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Apple Releases Safari 5.0.1, Turns on Extensions Gallery

Simon Mackie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 13:14:56 +0000

Apple today announced the release of Safari 5.0.1. What’s significant in this point release is that Apple has turned on support for the Extensions Gallery. When Safari 5 was released in June, it included support for extensions so that developers could start building them, but without access to the Extensions Gallery, users had no easy way to find and install those extensions.

The Safari Extensions Gallery is accessible from the Safari menu or via extensions.apple.com. Users can download and install extensions from the gallery with a single click, with no need for a browser restart. Extensions can be automatically updated and are managed within Safari.

Safari Extensions are built with HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript web standards. Every Safari Extension is signed with a digital certificate from Apple to prevent tampering and to verify that updates to the extension are from the original developer. Safari Extensions work in a sandbox, so they can’t access information on a user’s system or communicate with websites aside from those specified by the developer.

While the Safari Extension Gallery is launching with a range of extensions from the likes of Bing, the New York Times, Twitter and eBay, it’s nowhere near to matching the usefulness of Chrome’s extensions, let alone Firefox’s gigantic range of add-ons. Apple’s decision to include extension support in Safari is a smart one, but until developers start porting the most useful extensions to Safari, I’ll find it tough to switch from my favorite browsers.

You can download Safari 5.0.1 for both Mac and PC for free from Apple.

What Chrome or Firefox extensions would you like to see ported to Safari?

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10 More Must-have Google Chrome Extensions

Doriano "Paisano" Carta — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:00:27 +0000

Since you liked our list of 10 must-have Google Chrome extensions so much, and seeing as Google today released a stable version of Chrome that includes extensions, I’ve decided to share another 10-pack of useful extensions. Many of those in my list are from Google itself for working with its services, while some of the others might be new to you. In any case, they’re all worth a look.

Google Wave Notifier provides quick access to your Google Wave account and displays the number of unread waves you have.

LastPass is a password manager that remembers your usernames and passwords, and lets you add notes about each account, too. It also imports databases from many of the password manager apps available today.

GMail Checker displays the number of new emails in your GMail account.

RSS Subscription Extension is one of the most handy extensions you’ll see — you’re able to subscribe to any site you’re reading with a single click.

Docs PDF/PowerPoint Viewer displays previews of any PDF files, PPT presentations and many other types of documents in Google Docs Viewer.

Facebook provides quick access to your facebook account in a dropdown window from the toolbar.

Amazon Universal Wishlist is one of my favorites because it allows you to add just about anything you want from any store to your wishlist on Amazon.

Google Voice Notifier displays new voicemails in your Google Voice account.

Google Tasks is a quick way to display your Google Tasks.

Google Similar Pages displays similar pages to the one you’re visiting once you click its browser button.

What are your favorite Google Chrome extensions? What extensions would you like to see for Chrome?

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10 Must-have Google Chrome Extensions

Will Kelly — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 15:00:10 +0000

The nature of my writing and consulting work means I spend a lot of time working in a web browser window, so I am always looking to maximize my productivity browser-wise. Recently, I made the switch to the latest Google Chrome beta for Windows because I was looking to take a break from Firefox and wanted to try Google’s latest browser developments.

While Chrome can’t yet match Firefox’s massive extension ecosystem, more useful extensions are becoming available for Google’s browser every day. Here are my must-have extensions for the new Google Chrome user:

Brizzly. Since I am trying to better integrate Twitter and Facebook into my professional communications in 2010, the Brizzly extension, which is a Twitter and Facebook reading/updating tool, ranks as a must-have in my book.

Shareaholic for Google Chrome. This extension lets you share web pages through major social media sites and other services, like Gmail and Evernote.

Google Apps Shortcuts. This shortcut provides easy access to all of your Google Apps, including Google Wave and Google Voice. You can even begin creating new email, documents, spreadsheets and presentations using this extension.

Evernote Web Clipper. We’ve written about Evernote in the past, and the Evernote extension provides the same web clipping functionality you already enjoy in Mozilla Firefox and in Internet Explorer. I use the web clipper whenever I want to capture research from the web.

Xmarks Bookmarks Sync. One of the biggest draws of Firefox for me was the capability to sync bookmarks across my home office PCs. Now with the Xmarks Bookmarks Sync extension you can have the same feature using Chrome.

Aviary Screen Capture. I take a lot of screen captures, and like the fact that Aviary Screen capture lets you capture and manipulate screen captures from within Google Chrome.

Bit.ly. This extension comes in handy if you need fast access to a URL shortener. Clicking on the Bit.ly extension launches a sidebar:

html2pdf. This extension enables you to save the HTML page you are viewing to PDF. I find this extension handy when I want to save a receipt or a piece of research.

