adblock

Perform exactly the same as its Firefox counterpart. It blocks all the ads in any site, including Facebook. If you are sick of seeing the specialized ads on every page in Facebook, add this extension and “poof” they are gone.

16. Go Extensions

This add-on gives you quick Access to the extensions Control Panel to make adjustments to your many installed add-ons.

17. Session Manager

This extension saves all your opened tabs and allows you to quickly re-open them whenever you like. It supports multiple sessions, so you can create several tabs sessions and load them up when you are working, or just surfing the Web to pass time.

Alternative: Fresh Start

18. RSS Subscription

The single most sought after feature in Google Chrome is finally available. This extension allows you to view a site’s RSS feed and subscribe with your favorite reader. (Editor’s opinion: The Google Chrome is the only popular browser that doesn’t come with the RSS subscription option. It should already be part of the Chrome core functionality, but sadly, we have to activate it via an extension.)

These are only a few of the hundreds of extensions available for Chrome. With a quick search, you should be able to find something to fit your needs.

Do you like the extensions better for Firefox or for Chrome?

image credit Randy Zhang

18 Must Have Google Chrome Extensions originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Sites often release their API or even their source code to build upon. Because of this, sites like Google Maps are frequently used in mashups.

Below are some of the interesting mashup sites that you may not even know they exist.

1 .Lastfmlovetweet

I use this all the time. Everytime you “Love” a song on Last.fm it is automatically updates your Twitter account. It adds the hashtags #lastfm and #love to your tweets.

2. Ask.mosio

SMS a question and have it answered by a community of users. Think of it like the ‘phone a friend‘ lifeline on Millionaire, but through SMS. They also have apps making your mobile device even more useful.

3. Facesaerch

Yes, you didn’t read wrongly, nor did we type wrongly, the ‘a’ and the ‘e’ were in the right place. What Facesaerch does is to show your Facebook updates in a iTunes Coverflow way.

4. Hotelmapsearch

Uses Google maps to mark hotels in a specific city. Select specific criteria (ie price, brand name, or number of stars) to narrow your search.

5. Flickrsudoku

Basically it’s sudoku with pictures from Flickr showing numbers.

6. Pixelpipe

Upload your pictures and video to your 100+ social networks, photo/video sites and blogs with this uploader

7. Tweetwasters

Have you ever wondered how much time you’ve wasted using Twitter? Here is your chance to see.

8. Fotoland

See where the Flickr pictures were taken via Google Maps

9. Memry

The classic game of Memory with Flickr pics

10. Skatespotter

Find great spots to skate or skateshops marked on Google Maps.

11. Coffeeseeker

If you are a caffeine addict like I am, use this one to find coffee shops within a user selected distance from you on Google Maps.

12. Openfilm

A mash of commercial and user submitted videos. It is very indie stuff for the most part.

13. Dvdzreview

Reviews of new DVD movies. If you like what you see, you can buy it or rent it from numerous places.

14. Triplify

Triplify is a site which searches Yahoo, Google and Bing and displays the results in a slightly more visually appealing way.

15. Tweetbars

Show off the real you by displaying tweets in your email signatures or website. This little piece of HTML code is all you need.

16. Twitpay.me

If you want to send me a couple dollars you can send it via Twitter using this cool little tool. (@trevord209)

17. Windowshop

Window shop for popular items on Amazon.com in an interesting way. Use the arrows to navigate through the stacks album and book covers.

18. Let Me Google That For You

I like this one a lot. Do you get a lot of lazy people asking you to look something up for them? If so, this site will give them the results they are looking for, but make them feel lazy for asking.

19. Kvetch

This one is basically a Twitter complaint aggregator. Some are pretty funny.

20. 2realestateauctions

eBay real estate auctions mapped out via Google Maps. Get directions and see the neighborhood without leaving your couch. If you like it, get directions and go make an offer.

That’s all for now. Do share your favorite mashup sites with us in the comments.

Image credit: delgaudm

20 Fun and Interesting Mashup Sites originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

It’s a competitive world out there, and in the world of web browsers the phrase would be “extermely competitive”. Remember the good ol’ days of browser war back in the 90s? While there’s no more IE in the Mac universe, the competition is still very stiff. The not-so-famous names try so hard to get their brands out to the masses.

