What Is It?

Statusable provides a second statusbar in Firefox that displays the “progress bar” and some standard text

Why Would You Want It?

Numerous add-ons in Firefox use the statusbar to display information. Statusable provides a second statusbar displaying progress and some standard text. This frees up the standard statusbar to display other information. This is very useful, particularly when combined with other add-ons which help with displaying the information that you need or using add-ons options to limit what is displayed in the statusbar. So if you need a bit more room in your statusbars this certainly helps.

ProReviewer has previously reviewed Statusbars by Marius Gunderson which did a great job in helping to organize what is displayed in multiple statusbars for Firefox 2. Unfortunately this has not been updated for Firefox 3.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides a second statusbar
• Shows Progress and some standard text

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 81% [?]

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What’s This About?

Flexible Renamer is a portable program that will rename files and folders, change file attributes including dates, change tags for different file groups (music, photos, docs, etc.) It has very powerful rules and methods combined with a wide range of options, defined presets and methods as well as both simple and advanced ways of working.

Why Would You Want It?

The need to rename batches of files in collections of photos, music tracks, documents, archives, websites, etc. can be met by many programs. However, Flexible Renamer offers this and more in a small portable program which includes comprehensive renaming rules, changing dates, changing attributes, changing tag information for most common tagged files and the ability to create batches of prenamed files. Sometimes you just want to add something to a file name, for instance you may want to add a place and date to the name of all the photos you took on holiday. You might want to add  something to a batch of documents that all relate to the same project. As you can use the file date for sorting in many file explorer programs you may want to change dates as a method of indicating that older dated files are part of a “most recent” set on a particular subject. This, combined with the ability to also change the folder names and tag information makes Flexible Renamer very powerful

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Renames Files and Folders
• Provides comprehensive rules and rename methods
• Changes Attributes including dates
• Changes File Tag information for common tagged file types
  such as photos, music, documents, etc.
• Adds Shell Extensions for Context Menus (Optional)

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 100% [?]

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What’s This About?

PicPick is a portable freeware screen capture program and a drawing program combined with some other useful drawing tools including a screen ruler, color picker on screen drawing and screen protractor. The capture and drawing utilities are very much like Faststone Capture which is no longer freeware.

I first saw this on winAddons.com a couple of days ago, since when it has “been doing the rounds” on many of the tech blogs. So read on if you are interested in some more detail and screenshots on the full potential of this great little portable program. The version reviewed here is PicPick 1.8

Why Would You Want It?

PicPick provides several tools in one small portable package, all integrated into a single main Manager window(GUI) and also accessible from the system tray menu.

The main functions can all be used independently of each other so you could still use it as a drawing and picture or photo annotation tool even if you don’t need screen capture. Of course you might just want it as a free, portable and very versatile screen capture tool. The fact that extra tools are included is a real bonus

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Captures Screen
  • Full Screen
  • Active Window
  • Window Control
  • Region
  • Fixed Region
  • Freehand
  • Repeat Last Capture
  • Autoscroll (for pages longer than the on screen window)
• Drawing Program/Image Editor with
  • Standard shapes, arrows, lines, etc.
  • Blur, opacity, hue, contrast, brightness, pixelate, etc.
  • Rotate, Flip, etc. (Whole or selected part of picture)
• On Screen Drawing Tools (Whiteboard)
• Color Picker
• Color Palette
• Screen Crosshair
• Screen Protractor

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware
• Portable

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Popularity: 60% [?]

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What Is It?

Tab Counter (by Morac) is a very simple Firefox Add-on that simply displays the number of tabs that are currently open in a Firefox Window. You say “Is that all”, I say “Read on”

(Note: Not to be confused with a similar add-on TabCounter by felipc)

Why Would You Want It?

As you open more tabs in Firefox it uses more and more resources. It is very easy to open a lot of tabs, particularly if you have Firefox set to open links in new tabs or, if like me, you use an RSS reader to open interesting posts in Firefox. At some point  Firefox will stop displaying pages or grind to a halt due to lack of available memory and the performance of your computer will also suffer. When this happens will depend on many things such as your PC hardware, the number of other programs in use, the Firefox add-ons you have installed and the information on the web pages. My experience with Firefox 2 Portable on my main PC was about 100 open tabs before Firefox started to misbehave. With my Firefox 3 Portable setup (and less add-ons than the old setup) I can open over 130 tabs without to many problems). Each setup may be different and you would need to work your own limits out, but once you know these you can keep an eye on the tabs you have open and take action before problems occur.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays the number of Open Tabs
• Options on display and placement

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 42% [?]

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Winsock XP Fix is a tiny utility whose only purpose is to simply repair Winsock and TCP/IP errors from errors or corruption of the registry, etc. It also makes use of the Freeware ERDNT Registry Backup Program so that you can make a backup copy of the registry before changes are made.

Why Would You Want It?

Sometimes things just get messed up for no obvious reason, there are many reasons corruption of files and settings can occur. It may be a power failure or spike, a hardware malfunction or the action of some malware,virus or spyware. Maybe TCP/IP and Winsock settings are changed by mistake on the users part or installation/removal of software causes a problem. Firewall software may change settings or some sort of utility that needs proxy settings to work. The removal of Adware is a very common cause of these sort of problems. Whatever the cause it can be very difficult and time consuming to try and manually sort out the registry settings.

Winsock XP Fix provides a very simple and easy to use solution to the problem. It provides the means to backup the registry although, personally, I would prefer to create a Restore Point in Windows before applying.

So if you have Internet or Local Area Network Connection problems WinSock XP Fix is well worth a try

but create a Restore Point or backup your registry first

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Repairs Winsock and TCP/IP Registry Settings
• Provides Registry Backup Facilities
• Gives Access to System Information Dialogs

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 46% [?]