Google Reader Notifier. Google Reader is my RSS reader of choice, so the Google Reader Notifier Extension was a natural choice for me.

TooMany Tabs for Chrome. I’ve been known to keep way too many browser tabs open especially when I am in full-on research and writing mode. TooMany Tabs for Chrome helps to keep me organized and my computer’s memory usage in check.

What are your favorite Chrome extensions?

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Chrome Extensions Are Here — In Dev Channel Versions, At Least

Samuel Dean — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 14:00:58 +0000

The Google Chrome browser has been in existence for a little over a year now, and has close to three percent market share, according to NetApplications. Many people attribute its relatively low market share thus far to lack of availability of finished Mac and Linux versions, as well as a lack of of the kinds of very useful extensions that are available for Firefox. On that last front, Google is taking a bold step forward, and making support for extensions turned on by default on versions of the browser obtained through the Dev channel, which anyone can subscribe to. The news was announced on the Chromium blog, and is a strong sign that a healthy ecosystem of extensions is on the way for one of the speediest and most innovative browsers.

Google’s Dev channel has been the way to get new versions of Chrome that are in development at the earliest opportunity, and while the versions aren’t final or always totally stable, many Chrome users stay updated through it to get the latest features. Until now, access to support for extensions for Chrome has been available only for developers.

If you subscribe through the Dev channel, you can now begin using quite a few useful extensions with Chrome. Several of the sample extensions are shown here, and will ring a bell if you happen to use the analogous extensions in Firefox. There is a Gmail Checker extension, an extension for quickly grabbing RSS feeds as you browse, and an extension for checking on Chrome’s latest builds. XMarks and other popular Firefox extensions are also headed for availability on Chrome. In addition, Google confirms that “we’ve also enlisted some help to get extensions up to speed on Mac and Linux.”

For those who would like to develop Chrome extensions, there is some documentation. And, if you’ve already written an extension, you should check this update. Lack of extensions has been a shortcoming for Google’s browser, which is based on an open source core and designed for extensibility. It’s good to see this new chapter unfolding for the browser.

Which Firefox extensions would you like to see made available for Chrome?

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Mozilla Delivers Ubiquity Firefox Extension as a Preview Edition

Samuel Dean — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:00:40 +0000

Mozilla Labs today released a preview version of the next major version of its Ubiquity extension for Firefox: Ubiquity 0.5, downloadable here. I’ve been steadily using the beta releases of it, and Mozilla has ambitious plans to make Ubiquity a standard part of Firefox. It’s a command-line tool, and while that may cause some to roll their eyes at the idea of typing commands in the age of the graphical user interface, it’s actually very useful. The new preview version has many major additions, including localization features.

If you download the Ubiquity Preview Release and restart Firefox, you can hit your Ctrl key and your Space key at any time to conjure the extension. You can hit your Esc key at any time to shut it. There are many built-in commands for Ubiquity, and it becomes very intuitive to figure out which types of commands will perform which types of functions. All you have to do is type the first few letters of a command to conjure up a set of command choices from which you can pick.

For example, in the screenshot above, I have begun to type in an “email” command, and I already have options available to me for sending an email and more. Ubiquity is very web-aware, especially in the new Preview Release, so for many commands, it will immediately know that you might want to check a Wikipedia entry for a given term, or check your primary e-mail application, or convert a web page to PDF, and more.

The new Preview Release is much more globally focused than any of the betas were. It features a new input parser that has been rewritten to support many languages other than English. I also noticed that it does a good job of guessing what I want based on my location. For example, below I am typing in “weather” and Ubiquity guesses that I want the weather for San Francisco, which is where I am. This raises my eyebrows a bit because of the implied privacy concerns, but it is nonetheless useful, and very fast.

As another example of a command in action, below I have started to type the word “calculate,” and before I’m done typing, Ubiquity gives me quick choices for calculating, or for checking a Google calendar:

One major addition to the new Preview Release of Ubiquity is an interactive tutorial to help you get started. You don’t even have to invoke the tutorial. It’s available as soon as Firefox starts, after you install the Ubiquity extension. It consists of pop-ups that provide you with sample commands to try, and explains the suggestions that pop up as results.

This Preview Release is intended mainly for developers who want to test it and suggest improvements. I noticed a little herky-jerky interface behavior here and there, but no major bugs. It’s quite useful, and it works with the new Firefox 3.5. Consider giving it a try, unless you find a command-line interface to be completely retrograde. Sooner or later, Ubiquity will likely be built right into Firefox. Hopefully sooner.

Do you use Ubiquity? What useful commands have you found? What’s the No. 1 reason you’d recommend Ubiquity to people who aren’t yet using it?

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