Most Mac users I know use either Safari or Firefox. But there are other good browsers out there that deserve a decent attention. Even though at the end you’ll get back to your old love, there’s nothing wrong on giving these alternative a try.

Mac-Only Browser

1. OmniWeb

OmniWeb is a veteran which need no further introduction. OmniWeb used to be a paid app and has been the alternative browser for Mac for so long that it has its own “cult” follower. Now that it’s available for free, there’s no other reason why you can’t try it.

2. Shiira

Shiira is the result of a (bit idealistic) project from Japanese developer to create a browser that is better and more useful than Safari. That’s why it’s based on Web Kit and written in Cocoa. So whether the project’s goal is reached or not, is for you – the users – to decide.

3. Camino

Camino is an open source web browser developed by Mozilla Project with a focus on providing the best possible experience for Mac OS X users. So if you want Firefox which built specifically for Mac, this is the one.

4. Stainless

Stainless used to be the ‘twisted’ Mac version of Google Chrome. But in the development, Stainless grows to become a unique browser with its own unique features, such as: parallel sessions, which allow users to log into a site using different credentials in separate tabs at the same time. (I’ve tried this with GMail but failed).

5. Sunrise

Sunrise is another Japanese Mac browser project based on Webkit. It has some unique features like visual bookmark and the ability to take snapshot of an entire web page. Another tiny useful feature is the ability to visually watch the loading progress of a page which is missing from Safari 4.

Not Mac-Only Browser

6. Opera

Opera is an ‘old’ browser who survive the browser war. The company which creates Opera is also one of the pioneers on development of ‘great’ mobile browser. The Mac version of Opera is also a good and stable alternative browser, but the existence of Safari and Firefox (and some people said also the un-Mac look of Opera) makes this oldies has to struggle to get more attention.

7. Flock

Flock is a browser which dubbed itself as the “social browser” and equipped itself with many social-ish features from blogging to facebook-ing and flickr-ing. The easy-WYSIWYG blog editor itself makes Flock worth the look.

8. Chrome

Chrome needs no further explanation. This Google’s browser is predicted to be one of the strong names in the future. At this moment, there’s no stable Mac version released to the public yet, but the alpha tester reported that we can expect good things to come.

Have you used any of these? Or do you know other alternative web browsers for Mac? Share using the comment below.

8 Alternative Web Browsers for Mac originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

How many of you who never peek at your chat windows, check your mail inbox or keep your Facebook page open while you work? I’m sure the number is low – if any.

I personally think it’s OK to refresh your mind once in a while. The problem is sometimes we don’t have the luxury of spare time due to the deadlines, and yet most of the time our will power is not strong enough to resist the temptation.

We could use some help.

A little bit of Self Control

I found an app – with a scary icon – that can help me strengthen my will power. It’s called Self Control. This app does one simple thing: blocks access to incoming and/or outgoing mail servers and websites for a predetermined period of time.

For example, you could block access to your email, Facebook, and Twitter for 90 minutes, but still have access to the rest of the web. This selective blacklisting feature is very useful if you still have to do some research and post to your blog while eliminating other distracting sites.

Click the “Edit blacklist” button (or use Command + D) to add (+) or subtract (-) blacklisted sites. Please note that you have to type in the site address manually as the app won’t allow you to copy and paste. Another limitation is that you can’t add sub-folder address (something like www.apple.com/itunes/).

The import button is for you to add incoming and outgoing mail servers from Mail and Thunderbird.

Other settings are accessible through Preferences windows (Command + Comma)

After everything is set, you can click the “Start” button and have your distractive web gone for a while. But remember, once started, the process cannot be undone by the application or by restarting the computer – you must wait for the timer to run out.

Going to the extreme

In the extreme case where you absolutely must have no web distraction at all (I am still having difficulties imagining what case that would be), you can use Freedom to block all access to the net.

The appearance is simple. There’s a box where you type in the amount of minutes you want your network blocked – with the maximum of eight hours.

After clicking “OK”, the second window will appear giving you the option to cancel, limit access to local network or block all access (Normal Mode).

What make Freedom a little bit different from Self Control is that you can ‘cheat’ the process by doing a system reboot. It’s a bit of a hassle, but still do-able. Maybe this is the option to take if you accidentally start Freedom.

