What Are The Best Weather Websites?

I’m rather obsessed with the weather. It’s not my fault, it’s just that I was born and brought up in the U.K., and all British people are obsessed with the weather. I think it’s because the weather is rather changeable on this little island butting up to the European mainland. Over the course of a single week we can experience hot sun, icy frosts, torrential rain, deep snow, and gusts aplenty. It’s fun, but it means keeping up to date with the latest forecasts is absolutely essential.

No matter where you are in the world it’s important to keep an eye on the weather. While the simplest method is to stick your head outside and see for yourself what it’s like, that method can only get you so far. It’s much better to see, hear, or read a weather forecast compiled from data by a meteorologist. Thankfully the Web provides us with plenty of options, and what follows are the best weather websites currently available.

BBC Weather

The BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) is known and respected around the world, and it handles its weather service in the same way it handles everything else: with clear and concise reports uncluttered by opinion or obtuse observations. You can instantly see an overall outlook for your area, and with a little extra delving can find a more detailed forecast for anything up to the next 10 days.

Perhaps the best feature on BBC Weather is the map as shown in the screenshot embedded below. You can focus in on your local area or widen the search to include a whole country. You can then see how the weather is set to change in increments throughout the day, with the option of viewing conditions, temperature, or pressure systems.

Other features to look out for include the constantly changing gallery of user-submitted photos, and a basic guide to the weather conditions in individual countries.

WeatherSpark

WeatherSpark is for those who want more than just a brief summary of what the weather is going to be like for the next few days. The amount of information on offer on this site is overwhelming, with forecasts showing conditions on an hourly basis, in-depth reports which include historical data, and interactive maps and graphs which can be adapted to each individual’s specific needs.

Thankfully this information is all presented in a visually pleasing manner, with a dashboard providing the main points for a specific area. By default this includes a map and a graph which combined give a detailed description of the weather for the next few hours and/or days. Data points that can be turned on or off include temperature, wind speeds, humidity levels, and precipitation probability.

This is the perfect option for those who, like me, are a little obsessed with studying weather patterns. If you’re more likely to take each day as it comes then WeatherSpark won’t be for you.

Weather Underground

Weather Underground is another website which seeks to offer more information than any TV weather forecaster could ever impart on viewers. Cleverly the site design means the most relevant and easy to read data is at the top of the page, with the more detailed and geeky data hidden further down the page where only those who want to see it will find it.

This data is all presented in a mixture of textual and visual formats, but if that’s too much for your brain to take in then clicking on the WunderMap provides an even simpler way of seeing what’s happening outside. You can change the type of map or the data presented, and add extra layers to gain an overall picture of the weather where you are.

Adding to the bookmark-worthiness of Weather Underground is the photos and videos section, as well as the blogs and forums by meteorologists which add a sense of community to the whole site.

Intellicast

It has to be said Intellicast isn’t the best-looking website in the world, or even on this list. It’s too busy, with the links to find the relevant information a little confusing. Thankfully once you do find what you’re looking for you’re rewarded with accurate, up-to-date forecasts that will surely please purists of the genre.

The standards of weather websites — current conditions, and both short and longterm forecasts — are included. But there is also a great map feature which allows you to view local, national, or global weather systems developing. There are also charts that offer detailed analyses of various weather elements, such as atmospheric pressures and isobars.

If you can look past the dated look and feel employed by Intellicast the website offers an immense amount of data (with a U.S. bias) that can be broken down into digestible chunks.

The Weather Channel

The Weather Channel is many people’s first port of call when it comes to weather websites. This is partly due to the good reputation it enjoys, and partly due to the killer domain name of weather.com. The site offers accurate forecasts presented in a simple and easy-to-use format, and it’s the one on this list which most closely resembles the weather reports many of us are used to seeing on television.

The homepage offers news stories related to weather, as well as videos of extreme conditions and opinion pieces looking at longterm trends. Clicking on Weather brings up the current conditions, with severe weather warnings and alerts highlighted. There are also forecasts for the days and weeks ahead, as well as a fascinating Weather In Motion map showing how conditions are changing.

