Ok, Safari fans. If you're still holding out for a few of your favorite features to appear in Mozilla's Firefox before you're convinced to make the switch, the cosmetic add-on Fission might be enough to get you to jump ship. This little add-on doesn't clone or skin your Safari browsing experience, nor does it actually build anything extremely useful into the browser that's otherwise lacking between the two competing platforms. But that's OK--not every add-on should move mountains just as long as it provides some kind of neat feature that you wouldn't be able to find normally, right?
Well, that's the definition of Fission. All this little add-on does is move the typical loading status bar from your tabs to Firefox's address bar. That's it. Though, I admit, I kind of like having this larger area serve as the status for my page loading efforts. There's a lot more space to work with (in case you're suffering from a page that's taking forever to load.) More than that, it's a lot easier to see the "snap" of the bar filling up, giving you an easy visual reference--beyond the loaded page itself--whenever your browser is done rendering content.
Will Fission win any awards for its unique fix? Likely not. But it does make Firefox just a touch bit prettier (provided it doesn't break any of your themes), and we can all be grateful for that.
Maximum PC picks one new Firefox add-on as its favorite of the week each... week. Have a nifty extension that you can't live without? Twitter David Murphy @acererak with your latest suggestions.
Comments are closed on this article
deject
February 17, 2010 at 6:32pm
I've been using this for a while now and it makes the progress bar way more functional in my opinion. First, it makes it a lot longer without obscuring anything (well, ok with the default skin it doesn't), meaning you can see more precise progress. Second, it brings it up to the top of the screen, where I look more often. I like it. Definitely one of the first extensions I install.
QuakindudeMod
February 17, 2010 at 6:01pm
I REALLY like this add on! The only way it could be better is if the address were still visible while the bar was loading.Maybe it's the theme I'm using though.
*****MaximumPC Moderator. Report inappropriate/SPAM comments to
QuakindudeMod at Gmail--dot--com with a link. My personal comments do not necessarily
reflect the opinions of MaxPC or Future US*****
gmvolk
February 17, 2010 at 3:21pm
Actually pretty useful and saves a bit of screen by turning off the status bar.
ghen
February 17, 2010 at 2:44pm
Ugh, I would rather use IE than Safari. That is the most broken trashy browser available.
Sure it renders pages great, but when it crashes all the frigging time are you really getting anything better?
Print
