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Sep 01

IE8 Activities WebSlices for Firefox

Posted in: Firefox Extensions, Freeware, Internet Explorer, Newly Released, Software, Today's Chili

This article was written on March 11, 2008 by CyberNet.

It didn’t take long for two different developers to start replicating some of the best new features in Internet Explorer 8: WebSlices and Activities. Come on, you knew extension developers would jump on the chance to give users very few reasons to switch to Internet Explorer.

–WebSlices in Firefox–

WebSlices are a way for you to stay up-to-date with the latest news and information without actually having to visit a website. When a WebSlice is added to the toolbar you’re able to click on it to see a specially designed small-scale version of the website. For example, in the eBay example below you’ll see a brief overview of an auction that you’re trying to keep track of.

If you want to install WebSlices in Firefox here’s what you need to do:

Install the extension
Go to a page that has WebSlices available, such as http://ie8.ebay.com. Do a search for a product on that eBay site.
When you see the little WebSlice icon appear towards the left side of the items right-click somewhere (don’t try to right-click on the icon) and click Subscribe to a webchunk:
That item will be placed in your WebSlices toolbar where you can click on it to get an instant preview of the status:

There are three things that I don’t like about this extension:

It takes up an entire toolbar which I find to be a waste of space.
I naturally want to click on the little icon that pops up to add the WebSlice, but I have to right-click for some odd reason? Just let me click on the icon to add it to the toolbar.
This isn’t the fault of the extension, but there are currently very few WebSlices available.

–Activities in Firefox–

The Activities extension that has been developed is also a bit rough around the edges right now. If you use it in Firefox 3 you’re supposed to be able to see a preview of the site when you hover your mouse over one of the entries just like in Internet Explorer 8. I tried it out in Firefox 3 Beta 3, Firefox 3 Beta 4, and the Firefox 3 nightly builds none of which showed a preview (I even did it on a clean profile with no other extensions installed).

What I did find impressive is that installing the Activities is no different than Internet Explorer 8. The XML files are automatically downloaded into an “activities” folder in your Firefox profile. As of right now navigating to that folder and deleting the XML file is the only way to remove one of the Activities that you add.

Once you’ve added some of the Activities they will only show up in the list when you have text highlighted on a website, and then right-click. Here’s what it looks like:

firefox activities