In some ways The Weather Channel offers the widest range of experiences, meaning both amateurs and experts alike will be able to get something from the site.

Conclusions

It was extremely hard narrowing this list down, as there are a surprising number of weather websites out there that do a fine job. In the end it came down to choosing those which provide good, reliable forecasts while offering something a little extra or unique. As always we’re keen to hear from you, so feel free to leave a comment below with your opinion on the best weather websites, whether they received a mention or not.

And please remember to wrap up warm/take a spare umbrella out with you/wear suncream/be careful on the ice. Delete as appropriate after you learn what the weather is going to be like in your part of the world.

Image Credit: Andres Rueda

The post What Are The Best Weather Websites? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Save Time Editing All Of Your Photos At Once Using BatchPhoto [Giveaway]

Are You Really Using The Best Web Browser For Windows?

Ask anyone about the best browsers in the web browsing market and you’ll likely get the following list – IE, Chrome, Firefox. Those who are more tech-savvy might list Opera as an alternative. Those are the 4 most popular browsers on Windows, but which one is the best web browser? Perhaps none of them.

Popularity can be an indicator of quality, but it doesn’t guarantee it. Furthermore, the more recognized a browser becomes, the more bloated it gets in order to satisfy as a larger userbase with different needs. Some people actually like bloat, while others are looking for performance, or resource efficiency, or aesthetic eye candy. Which browser is best suited for you?

Internet Explorer

Is there anyone on Windows who hasn’t heard of Internet Explorer? It is the default browser, after all, though that doesn’t necessarily say anything of its quality. IE fell out of the spotlight back when Netscape was its only competitor, but it’s been gaining back some ground in recent years.

IE8 was the first to show some promise, but it pretty much failed to deliver. IE9, on the other hand, is quite strong as a browser: fast, responsive, though lacking in the addons/extensions aspect that has become so critical in browsers these days. If you’re on Windows 8, you’ll want to use IE10, which is an even better improvement.

Overall: A strong browser but not particularly awesome at anything. Great if you don’t need many features, not so great if you do.

Google Chrome

After Google Search and Gmail, Chrome is Google’s best known product. At the time of writing this article, if you look at the 2013 browser rankings provided by TopTenReviews, you’ll see that Google Chrome is ranked in the #1 spot, beating out nearly every browser on this list. If that isn’t a strong enough endorsement, then I don’t know what is.

Chrome is known for the way it handles its tabs: separated into different processes so that a crashed tab won’t crash the whole browser. There are tons of extensions that improve the browser’s functionality. And best of all, updates are performed automatically and behind-the-scenes–I went from Chrome 15 to 24 without ever knowing! A big downside is that Chrome uses a ton of RAM resources.

Overall: Absolutely excellent if you have a powerful computer with lots of RAM. On weaker machines–like netbooks and tablets–you may run into speed and loading issues when using a lot of tabs.

Mozilla Firefox

I have fond memories of Firefox. I first started using it when it first came out–it was called Firebird back then–and it was an impressive alternative to IE5. But to see how far it’s come since its birth is rather depressing, mostly because Firefox just feels like it’s trying too hard these days.

With that said, Firefox has been working on cleaning up some of its issues, namely memory leaks and RAM hogging, and it has one of the largest addon libraries of all the browsers. Yet it falters when it comes to speed. I have a powerful machine but tab animations and web scrolling are still clunky.

Overall: If you want a full-featured and extensible browser that isn’t as resource-intensive as Chrome, then Firefox may be your cup of tea, but you should know that it isn’t as polished as Chrome is.

Opera

There was a period of my life where Opera reigned as king and all other browsers were mere peasants beneath it. But once my initial love faded away, I began to see some of its flaws. It’s still a great browser, no doubt, but it’s not the best web browser out there.