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What Is It?

Clear Private Data is a Firefox Add-on that provides a toolbar button, a Tools Menu Option and a Hotkey to clear private data. It uses the standard Firefox Private Data functions which can be accessed through the Tools_Options menu and selecting the privacy tab. However, it gives much quicker access and the ability to clear user set options at the click of a single toolbar button.

Why Would You Want It?

There are many reasons why you may want to clear private data and the ability to do it quickly and easily is a bonus. I won’t go into the reasons some are perfectly legitimate and some not so.

However, a word of warning to anyone who thinks this will completely cover their tracks, it won’t,  You will need to take other measures to remove all information from your PC which may be held in all sorts of different places and in files that, although deleted, can be recovered.

But, apart from the obvious privacy aspects there are other things you can do with it that are very useful.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Provides quick access to Firefox Privacy Functions
• Allows Private Data to be cleared by a clicking on a single toolbar button
• Alternatively Private Data can be cleared using a Hotkey

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 36% [?]

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What’s This About?

FileTypesMan is a superior replacement for the standard Windows File Types dialog*. It allows you to quickly find the file type you are looking for, add new, edit existing, add or change actions, etc. in a simple but comprehensive way.

* To access File Types open Windows Explorer then go Tools-Folder Options from the menu and select the File Types tab

Why Would You Want It?

Perhaps files aren’t opening with the program you expect when double clicked in Windows Explorer and you need to find out why or change it back. Perhaps you want to just know what a particular file extension does, particularly if you are concerned about viruses, spyware or malware. Perhaps you need to change the program that a file type opens with. For example you may have a favorite freeware text editor that you wish top associate with .txt files or other text type files such as log and ini files. You may wish to add additional actions which appear under the context menu when the file is right clicked in explorer often you will see with document type files options such as Open, Print, New at the top of the context menu. These are all actions set in file types. More advanced users will also be able to add or change DDE (Dynamic Data Exchange) information.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Displays all File Type Associations
• Easy Sorting by multiple columns
• Add/Edit File Associations
• Add/Edit Actions for File Associations
•  

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 32% [?]

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What’s This About?

MMM Free is a utility that runs in the background that automatically alters the Explorer context menu to a configuration that you can choose. MMM Free is a cut down version of a shareware product but it does a very good job of moving items that you use infrequently to a “Rarely Used” Submenu. It is a good alternative to using ShellExView which was reviewed earlier. Control Your Context Menu Items with ShellExView

Why Would You Want It?

When ShellExView was reviewed I said:

MS Windows provides many shell extensions as part of the OS. Also lots of programs add their own commands to the Explore context menu, Internet Explorer, etc. when they are installed to help with using the program. This makes the right click context menu in the system applications very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands, however they can become cluttered with commands you never need or use. This can make it difficult to find what you want.

MMM Free allows you to still have all the context menu items available but in a sub menu to the single line “Rarely Used” in the context menu rather than switching them off permanently (or until you enable them again using the ShellExView program). So MMM Free gives you the option of always having all the context menu items but in a more user friendly and manageable arrangement.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Wakes up your computer from Standby or Hibernation
•  

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 28% [?]

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What Is It?

Find in Tabs is a Firefox Add-on that extends the standard find functionality of Firefox to search through the text in all open tabs not just the current tab. Results are displayed in a separate pane and provide one click linking to the appropriate tab/web page

Why Would You Want It?

To allow you to find words or phrases in all the web pages you have open in Firefox at any one time rather than just the current page/tab. I find that I often have multiple pages open relating to the same subject or that I have opened lots of pages, such as when I am using the Brief RSS Reader Firefox Add-on. Quite often I might want to find:

1. All the tabs containing information on a certain subject
2. A single tab containing a subject which I can’t easily find because I have so many open.

Find in Tabs is a great solution, it works quickly and efficiently with really good integration into the standard Firefox Find tool.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Finds text in all Firefox Tabs (Open web pages)
• Integrates into Standard Firefox Search
• Highlights text found
• Provides instant link to tabs when clicking on Results lines

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware

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Popularity: 21% [?]

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What’s This About?

ShellExView provides a detailed list of the shell extensions (in-process COM objects) that are used to display items in the Context Menu of Windows Explorer. These can then be individually disabled or enabled allowing you to have only those Context Menu Items that you really need.

Combined with a utility such as CMenuExtender which was reviewed here:

Create Your Own Explorer Context Menus with CMenuExtender

You can control your context menus to display only what you need and create commands to do what you want

Why Would You Want It?

MS Windows provides many shell extensions as part of the OS. Also lots of programs add their own commands to the Explore context menu, Internet Explorer, etc. when they are installed to help with using the program. This makes the right click context menu in the system applications very useful for carrying out all sorts of operations and commands, however they can become cluttered with commands you never need or use. This can make it difficult to find what you want. With ShellExView you an disable the menus you don’t need. ShellExView does not remove the shell extensions it just disables them so that you can always enable anything you need to get back. This also means that you can experiment using ShellExView to see whether you are making the right choice without any fear or permanently loosing any functions.

What Does It Do – The Essentials?

Summary:

• Lists all Shell Extension Objects on the PC
• Allows Enabling or Disabling of the Extensions
• Allows Details to be Copied to text or HTML files
• Opens Windows Registry at the Selected Object Entry
• Marks “Suspicious” Extensions
• Column Sorting of Display
• Highlight & Sort on Enabled/Disable Items

For more details about Shell Extensions and what they do go to ShellExView

Pros: What’s Good?

Features & Benefits

• Freeware

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Popularity: 25% [?]

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