To me, these two apps are not really useful as most of my distractions are not from the net. But what about you? Do you find SelfControl and Freedom useful? Do you have other alternatives? Share your thoughts using the comment below.

How To Work Without Any Web Distraction In Mac originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Mindmeister is an elegant and easy to use web application that allows you to create mindmaps easily and quickly. In this article I am going to demonstrate how to use Mindmeister to create Mindmaps and share with your friends and colleagues.

1. Go to Mindmeister.com and sign up for a free account. You can skip this step if you have an OpenID account. Alternatively, if you just want to try out the software, there is a live demo on the front page where you can get a hands on experience.

2. Login to Mindmeister and click on “Create Mind map” button

3. You will now see the root node at the center of the screen. Before creating the mindmap it will be nice to get comfortable with the navigation structure in Mindmeister.

The toolbar at the top contains the buttons for you to add, delete and connect nodes. On the right side lies the navigator, text editor and icons where you can use them to enhance the overall look and feel. At the bottom is the Share button that allows you to share and collaborate your work.

4. Once you are comfortable with the menus, it becomes very easy to create a mindmap. First, click on the root node and edit the text to reflect your brainstorm topic/idea. Next, click on the Add button on the top toolbar to add new node. At the end of this step you should get something as shown below:

5. Keep on adding the nodes to complete the mindmap and if necessary, add icons to make the node more distinguishable or add links if needed. At the end of this step, your mindmap should be almost completed.

6. Once the mindmap is completed, click on the Share button to share and collaborate with your friends and colleagues. You can also make it public or embed it in your site.

Conclusion

Not only is it easy to use, Mindmeister is also a feature rich web application that allows you to create mindmaps and share with your friends easily. Some of the other useful features include making a clone copy of your existing mindmap or export your mindmaps as images or PDF files.

The free edition of Mindmeister allows you to create up to 6 mindmaps. There are also various paid editons for heavy users.

Mindmeister: Easily Create And Share Your Mindmap Online originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

If you are really concerned about the security of your site, this is something that you really need to avoid.

In place of FTP, you can use SFTP (SSH File Transfer Protocol) to create a secure network connection instead. When you are connected via SFTP, all your data are encrypted. Even if they are intercepted, they will only show up as garbage text on the hacker’s computer.

This tutorial teaches you how to connect to your WordPress account (or any other Web server) via a SFTP connection.

A point to note: Not all web host supports SFTP. Do check with your Web host before carrying out the steps below. If your web host does not support SFTP, maybe it’s time to consider another web host that does. Hostgator does the hosting for MTE and they support SFTP.

While there are many FTP clients that support SFTP, the one that I find it the easiest to use and is available for all platforms is Filezilla.

Download and install Filezilla client for your platform. (skip this step if you are already using Filezilla)

Open up Filezilla. Click on the first icon on the Toolbar to access the Site Manager. Alternatively, you can find the Site Manager at the menubar File->Site Manager.

Click the New Site button on the left bottom pane to create a new account.

On the right pane, enter your host name (this is usually the IP address assigned to you by your Web host). In the Port input field, enter 22 (Different web hosts have different ports for their SFTP connection, Hostgator uses port 2222. If you can’t connect with port 22, you may want to ask your web host for the port number).

Under the Servertype dropdown field, select SFTP – SSH File Transfer Protocol.

Enter your login username and password. Click Connect at the bottom to connect to your account. If everything is fine, you should see a popup window prompting you to accept the server’s public key. Click Ok to continue (You may want to save the key in your cache so that it won’t prompt you all the time). You should be connected to your account via SFTP now.

Bringing it a step further

If you are really paranoid about your security, you can use a public/private key authentication to connect to your SFTP network instead. A public/private key authentication allows you to login to your account without any password and also eliminates any chance of a brute force SSH attack.

Once again, not all web hosts allow you to generate public/private key certificate. The following example is based on Hostgator cPanel.

Log into your cPanel. Scroll down until you see the SSH/Shell Access icon.

Click on the Manage SSH keys button.

Click on the Generate a new key link.

Enter your key name and give it a password. Make sure that your password is a strong one. Click on the Generate key button.

You should now see information about your public key.