Opera is packed full of features. Packed. In addition to doing what all browsers are expected to do, it has a built-in mail client, built-in ad blocker, cross-computer profile syncing, mouse gestures, speed dial, as well as extensions for extensibility. Some users like this all-in-one sort of package. Others call it bloated. Surprisingly, it’s fast–but how much faster could it be without the bloat?

Overall: I like Opera. I would use it permanently if it didn’t bug out on Google’s web products like Google Docs. I’d highly recommend it if you prefer a mainstream browser other than Chrome and Firefox.

Maxthon

Maxthon is the first of the non-mainstream browsers on this list. It’s a full-featured browser that aims to maximize speed and performance–even going as far as to claim that it renders 200% faster than Chrome. Definitely worth a look if you haven’t heard about it until now.

As a browser, Maxthon is secure. All of the available features work well and rival the top browsers on the market. Like Opera, it might seem bloated to some since it comes with built-in luxuries like mouse gestures and screen grabbing. One cool feature is that you can click a button to mute all sounds coming from Maxthon. Want more features? Extensions.

Overall: Maxthon performs well enough that I haven’t uninstalled it yet. I like Maxthon because it’s a breath of fresh air. At the same time, it’s not very popular, so if you need help with something, the knowledge base is smaller.

Midori

Now we get to the lightweight browsers. If the mainstream browsers are growing bloated with feature creep, then Midori is the response. It’s a minimalistic browser that only has built-in features that are absolutely necessary. It uses GTK for the interface, WebKit for rendering, and it’s open source.

Though Midori does have the function to install extensions, the actual pool of available extensions is quite small. Being so lightweight, it is a niche browser, so don’t expect the community to grow much larger in the future, either. On the plus side, it uses very few resources.

Overall: If your computer is severely lacking in processing speed or RAM, then Midori is what you should use for maximum performance. I use Midori on my old netbook and it is blazingly fast compared to the other, larger browsers.

SlimBoat

You may have heard of a browser called SlimBrowser. SlimBoat is by the same group and, in my opinion, the better of the two. If mainstream browsers are too bloated and Midori is too skinned-down for you, then SlimBoat is for you because it is the perfect compromise between features and bloat.

SlimBoat boasts fast startup times, quick rendering, top-notch security, and powerful features like: ad blocker, popup blocker, private browsing, intelligent form filler, web and text translations, and integration with popular web services. The downside? No extensibility beyond the built-in features.

Overall: If you want one of the best web browsers that comes with useful features right out of the box without being too bloaty and you don’t want to mess around with extensions, then SlimBoat is good for you. Keep note that not many people use it, so if you run into problems, the knowledge base isn’t too big.

Conclusion

What’s my final verdict? I use Chrome for daily browser use (mostly because I interface a lot with Google web products and Chrome works best for that). If that wasn’t an issue, I’d use Opera, though Maxthon is growing on me. For my netbook, I use Midori.

Which browser do you use? Any other browsers out there that you think should’ve been on this list? Share them in the comments and tell us why you support that browser!

Image Credit: Browser Windows Via Shutterstock

The post Are You Really Using The Best Web Browser For Windows? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Are You Really Using The Best Web Browser For Windows?

Ask anyone about the best browsers in the web browsing market and you’ll likely get the following list – IE, Chrome, Firefox. Those who are more tech-savvy might list Opera as an alternative. Those are the 4 most popular browsers on Windows, but which one is the best web browser? Perhaps none of them.

Popularity can be an indicator of quality, but it doesn’t guarantee it. Furthermore, the more recognized a browser becomes, the more bloated it gets in order to satisfy as a larger userbase with different needs. Some people actually like bloat, while others are looking for performance, or resource efficiency, or aesthetic eye candy. Which browser is best suited for you?

Internet Explorer

Is there anyone on Windows who hasn’t heard of Internet Explorer? It is the default browser, after all, though that doesn’t necessarily say anything of its quality. IE fell out of the spotlight back when Netscape was its only competitor, but it’s been gaining back some ground in recent years.

