28 January, 2009

'Facebook Toolbar' and 'Boost' - Two Free Add-ons for Firefox

Oops.  It turned out I had been using a couple of different add-ons.  So, not to unduly give credit to the wrong add-on, here's how the features actually breaks down, by the two Facebook add-ons I use.  The list is not meant to be complete.  I've found that using these add-ons in tandem makes the most sense for me.
  • Facebook Toolbar for Firefox - Link: http://developers.facebook.com/toolbar/
    • Provides a toolbar with quick links to the main Facebook areas.  There is a toolbar at the top of the browser and another one, with different features, at the bottom of the open Facebook window, although to be honest I am not sure if the bottom toolbar is part of this add-on or the 'Boost' add-on (listed in the second main bullet of this posting, below).
    • Provides pop-up notifications for new friend requests, messages, pokes, event invitations, group invitations, wall writings, and various notifications regarding friends.  It does not offer skins, contrary to my previous posting.
  • Boost for Facebook - Link: http://apps.facebook.com/boostup/
    • Auto-Login for Facebook
    • One-click pokes
    • (beta) Facebook Video Downloader (haven't tried this feature yet)
    • (beta) Homepage Auto-refresher allows one to force a homepage reset every x minutes.  I haven't tried this feature yet, because I hop around often enough, via the Facebook Toolbar's quick links (see above first main bullet) as to make this feature redundant, making me think the bandwidth onus unnecessary.
    • Various Display Settings
      • Skins - This is a really fun feature and keeps it fresh.
      • Apply Light Color to Posts - Applies a secondary color for the skin to wall posts and comments so they stand out.  It makes viewing easier.
      • Hide sponsor and other ads
      • Hide 'People you may know' on homepage.  Personally, I like 'PYMK', so I don't use this option, but I imagine that I'll try it eventually when that section gets exponentially silly to keep around.

Dan previously wrote:
A while ago I added the Facebook Toolbar for Firefox to my Firefox. I had only used it to login automatically to the site. But for fun, I just checked out the options. It has a sidebar, that lists all my friends, and its browser toolbar adds quick links to the various Facebook locations. I find navigating, at Facebook itself, to be non-intuitive, with reference to what is in the content of the 'Home' and 'Profile' sections [Facebook toolbar]. The toolbar makes all that irrelevant, as one can just use the toolbar instead of navigating at the site itself.

I loaded the 'RUSH' (band) skin, finding that there are numerous skins for the thing. [Boost toolbar]

You can download it at the following link, or simply navigate to your Firefox add-ons (Tools|Add-Ons|Get Add-Ons), type in 'Facebook', and click 'see all', then scroll down to it.

Link: http://developers.facebook.com/toolbar/

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