Back to the main screen, you should see that your public key is listed as not authorized. Click on the Manage Authorization link to toggle it.

Back to the SSH key management screen, download the private key to a secure folder in your computer.

In your Filezilla, go to Edit->Settings. On the left, click SFTP. On the right, click the Add KeyFile button. Navigate to where you store your private key and select it.

Once you have added the private key, click Ok to close the window.

Back to the Site manager screen, remove the password that you have saved previously. Click the Connect button. Filezilla will now authenticate the session with your private key and allow you to login to your account without any password.

That’s it.

Image credit: beefranck

How To Connect To Your WordPress Account Via Secure FTP originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

This Windows-based news-reader will run in the background of your PC and continually monitor websites RSS feeds for you. When it senses that something new has appeared or changed on your preferred sites, it will immediately let you know.

Awasu, your new eyes and ears will watch what’s happening around the globe and let you know about events almost as soon as they happen, eliminating the wasting of time while surfing the web.

Additional Features & Services

With Awasu you’re not limited to just news services, you can keep an eye on the current weather in New York, the latest sales data in let’s say London, or which band is playing at your favorite place soon.

Utilizing its powerful plug-in architecture, Awasu is easily customizable to monitor absolutely anything at all. Awasu comes with a sample Java program that lets you monitor a database. For example, if you wanted to keep track of stock levels in your warehouse’s inventory database per say, it’s possible. It’s also easy to write a plug-in that talks to it and feeds the results back into Awasu for quick and convenient viewing.

This application also allows you to hook into the flow of information to perform your own custom actions. You can analyze the information as it arrives by reading it or quickly making note of it, then send out an email or SMS message to someone informing them on the RSS feed of your choice.

The Conclusion of Awasu

With Awasu you’re no longer restricted to only using the web browser tool, you can monitor information as it arrives from your selected feeds, view it and then respond to it as well through the use of comments on the site from which the feeds originated from. Awasu is free and it seems as though it arrives at your desktop with endless possibilities of adding hundreds and thousands of feeds.

Instantly View Thousands Of RSS Feeds With Awasu originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

LastPass is an online password manager that you can install as an addon in Firefox and Internet Explorer. It encrypts all your passwords with 256-bit AES encryption algorithm and synchronizes them across different browsers and devices. With LastPass, you only have to remember one master password and it will take care of the rest.

When you first run LastPass, it will prompt you to create an online account. This will be the account that they use to store all your passwords. During the registration, you will have to create a strong master password. In case you are wondering how long should your password be to considered strong, there is a password meter that shows the strength as you type in your password. Note that I have used a 42-characters long password and the password meter is still not full.

If you want to let LastPass take full control over your password management, there is also an option for you to disable the default password manager in your browser.

To enable its users to migrate their existing password account to LastPass easily, there is an Import function that you can use to import your browser password setting. It also supports Keepass, 1Password, Sxipper and many other password managers.

The way LastPass works is similar to the way Firefox’s password manager works. Whenever you login to a site, an unobstructive popup will appear to ask you if you want to save the password for this site.

If the password is already in your account, when you go to the site, the login field will be prefilled with your login credential. There is even a auto-login function that you can use to quickly login to your site.

Just like Roboform, LastPass also comes with a form filling feature that you can use to quickly fill up your form. One annoying thing I found is that it shows a autofill pop up every time it detects a fillable form, including email newsletter subscription box. Since almost every sites comes with an email newsletter subscription box, the popup appears every time you visit a new site. This can be very irritating.

Bring LastPass with you everywhere

If you have installed portable Firefox on your USB drive, you can also install LastPass on the portable Firefox so that you have access to your password even when you are away from your computer. This is useful if you are on a travelling trip and need to use an Internet cafe to go online.

Backing up your password

When you save your password in LastPass, the password is stored in an encrypted form in the LastPass server. To avoid the incident where your password is inaccessible when the server is down, you can install LastPass Pocket on your computer and have it export and back up your account setting (including passwords) to your local hard drive.

LastPass currently only supports Firefox and Internet Explorer. The Safari version is on its way while the Google Chrome version is not available till Google released the extension API. LastPass works in Windows, Mac and Linux.

What other ways do you use to sync your password across various browsers and devices?