IE8 was the first to show some promise, but it pretty much failed to deliver. IE9, on the other hand, is quite strong as a browser: fast, responsive, though lacking in the addons/extensions aspect that has become so critical in browsers these days. If you’re on Windows 8, you’ll want to use IE10, which is an even better improvement.

Overall: A strong browser but not particularly awesome at anything. Great if you don’t need many features, not so great if you do.

Google Chrome

After Google Search and Gmail, Chrome is Google’s best known product. At the time of writing this article, if you look at the 2013 browser rankings provided by TopTenReviews, you’ll see that Google Chrome is ranked in the #1 spot, beating out nearly every browser on this list. If that isn’t a strong enough endorsement, then I don’t know what is.

Chrome is known for the way it handles its tabs: separated into different processes so that a crashed tab won’t crash the whole browser. There are tons of extensions that improve the browser’s functionality. And best of all, updates are performed automatically and behind-the-scenes–I went from Chrome 15 to 24 without ever knowing! A big downside is that Chrome uses a ton of RAM resources.

Overall: Absolutely excellent if you have a powerful computer with lots of RAM. On weaker machines–like netbooks and tablets–you may run into speed and loading issues when using a lot of tabs.

Mozilla Firefox

I have fond memories of Firefox. I first started using it when it first came out–it was called Firebird back then–and it was an impressive alternative to IE5. But to see how far it’s come since its birth is rather depressing, mostly because Firefox just feels like it’s trying too hard these days.

With that said, Firefox has been working on cleaning up some of its issues, namely memory leaks and RAM hogging, and it has one of the largest addon libraries of all the browsers. Yet it falters when it comes to speed. I have a powerful machine but tab animations and web scrolling are still clunky.

Overall: If you want a full-featured and extensible browser that isn’t as resource-intensive as Chrome, then Firefox may be your cup of tea, but you should know that it isn’t as polished as Chrome is.

Opera

There was a period of my life where Opera reigned as king and all other browsers were mere peasants beneath it. But once my initial love faded away, I began to see some of its flaws. It’s still a great browser, no doubt, but it’s not the best web browser out there.

Opera is packed full of features. Packed. In addition to doing what all browsers are expected to do, it has a built-in mail client, built-in ad blocker, cross-computer profile syncing, mouse gestures, speed dial, as well as extensions for extensibility. Some users like this all-in-one sort of package. Others call it bloated. Surprisingly, it’s fast–but how much faster could it be without the bloat?

Overall: I like Opera. I would use it permanently if it didn’t bug out on Google’s web products like Google Docs. I’d highly recommend it if you prefer a mainstream browser other than Chrome and Firefox.

Maxthon

Maxthon is the first of the non-mainstream browsers on this list. It’s a full-featured browser that aims to maximize speed and performance–even going as far as to claim that it renders 200% faster than Chrome. Definitely worth a look if you haven’t heard about it until now.

As a browser, Maxthon is secure. All of the available features work well and rival the top browsers on the market. Like Opera, it might seem bloated to some since it comes with built-in luxuries like mouse gestures and screen grabbing. One cool feature is that you can click a button to mute all sounds coming from Maxthon. Want more features? Extensions.

Overall: Maxthon performs well enough that I haven’t uninstalled it yet. I like Maxthon because it’s a breath of fresh air. At the same time, it’s not very popular, so if you need help with something, the knowledge base is smaller.

Midori

Now we get to the lightweight browsers. If the mainstream browsers are growing bloated with feature creep, then Midori is the response. It’s a minimalistic browser that only has built-in features that are absolutely necessary. It uses GTK for the interface, WebKit for rendering, and it’s open source.

Though Midori does have the function to install extensions, the actual pool of available extensions is quite small. Being so lightweight, it is a niche browser, so don’t expect the community to grow much larger in the future, either. On the plus side, it uses very few resources.

Overall: If your computer is severely lacking in processing speed or RAM, then Midori is what you should use for maximum performance. I use Midori on my old netbook and it is blazingly fast compared to the other, larger browsers.

