This is the best way to add Amazon search suggestions to the search box in your browser.  Having the suggestions in hand, you will really be able to speed up your shopping.  This is much better than the default Amazon search, for one obvious reason – the suggestions you get.  Not only does this provide you with a quicker way to search.  It also helps with catching spelling mistakes and saving keystrokes.

You can pick up this addition to the Firefox browser over at the Firefox Add-ons web site. 

Facebook seems to quickly be outgrowing the other social networks by leaps and bounds.  It is hard to find a friend that hasn’t switched over to it from the other social networks like MySpace and the like.  So with that said, why not grab a toolbar that will help you get a little more out of your Facebook usage and help you stay connected with your friends even better?

Once you have installed the Facebook Toolbar add-on, you can easily do the following:

Search Facebook from Anywhere – The Search Box allows you to easily search Facebook no matter where you are. Select a friend from the drop-down to go directly to their profile, or hit “enter” to see the search results.

Get Notified – Icons on the toolbar tell you how many new pokes, friend requests, and messages you have. A pop-up will notify you when your friends update their statuses, write a new note or interact with you on Facebook.

Connect with Friends – Click the icon to open the Facebook friends sidebar. You can sort your friends by name or status and easily interact with them and their profiles.

Share Content – The share button lets you share the page that you are currently browsing by sending it to friends or posting it to your profile.

Upload Photos – The upload photos button lets you find photos on your computer, caption and tag them, and upload them to Facebook.

The Facebook Toolbar extension simply put, makes it much easier to integrate all the fun of Facebook into your favorite browser.  You can pick up the add-on via the Firefox Add-ons web site.

TinEye claims to be the world’s first reverse image search engine.  Rather than typing in a phrase and looking for a picture, you type in a picture and get other pictures like it – or something like that.  Thanks to the TinEye add-on for Firefox, you can get instant image searching done right from the browser.

Here is a little more about TinEye from it’s developers:

TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology rather than keywords, metadata or watermarks.

When you submit an image to be searched, TinEye creates a unique and compact digital signature or ‘fingerprint’ for it, then compares this fingerprint to every other image in our index to retrieve matches.

TinEye does not typically find similar images; it finds exact matches including those that have been cropped, edited or resized.

Once installed, you can right-click on any image, and select “Search Image on TinEye”.  When you do, you’ll be taken to an TinEye web page, that will display your search results.

It might not be a tool for everybody, but I do find the idea of reverse image searching very interesting and fun to play with.  You can learn more about it at TinEye.com.

Are you a big fan of Google’s custom search feature, which allows you to customize your own search engine to fit your needs?  The Custom Google Search add-on for Firefox, in that case, is a perfect companion. 

In a nutshell, this extension for Firefox allows you to create, use and mange your own Google Custom Engines from within the Firefox browser interface. 

You can pick up the Custom Google Search add-on for Firefox on the Firefox Add-ons web site. 

Here is what QuickDrag looks like in action, as well as more details on how you can use this great extension for Firefox to speed up your browsing.

Now, some might look at this add-on and say that is not much, however after you start using it, you really start to realize how much more functionality this adds – just be adding a few tweaks to the browser.  For more help, you might also check out the author’s FAQ.

You can pick up the QuickDrag add-on via the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Where are the features?  Here are some of the thinks I liked about this awesome add-on to your browser:

• Search by selecting/highlighting text and then clicking on the popup bubble
• Google results automatically show up in the Awesomebar/URL bar as you type (faster than going to google.com)
• Easily switch between search engines during a search with a single click
• Convert text URLs into clickable links
• Automatically copy on select / paste on middle click / paste on right click (NOT enabled by default)
• Visit bookmarks quickly with keyboard shortcuts using qLauncher
• Adds "related articles" side-pane to Wikipedia

There is definitely a lot of browser tweaking to be loved here.  It is that type of extension that does many things well, instead of focusing on doing one thing really well.  So if you would like to kill several birds with on stone – this is the pick me up your browser has been looking for. 

Want to give it a shot?  Pickup SmarterFox on the Mozilla add-ons site and let me know what you think.  Has it helped you browse the Web any faster or smarter?

Headup underlines words on pages when you browser.  When you hover over those words, you get relevant content from popular web services. 

Technically speaking, they  “presents you with textual and rich media content related to the objects and terms it identifies on the pages you browse.”  Here are a few more examples from their web site:

Use Headup’s ability to recognize objects and relationships to discover all kinds of information quickly and effortlessly. Here are some examples:

• Discover which of your friends like a particular band and gain access to the band’s videos and lyrics.
• Find blog posts and stock news about a company and discover which of your contacts work there.
• Get alerted about your friends’ birthdays and see which books they’re likely to enjoy as a gift.

Overall, I have to say it is an interesting idea – and a cool tool.  Sometimes these semantic plugins kind of confuse the general public, so I would really recommend playing with Headup to see if it is right for you.  You can pickup the Headup add-on on Headup.com or the Mozilla Add-ons web site.

Most Popular Search Plugins for Firefox *

• YouTube – Find all kinds of cool web videos.
• IMDB – Quickly find that one actor that was in that movie you just saw.
• Wikipedia – The web’s encyclopedia.
• Album-Cover-Art.org – Quickly find album art from your favorite musical artists.
• isoHunt – BT search – Find ISO images quickly using this search plugin.
• Merriam-Webster – It is like the dictionary, but Online! (insert ooh and awe here)
• Live Search – Microsoft’s lovable underdog of a search engine.
• Flickr – Find photos by searching via the image tags.
• Weather Channel – Is that a tornado in your pants, or are you just happy to see me?
• Amazon – Use Amazon’s A9 search to find Amazon products, and anything else on the Web.

Roll Your Own Search Plugin

Want to roll your own search plugin using any web site search box out there.  That is an easy task to accomplish with the Add to Search Bar extension.  If you want to “do it by hand” you can also create your own plugins with this handy tutorial from the Mozilla Developer Center.

More Search Plugin Databases

Now with those mentioned, you can’t mention the search engine box without mentioning the MyCroft project.  There you can find a search engine plugin or search provider that you can quickly add to the Firefox search box.

To check out their most popular search engines, be sure to check out the Top 100 listings.

What tools and plugins do you use to keep your searching in order?

* – Yes,I left Google off the popular plugin list, cause everybody knows about Google.

Want to discover great web sites without the work of searching for them?  SimilarWeb, an add-on for Firefox, will do the searching for you.  Its job is to suggest similar web sites you might enjoy as you browse around the Web.

I am always looking for new ways to find new and interesting sites out there so this is an add-on I really enjoy.  There are several ways to customize the way you view the similar sites too, that are displayed as a sidebar on the left of whatever web site you might be browsing at the time.

Here is a rundown on the various cool features:

• SimilarWeb Search
• Tagging with SimilarWeb
• SimilarWeb’s Different Views and Modes

For more information on SimilarWeb be sure to check out their web site at SimilarWeb.com.  Right now the extension is available for both Internet Explorer and Firefox.

After installing Twitter Search Results on Google, here is an example of what your searches will look like:

It displays the most recent 5 tweets for the query that you are search for, giving both real-time Twitter search results and Google results on the same page.

I have got to say, over the past few weeks I have been pretty happy with the Twitter searches I have done, so mixing these two into one could lead to some really good results.  You have the power of Google mixed with the social aspects of Twitter. 

Once you get Greasemonkey installed (of it it is already installed) then all you need to do is pick up the script for it here at UserScripts.org.  Big thanks to MT-Hacks for providing this to the public too, it is one of the best scripts I have seen for Greasemonkey in a long while.