My Favorite Internet Utilities

I take for granted some of the cool utilities that I love to use when traveling around the internet. The assumption I make is that most people are aware of what is available. The sad truth is that a good number of people are stuck using mediocre web and software applications. Most individuals are using Microsoft Internet Explorer Version 5 or 6 and don’t realize there is better. So I like to take the opportunity to share with you what you could be using. And hopefully some of you may take the plunge to explorer new ways to use this thing called the World Wide Web.

As I mention above if you are still using Internet Explorer then you need to try a different Browser. The browser you use can make a world of difference. The browser of choice for me is FireFox 1.5. What I like about FireFox is many things. The speed, functionality and most of all the browser is open source. What that means that there are enhancements or extensions that are available for Fire Fox that will make your Internet experience more pleasurable. More about the extensions in a little bit.

The second item that is a MUST for young and old alike is RSS FEEDS. What is an RSS Feed? To get a full description of RSS click on the Wiki. I would encourage everyone to read it. In the mean time here is the abbreviated version. RSS = Really Simple Syndication. Let’s say you have five favorite websites that you visit on a daily basis. Instead of visiting each website one at a time an RSS Feed will take your website and put into a nice compact feed and send it directly to your PC. So instead of you going to the website the website comes to you. If technology is new to you this can be tough to understand. This is actually another great reason why to use FireFox. The browser allows you to add RSS Feeds very easily. The RSS Feeds are so simple to add and manage using Firefox I still don’t understand why anyone would use any other way to read RSS feeds. There are separate RSS applications that can be downloaded to aggregate the feeds you are reading. I am not a big fan of these applications. I have learned to subscribe to the theory that on my laptop or desktop less is more. The more software you download the more of a chance you will have a problem. Anything from performance problems to a virus.

My favorite item is Google Extensions for Fire Fox. These extensions you can find at Google Labs. The one I have been using the most is Blogger Web Comments for Firefox. Web Comments is an extension that makes it easy to see what bloggers are saying about a page you're viewing in Firefox and if you want you can post to your own blog without leaving the page you're on.

These are sampling of my favorite utilities. I hope you find it useful. I will make sure I post again about some more of my favorite Internet Software. Feel free to add comments to this post and share what you like to use. I look forward to reading it.