SlimBoat

You may have heard of a browser called SlimBrowser. SlimBoat is by the same group and, in my opinion, the better of the two. If mainstream browsers are too bloated and Midori is too skinned-down for you, then SlimBoat is for you because it is the perfect compromise between features and bloat.

SlimBoat boasts fast startup times, quick rendering, top-notch security, and powerful features like: ad blocker, popup blocker, private browsing, intelligent form filler, web and text translations, and integration with popular web services. The downside? No extensibility beyond the built-in features.

Overall: If you want one of the best web browsers that comes with useful features right out of the box without being too bloaty and you don’t want to mess around with extensions, then SlimBoat is good for you. Keep note that not many people use it, so if you run into problems, the knowledge base isn’t too big.

Conclusion

What’s my final verdict? I use Chrome for daily browser use (mostly because I interface a lot with Google web products and Chrome works best for that). If that wasn’t an issue, I’d use Opera, though Maxthon is growing on me. For my netbook, I use Midori.

Which browser do you use? Any other browsers out there that you think should’ve been on this list? Share them in the comments and tell us why you support that browser!

Image Credit: Browser Windows Via Shutterstock

The post Are You Really Using The Best Web Browser For Windows? appeared first on MakeUseOf.

The Firefox Mini Review – A Fresh Look At a Familiar Browser

Firefox took browsing to a whole new level. It offered a stable, open source, cross-platform browser with innovative features, such as tabs, extensions, and find as you type search. Granted, many of its features weren’t original ideas of the Mozilla Foundation. Nevertheless, Firefox introduced them to the masses, and meanwhile many features have been adopted by other browsers, demonstrating how much this browser has changed the game.

When Chrome was released, Firefox slowly lost market share. It was an old beast, struggling with performance issues. The unexpected competition pushed Firefox to return to old strengths and it has since been catching up. Firefox continues to be a unique, reliable, and progressive browser, not least thanks to its huge active user base.

Are you curious to see Firefox with fresh eyes? This brief review highlights some of Firefox’ great features and recaptures why it remains one of the best.

Firefox In Its Own Words

A better browser. For the greater good.

The Native Fox

The first tab you see when you open a native Firefox profile contains the above video. The second tab is the Firefox’ default home page. You may never see this because you restore a session every time you launch Firefox or maybe you have added a custom home page. The default start page contains shortcuts to everything that makes Firefox outstanding.

Firefox’ native home page contains shortcuts to your Downloads, the Bookmarks manager, your browsing History, Add-ons, Sync, and Settings. And if you left tabs open during your previous session, you will also see a Restore Previous Session option in the bottom right.

Note that you won’t see the native home page in case you set a custom home page. Find an explanation how to reset the home page here.

You can access all of these features via the orange Firefox control button in the browser’s top left.

Or click the [ALT] button on your keyboard to temporarily view the classic menu bar.

3 Reasons Why People Hang On To Firefox

The reasons why so many people still love Firefox and hang on to it are many. For some it’s pure sentiment. Others may share Firefox’ vision of an open source software, built based on the users’ needs. For some Firefox is more stable than other browsers. Many don’t like or trust Google or other corporations offering free browsers. The hardcore fans, however, stay for particular features, often implemented via extensions that no other browser offers. Let’s have a look at a few of those features.

1. Master Password

If you are the type of person who allows the browser to store usernames and passwords, you should switch to Firefox. It offers a master password to protect your privacy.

To activate your master password, click the orange Firefox button in the top left, select Options and switch to the Security tab. Check the box next to Use a master password and set your password.

To get even more secure, try these 5 Firefox Addons For Serious Password Management.

2. Vertical Tabs

The screenshots above reveal that natively, Firefox uses horizontal browser tabs in the same style as Google Chrome. Hardcore users crave vertical tabs. This isn’t a native feature, but it’s available as a browser extension.