Sync Your Passwords Across Different Browsers With LastPass originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

That’s why community-based review sites like Digg and del.icio.us become very popular. The logic is simple: the best judge to pick worth knowing information out there is opinion from the mass. Our opinion.

So, if you are the kind of person who loves to share your opinion to the world, maybe this one site can be one of your favorites. It’s called Ciao and it specialize on product review.

Reviews with a twist

Basically, this free service wanted to be one of your references to find product reviews. Everytime you are thinking of buying something, you go here and look for reviews. But Ciao is not your ordinary product review site. It sort of a mix from Digg, Facebook and Adsense. Users are also encouraged to do their product reviews.

After the registration process, you can start reviewing ANY product available out there; from music albums to high tech mouth watering laptops, from books to softwares. Nothing too fancy, a short 100-200 words opinion on something would be fine. (They even accept 10-20 words quick review!) Note: They require you to review the things that you yourself use and not writing fictional review.

To write a review, use the menu My Content –> Write a new review, then use the search box to find product to review. Click the envelope icon to start writing.

As an incentive to encourage people to do this, Ciao will pay user for each positive comment given to the review. They also have somekind of competition to choose the best reviews each month and split US$ 2,000 prize among the winners.

The twist which differs Ciao from other review site is that it also encourages you to invite your friends and also make friends with existing Ciao members – sort of building a friendship network like FaceBook or MySpace.

The future of Ciao

In general, Ciao is a nice place to help people decide about a product based on your own experience, make friends, hone your writing skills and earning some reputation while doing it. If you think Ciao fits you, why not join Ciao as it has just started to grow big under Microsoft (The giant acquired it as of October 15 2008). Just be sure to add me “thurana” – as your friend and give honest-good comments on my reviews. :)

Share what you think about this service using the comment below.

Make Review And Make Friends With Ciao originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Even though Adobe Photoshop is the standard for creating professional image, not everyone can afford or want to pay the high pay for it. If you are looking for a free online alternative to Photoshop, then SUMO Paint is the best that you can get.

Sumo Paint is a free online image editor that looks like a complete clone of Adobe Photoshop. It is built with Adobe Flex and run completely from your browser. For those who are worrying that this application will take up tons of memory, I have tested it and found that it is stable, loads fairly fast and only takes up a fraction of my memory usage.

The impression you get when you first load up SUMO Paint is its Photoshop lookalike interface. Seasoned Photoshop user will find the floating toolbar, palettes and color bars far too familiar.

Unlike other online editors that focused mostly on image editing, SUMO Paint provides you with the necessary tools to create a professional image. You can find the Ink, Pencil tools for you to do your drawing (no Pen tool), custom shapes for vector work and add multiple layers for various effects. There is also a variety of brushes and filters effects that you can use.

To load an image in SUMO Paint, you can either upload the image from your computer, or simply grab an online image with its URL. Alternatively, you can create a SUMO account and load your image from there. Once you have finished your editing, you can download it to your computer in jpg/png format or save to your SUMO account for future re-editing. There is no social sharing feature here, but you can set the image that you save in your SUMO account to be available for public viewing.

When compared to Photoshop, there are still many features clearly lacking in SUMO Paint, but if you are looking for a free editor that gives you a good set of editing tool with easy to use Photoshop-like interface, SUMO Paint is definitely the one to go for.

SUMO Paint: An Online Clone Of Adobe Photoshop originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

I don’t know about you, but here is my top 8 Web apps that have replaced my desktop apps.

1) Zoho

Zoho is one of the most comprehensive online office suite that is capable of replacing any desktop Office suite. In addition to the regular Word, Sheet and presentation, you also get a Wiki page, planner for managing your to-do list, tasks and notes, and many more features that you can only find in a paid desktop app.

2) Flauntr

I admit that Flauntr is definitely not up to mark when compared to Adobe Photoshop, but for simple editing and adding of special effects, Flauntr has delivered well. In fact, it is one of the fastest online photo editor with nice and simple interface.

3) Xdrive

There are many online storage sites around, but the one that really caught my eyes is Xdrive. The reason being, it gives me a whopping 5GB of online storage to backup all my data and documents. I can also listen to my mp3 songs via the built in music player. To make things easier, there is also a desktop client where I can sync and backup my files regularly.

