• Google
• Yahoo
• Microsoft
• Network Advertising Initiative Members

Here is a peek at the interface of Beef Taco:

Personally I have never understood the reason for wanting to block advertising cookies in the browser, but for those of you who like to keep things nice and private – Beef Taco will help you get the job done. If anything, you could pick and choose who’s ads you want to accept and who’s you want to block too.

You can pick up Beef Taco from the Firefox Add-ons website.

This might get a little complicated, since you do not get this add-on from the Mozilla Add-ons website.  Let me see if I can break down the steps for you.

1. Visit the Windows Live Writer Plugin website
2. Click on the "Download Now" link and save the .xpi to your computer
3. Once downloaded, simply drag the .xpi file over on top of Firefox and let go.  The add-on should then start the normal Firefox install process.

Here is a little more about the add-on for Firefox from Microsoft:

Adds a button to Firefox which starts a new Windows Live Writer blog post prepopulated with content from the current web page: the whole page or selected snippets. Blog quickly when you find something of interest on the web.

Windows Live Writer is by far the best blogging tool you can find on Windows and now with this Firefox add-on the experience is almost perfect. 

Is it fair that other companies can install unrequested plugins to Firefox?  It is happening right now, and there is not a lot we can do about it.  Asa Dotzler brought this topic up in one of his most recent blog posts and I do think it is an interesting debate.  The three big tech giants out there find it ok to add things to Firefox without asking me first.  Google does it.  Microsoft does it.  Even Apple does it. 

Here is meat and potatoes of the complaint from Asa’s post:

Why do Microsoft, Google, Apple, and others think that it is an OK practice to add plug-ins to Firefox when I’m installing their software packages. When I installed iTunes, in order to manage my music collection and sync to my iPod, why did Apple think it was OK to add the iTunes Application Detector plug-in to my Firefox web browser without asking me? Why did Microsoft think it was OK to sneak their Windows Live Photo Gallery or Office Live Plug-in for Firefox into my browser (presumably) when I installed Microsoft Office? What makes Google think it’s reasonable behavior for them to slip a Google Update plug-in into Firefox when I installed Google Earth or Google Chrome (not sure which one caused this) without asking me first?

I have to agree with him, I do not think this is an ok behavior at all.  When installing any type of software to Firefox or to my computer in general – companies should be open and honest when doing so.  Make sure people know what they are getting and well, they shouldn’t be evil.  When you stop and think about it, Apple, Microsoft and Google all have their own browsers now too. 

What is to stop them from doing something bad with their Firefox plugins to make themselves look better?

So we are to believe that Firefox and Chrome are both insecure, difficult to use, and unreliable?  The Internet Explorer team might want to check their calendars, because last time I checked – it is June 26th, not April 1st. 

If that isn’t enough – they also have a MythBusting page.  What is your favorite “fact” they are claiming?

No, me neither – but they have released and add-on to help you do just that. 

The Live Search add-on is a little late to the dance, however I am not going to totally shoot them down.  At least they are making the effort, right?  What does it do?  It gives you the “suggestion” feature for search terms when you search using Live search via the Firefox search box. 

Definitely, if you are a fan of Live search, give this a shot.  All three of you should be extremely happy.

Extra features: Add one or more of the following pairs of lines to your userChrome.css file to customize your Office theme:

/* change the tab close button to a different and larger close button */ @import url("chrome://global/skin/alt-close-button.css");
/* always use green back/forward buttons */
@import url("chrome://global/skin/alt-nav-buttons.css");

This theme based on Microsoft Office can be picked up on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

As you can see Internet Explorer is still pulling head as you would assume it would do, but Firefox still is holding a healthy share of the market.  Internet Explorer 7 itself still can’t beat the ugly stepsister that is Internet Explorer 6 though. 

Want to go back to the Office?

Now I don’t know too many people who say, “I’m such a big fan of Office, I wished all my apps looked like this!” but love it or hate it, the Office look makes for a pretty nice Firefox theme. If your looking for that traditional Microsoft look – but with a little class and style the Office theme for Firefox might be the download you have been looking for.

Stick it up your aero, Vista!

Our next Firefox theme inspired by the Microsoft machine looks like it fell out of Windows Vista. If your a big fan of the way the new Internet Explorer 7 looks then the Vista-areo theme might be up your alley. Sleek blue style with that Microsoft glow.

Crappy, yet classic Microsoft style…

Now this is the style that you know and love. No wait, does anybody really love the classic and familiar look of IE6? No – it couldn’t be.. could it? Well if you do fall in that camp then the Looks Familiar theme for Firefox is a download you might want to do in private. Close the blinds though and make sure nobody sees you using it.

The internet browser market has been fiercely competitive of late, with two major browsers being released at the same time in the last quarter of 2006 – namely, the latest version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer and the long-awaited second edition of the open-source community developed browser Firefox. There are other bit-players in the market, certainly, but indisputably these are the big two – both released in late October / November of last year.

+ Read More About the Browser Wars Redux!

Fingerfox (SE) is an extension that adds compatibility for Microsoft Fingerprint Reader in Mozilla Firefox. Fingerfox (SE), Special Edition, is recommended for those, who has problems with the original Fingerfox extension.

Honestly, with fingerprint reading aside I like this extension just because of it’s name. It is just fun to say! Come on, everybody on the count of three.. one.. two.. three.. Fingerfox!

Now wasn’t that fun?

+ Download and Install the Fingerfox Extension for Firefox!