Open the Firefox Add-ons Manager and search for vertical tabs in the top right search bar. Choose from one of the many results and enjoy the new feature.

Find a selection of the best extensions on our Best Of Firefox Addons page.

3. Firefox Sync

Many of Firefox greatest features were originally available as extensions only. The session manager or managing tabs are a good example, and so is Sync. With today’s mobile lifestyle, where people access the Internet via a host of different devices, syncing has become essential. Other browsers offer it, but Firefox does it equally well and may be easier to trust.

Go to Firefox Options and switch to the Sync tab. Click Set Up Firefox Sync in case you have not used it before. Log into your account or create a new one. Once you are logged in, complete the setup by picking what you would like to sync. You can choose from Add-ons, Bookmarks, Passwords, Preferences, History, and Tabs.

Conclusion

Firefox isn’t a naturally minimalistic browser like Chrome, but if you keep the tabs and extensions at bay, it can be. Some features still need to evolve to a level where they become intuitive to use, such as the profile manager. Nevertheless, Firefox remains a living and hopefully thriving legend.

Why do you hang on to Firefox?

The post The Firefox Mini Review – A Fresh Look At a Familiar Browser appeared first on MakeUseOf.

X-Mouse Button Control Lets You Bind New Functions To Your Mouse Buttons [Windows]

As a regular gamer, I know just how important of a peripheral the mouse is. The mouse offers so much control and, unlike certain areas of the keyboard, your hand is practically always resting on it. It’s a powerful tool!

Your average mouse isn’t very flexible on the software end, though. For the typical user, a plug-and-play mouse is all you’ll ever know. Just because you aren’t willing to drop $80 on a mouse doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have full control, however. While there are a lot of Windows applications that specialize in rebinding keys on the keyboard, X-Mouse Button Control is the king of tweaking your mouse. You just have to know how to use it.

X-Mouse Button Control

X-Mouse Button Control is described as compatible with Windows 2000, XP, 2003, 2003 R2, Vista, 2008, 2008 R2, and 7. I’m currently using it on Windows 8 Pro and not encountering any issues at all.

XMBC does not come with a portable version, unfortunately. The installer itself is just 4 MB in size and should take just a second to download.

While the program cannot be installed portably, it’s good that XMBC gives us the option of storing all of our data and log files in a folder outside of the Program Files folder. This will essentially allow you to save your XMBC settings on a flash drive and immediately load them on another system’s installation. It’s not complete portability and it’s far from perfect, but it works.

The application’s main interface is very plain and straightforward, as I’d prefer it would be.

Already set up for you is a default profile. If you intend to rebind mouse buttons globally, just make the appropriate changes to this profile. Otherwise, the default profile will only apply to applications that don’t have their own settings set up beneath it. We’ll get into that in a moment.

XMBC allows you to force mouse buttons to do things that you probably thought were never possible:

• Activate your screensaver.


• Launch your email.


• Lock the entire workstation.


• Control all media key functions.


• Print screen.


• Run an application.


• Show/hide desktop.

These are just a few. There are plenty more that you can see for yourself.

Adding a new application/window profile will first ask you which process you’d like to save these settings for.

This is a really great feature, most especially for those of us who play games! It’s nice to be able to set specific binds for games that won’t interfere with our most casual and professional activites (assuming you do all the same from one machine like I do).

As you can see in this example, I’ve got two binds set up for when the Notepad process is active.

There are even more extensive options in the Scrolling & Navigation tab.

X-Mouse button control is the kind of software that Windows ought to take into consideration when improving their OS. Wouldn’t simple features like this be awesome in Windows’ integrated settings for the mouse? This application is a must for gamers and requires very little explaining. Install, launch, set up default binds and binds per process, and you’re good to go.

What do you guys think of X-Mouse Button Control? Is it the best third-party application to manage your mouse button binds? Let me know in the comments!