4) Zenbe

When I first review about Zenbe, it is still in beta testing. At that time, it has already given me a great impression. It is more than an email account. I find it to be more like a mini online version of your Microsoft Outlook. You got a calendar page, to-do list, address book, daily agenda and Google talk all integrated to one. I have given up on Evolution ever since.

5) Meebo

With all the friends from different IM account, it can be a difficult task to get connected to them all. Meebo is more like an online version of Adium, or Pidgin as it supports various IM protocol and allows you to sign in to any IM account.

6) Kongregate

This is really a great time-wasting site. With thousands of high quality flash game, I don’t think I will ever go back to play my desktop games again.

7) Jottit

Jottit is a simple notepad that you can use to easily use to record notes. There is no beautiful design or complicated layout. When you first go to the site, there is only a simple text area for you to write down your note. When you are done, press the ‘Create a site‘ button and it will create a personal note link for you. Next time you need to edit, or add on to the note, simply point your URL to the link.

8) DesktopTwo

The best desktop replacement app is definitely… the desktop itself. DesktopTwo is an online desktop with a complete suite of office suite, IM client, email client, notepad, music player all in one place. So far, I use DesktopTwo only when I am travelling, or when I don’t have my laptop around. Other than that, i still prefer my own desktop.

What is your favorite Web apps that have replaced your desktop apps? Let me know in the comment.

8 Web Apps That Can Easily Replace Your Desktop (Apps) originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)

Since Firefox 3 is come pre-installed in Ubuntu, I took the opportunity to test out Opera 9.5 and see if it has enough juice to replace Firefox as the default browser in your desktop.

The following are some of the noticeable differences that I observed:

Speed

Even though Firefox 3 is fast, Opera is even faster. A browser test shows that Opera took about 100ms to startup and complete loading the home page while Firefox 3 took a miserable 240ms to startup and another 100ms to load the page. Not that the 140ms extra makes a great deal of differences, but it is definitely make Opera looks more impressive. First impression counts, and in this case, Opera 9.5 really makes its presence counts.

Good support for flash plugin

It is the ‘norm‘ for Firefox to crash whenever it loads a flash content, especially videos (sad, but true). This is also the main issue that most Ubuntu users are facing. This issue has been around since Firefox 2 and I am quite disappointed that it has not been solved in Firefox 3. In Opera, the support for Flash content is excellent, if not, flawless. There is no crashes and the loading is fast and smooth. Same flash plugin, different browsers, different result.

Synchronization

One of my favorite extension in Firefox is Foxmarks because it allows me to sync my bookmarks across different computers. In Opera, the synchronization feature is in-built with it. The Opera link syncs not only your bookmarks, but also include your notes, personal bar and speed dial between computers and mobile devices. You never lose your information even when you are using other computer.

Display Tabs in tiles, cascade

Opera 9.5 allows you to display your tabs in tiles or cascade. This is useful when you are doing a price or product comparison over different sites. You can now have a bird eye view of all the tabs arranged in tile format, and it saves you time in switching from tab to tab.

Magic wand

Yes, Firefox has a great password manager, but why can’t it take a step further and log you in automatically? Magic wand did a great job in doing just that. Not only does it saves your password, it also automatically log you in without any fuss. Simply click the wand icon beside the address bar, or “Ctrl+Enter“.

Speed Dial

Seasoned Opera users will know that the Speed dial has been around since the previous version of Opera. I find this to be a very useful feature and I was rather disappointed that Firefox didn’t include this in their native build. Even though the Speed Dial extension tops my list of favorite Firefox extension, somehow I still find it uncomfortable that it causes a split second delay whenever I open a new tab. I find the speed dial in Opera very elegant. Since it is integrated in Opera, it also loads faster and smoother. (By the way, do you know that you can easily add more window to the speed dial in Opera by tweaking the configuration?)

My conclusion:

So is Opera good enough for your Ubuntu desktop? My answer is Yes. Even though I love Firefox for its robustness and flexibility, there are some great features in Opera that I find it extremely useful, but are not available in Firefox. While I don’t think it could become a replacement for Firefox, it can definitely be a great complement to it, especially when you need to watch a Youtube video without your browser crashing.

What do you think?

Is Opera Good Enough For Your Ubuntu Desktop? originally published on Make Tech Easier (RSS)