If you use the built in feed reading capabilities of Firefox, the Live Bookmarks feature, you might be missing the fact that you do not have an organized list of new entries to go through like you would have in a traditional RSS reader.  The Feed Sidebar add-on for Firefox is here to take your Live Bookmarks and display them all in your sidebar.

After you have installed the Feed Sidebar add-on for Firefox, you will gain a new sidebar for feeds in your browser.  This is really intended to be a lightweight extension of the built in RSS capabilities of Firefox.  When you open the sidebar, you will see all the new updates for all the Live Bookmarks you have subscribed to.

Single-clicking on a headline will bring up a little preview of the article in the bottom half of your sidebar, like this:

Double clicking the headline will take you to the page for that item in your main Firefox window.  Once the page has been loaded, it is removed from your list of new headlines you have not checked out yet.

The toolbar buttons across the top of the Feed Sidebar can also:

• Open All in Tabs
• Mark All as Read
• Set maximum age for feed items
• Stop current update
• Reload feeds
• Change update interval (reload button dropdown)

For updates and news, make sure you follow the developer on his own blog found at chrisfinke.com.  Overall, I think this is a great addition to Firefox, and a definite contender for people looking for a lightweight way to keep up with some of the best feeds out there (like the one for Firefox Facts). You can pick up the Feed Sidebar add-on for Firefox at the Firefox Add-ons website.

In the address bar, type in about:config, and then hit enter.

At the warning, click the button that says, “I’ll be careful, I promise!”.  Now you are ready to do some configuration changes.  We want to setup a new option though, so right-click anywhere inside of the about:config screen and then go to New > Integer.

For the preference name type in:

browser.bookmarks.livemark_refresh_seconds

Now, for the value, you will need to add your time up by seconds.  For example, if you wanted it to be reloaded every two minutes you would type in 120 (because there are 120 seconds in two minutes).  The smallest number you can put in here is 60 seconds.  If you put in anything lower, Firefox will slap you in the face – and then say, “Oh yeah, you wanted to put in ’60′ right?”.

You can also reload a Live Bookmark manually to by right-clicking it and choosing “Reload Live Bookmark”.  However that isn’t nearly as fun as diving into about:config.

With this addon you can lock your menus in place so you can go in and select multiple items before you are ready to close. Here are a few additional notes from the developer:

• Middle-clicking each Bookmarked item in the Bookmarks Menu will open it in a tab, while leaving the menu open for further selections. (Left-click the desired menu to open it, find the items you wish to open, then middle-click each desired item to open it in a tab.) When you are done making selections, click somewhere outside the menu (or press ESC) to close the menu.
• Also works in the same way with the Bookmarks Toolbar. This applies to the new ‘Smart Bookmarks’ as well, since by default it is a folder residing in the Bookmarks Toolbar.
• Same functionality in History Menu (added in version 0.5).
• The Bookmarks Sidebar stays open by default even without this extension, but I prefer the Bookmarks Menu because I like the way the folders automatically open when hovered.

You can pickup Stay-Open menu on the developer’s web site or if you have a login to Mozilla’s Add-on site you can pick it up there too.

[Learn More About LiveClick!]

[Learn More About OPML Support!]

Reliby is a Mozilla extension that provides you with Reload all Live Bookmarks functionality. You can access it using the Bookmarks menu or by adding a button to your toolbar. Live bookmarks are RSS feeds inside your browser.

This is a real time saver, and almost makes Firefox feel like a real RSS reader.

[Learn More About Reliby!]