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Official Dropbox App Now Available In The Windows Store [Updates]

Dropbox has arrived on the Windows Store, and is now officially available for both Windows 8 and Windows RT. While retaining all the basic Dropbox functions we all know, the app’s interface is quite different from its iOS and Android counterparts, and has adopted the “Modern” look and feel of a Windows 8 app, complete with tiles, typography and all.

According to the app’s description, you can use it to browse and preview all your files and photos on Dropbox; open, edit and save files from other Windows 8 apps; share Dropbox files on other networks; and find your files using the Search Charm. The new Dropbox app is compatible with both Intel/AMD machines running Windows 8 and with ARM-based machines running Windows RT such as the Microsoft Surface.

This is an initial release, and at this point the app seems to include only basic functionalities. As WPCentral points out, you still can’t use the Share Charms to upload files to Dropbox, and you’re pretty much limited to accessing your files and folders, and sharing them.

While Windows 8 and Windows RT come with pretty tight SkyDrive integration, the new Dropbox app is still good news, especially for Windows RT users who are limited to apps from the Windows Store and can now use Dropbox on their devices, if the wish.

Download Dropbox for Windows 8 from the Windows Store.

Is this a good addition to the Windows Store, or will you stick to SkyDrive?

Source: Windows Store via Windows Phone Central

The post Official Dropbox App Now Available In The Windows Store [Updates] appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Make New Firefox Tabs More Useful With These Add-Ons

We all like to customize our things – it’s nice when they feel really ours. This is true for many aspects in life, and naturally, doesn’t skip computers, phones and software. If it’s possible to customize things even a little bit, someone’s going to do it. It doesn’t matter if the default is great – the default is what everyone has. So out go the defaults and in come hundreds of different customizations. Now it’s only a matter of choosing the best, coolest, most useful one.

This is not one bit different when it comes to browsers. Back in the days of Netscape 1.0, all browsers looked pretty much the same, but the advent of add-ons brought hundreds of customization options, and these days they look different on every computer. One of the best and most useful ways to customize your browser is through the new tab page. We’ve told you about some great ways to do it with Chrome, but apparently, we’ve turned a blind eye to Firefox.

About 4 versions ago, Firefox finally added a default speed dial feature to its new tab page. The speed dial shows 9 of your most visited pages, and while it’s useful, it’s far from perfect. For starters, the thumbnails don’t always load; in addition, you sometimes see duplicate tiles for the same website, which is inconvenient and a waste of space. If you too feel that it’s time for an upgrade,or just want your browser to look different than the rest, read on to find some really great options.

New Tab King

New Tab King is a versatile, multi-featured new tab page that comes with a to-do list, a recently closed tab list and even shortcuts to launch desktop apps. It goes without saying that each element in your new tab page is customizable, collapsible and removable, and the entire left sidebar is collapsible as well, so you only see it when you need to use it.

As for the main section of the new tab page, this is a list of your most-used websites, and can be viewed in a list format, as seen above, or a traditional tile format.

The background image and colors are customizable as well, and you can connect it to an RSS feed, a Picasa community search, your own local images, and more.

Bottom line: Has many useful features and works well, but is far from being minimalistic.

FVD Speed Dial

With a strong focus on the speed dial options, FVD Speed Dial is another solid start page with multiple tile groups you can customize and switch between. Each tile group can also be viewed as a list, and everything from tile size to background and font colors is configurable. By default, FVD Speed Dial comes with 7 speed dial bookmarks (two of them promotional) which you can change and add to.

Additionally, you can view your most popular pages and your recently closed tabs in lists or tiles, each with its own custom settings.

FVS Speed Dial also includes a synchronization feature, so you can access your favorite websites and settings on multiple computers. In order to use this feature, you’ll have to create an account.

Bottom line: Slick, fast and useful. With a white background, also quite minimalistic.

Super Start

Super Start is a simple, do-it-yourself type of start page, in which nothing comes ready made. Unlike the previous two options I mentioned, opening a new Super Start page for the first time results in a blank page. It’s your job to populate this page with tiles of your favorite websites, including a link, a name, and even an icon – none of these is automatic.

