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Ten Firefox extensions that help keep you safe

2009-05-29T03:47:00.000-07:00

BetterPrivacy BetterPrivacy protects against long-term tracking cookies that can't be deleted. The extension makes you aware of those objects and deletes them for you. You can then sift through those cookies and selectively decide which you want to delete. It's a simple but effective tool.

BlockSite BlockSite gives you the option of blocking a Web site that you deem unsafe or unsuitable for the family. The extension even disables all links to the sites you might find in search results. When you access the extension's menu, you need only to add the site's URL to the blacklist. You won't be able to access the site, unless you remove it from that list.

Dr. Web Anti-virus Dr. Web Anti-virus enables you to verify that any file you're downloading, or any page you're browsing, isn't installing malware onto your computer. Once you right click on a link or file path, you'll find the Dr. Web Anti-virus option in the menu. Click it, and the path will be scanned to determine if there is any malware being added to your computer.

Chrome extensions draw near

2009-05-27T09:37:00.000-07:00

A new developer version of Chrome takes some significant strides to adding the top-requested feature--the ability to accommodate extensions that customize what Google's browser can do--but programmers also pushed back support for a collection of significant advanced Web features.

Google Chrome 2.0.180.0 emerged Tuesday night for people willing to try the developer preview version. The new version installs some of the plumbing necessary to support the feature, according to the release notes.

"The extensions posse would like to point out that as of today's dev channel release, extensions are starting to be a bit more useful. We can now put little bits of UI (user interface) in the chrome of Chrome, and some of the APIs (application programming interfaces) are starting to come together," said Google programmer Aaron Boodman in a mailing list post Tuesday. "There is still quite a ways to go, but if you're interested in building extensions for Chrome, this might be a good time to start taking a look."

Groups: Turn Information Overload Into an Asset

2009-05-26T01:45:00.000-07:00

This post originally ran under the title Groups: The Secret Weapon of the Social Web. Since it's a holiday in the US and things are slow today, we thought readers might appreciate seeing this post again. Today might be a good day for you to take some time to create some key groups for yourself.

Social interaction online is not very sophisticated. The news feed model of conversation has taken over the social web, from Facebook to Twitter to FriendFeed to MySpace, but by itself it doesn't serve us very well. That's where the creation of groups of sources comes in.

Various services have different ways for users to separate their "friends" into different groups, viewable by topic, category or type of connection. Facebook is making changes today to make it easier to break your Facebook Newsfeed into groups. That's going to be very important. The best Twitter applications offer group functionality that the site itself doesn't. MySpace offers no such feature, yet. The Facebook news prompted us to try to articulate the value of group creation online. By better understanding the value that groups can deliver, we can better strategize our creation of groups.