The add-on makes it easy to find popular icons online, but if you want to add a more obscure website, you’ll have to find one by yourself. That being said, adding tiles is super easy, and it does feel nice to start from a clean slate.

Super Start comes with a built-in notes feature for little to-do lists, a list of recently closed tab page, and four different themes.

Bottom line: Perfect for the minimalistic, DIY types.

Moment

Do all these tiles seem like useless clutter to you? Meet Moment – a completely different start page option. With Moment, there are no tiles, no lists and no bookmarks. All you get is the current time, date and local weather. That’s it. The layout is simple and beautiful, with Weather Underground providing the local weather. Want to customize it? You can change the background color, font color, and temperature units.

Everything else is static. So if you don’t like the layout you see above, feel free to skip to the next option, but if, like me, you find its simplicity quite fetching, I highly recommend that you give it a try.

Bottom line: A different, successful take on new tab pages.

New Tab Plus

Let me come right out and say it: New Tab Plus is tacky looking. In fact, it reminds me most of old programs from the days of Windows 95. As you can imagine, it took some thinking before I decided to include it here, but the fact is that New Tab Plus is so powerful and easy to use, it really can be a perfect solution for quite a lot of people. By default, your new tab page will be populated with 10 tiles, including a useful quick search widget for Google, Bing and Yahoo! search.

Want to change things around? Here is where the fun truly begins. Access the Settings to start playing with different layouts – you can either choose one of the preset ones or create one of your own. The “Cloud” button includes dozens upon dozens of different backgrounds you can choose from, organized by category. You can also choose a local image, or one of the 10 available background colors. The “Site Nav” button includes heaps of useful shortcuts, also organized by category.

When adding a new tile, you can choose from the multitudes of already available tiles, and if you can find it, just add it yourself. New Tab Plus will find the tile image for you automatically, unless the website is really obscure.

Deleting or editing a tile is note entirely intuitive: right click anywhere on the new tab page for the delete and edit icons to appear.

Bottom line: For those who don’t like working hard, and don’t mind the slightly tacky appearance.

New Tab Tools

If you actually like Firefox’s default start page and just want to tweak it a little, you might want to try New Tab Tools. All this add-on does is add some customization features to Firefox’s existing ones, but the start page and the tiles stay exactly the same. With New Tab Tools, you can change the background image and the tile images for your start page, and also add a launcher that gives you quick access to your downloads, bookmarks, history, add-ons page and more.

From the add-on’s options (accessible only through the Extensions page in the settings), you can change the number of rows and columns of tiles, and toggle the launcher on and off. The size of the tiles is set automatically according to the number of rows and columns, and you can’t change it.

Bottom line: If you really like Firefox’s default, this makes it slightly better.

Do you know of other awesome start page options for Firefox? Is there an add-on on this list you particularly like? Tell us in the comments!

The post Make New Firefox Tabs More Useful With These Add-Ons appeared first on MakeUseOf.

Download Project Gutenberg ebooks to your Dropbox

Project Gutenberg, if you are new, is the Internet’s oldest site for downloading free ebooks. They offer a collection of more than 40,000 ebooks (and growing) that you can either read online or download them on to your computer in various formats. →

The Gutenberg website has recently added support for Dropbox meaning you can download ebooks directly to your Dropbox account in the cloud. Once you authorize access, it will create a new “gutenberg” folder in your Dropbox and the ebooks will get saved directly in that folder.

This is quite a handy feature, especially for iOS users, as they create a download request in the mobile browser while the full ebook magically appears inside the Dropbox app.

Also, if you are on the Kindle Reader, you can either email these MOBI ebooks to your personal Kindle email address or connect the device over USB and put the files in the Documents folder of Kindle. They do not require conversion.

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This story, Download Project Gutenberg ebooks to your Dropbox, was originally published at Digital Inspiration on 07/01/2013 under Amazon Kindle, Dropbox, Internet.