Alt Browser Updates and Fx Extensions

For those of us who use IE shells from time to time, Maxthon has been updated to 1.3.3, with a few feature and security updates. I haven't tried a Maxthon build since ver. 1.1.120, when I decided that Avant Browser was the best IE shell browser. I might try this new release, but I'm comfortable with Avant now, in terms of its UI (which is closer to K-Meleon than IE), and Avant has clearer security controls (easy toggling of ActivX, Java, etc.). Of course, Avant is currently on its seventeenth build of version 10.1. Just call it 10.2, already.

Also, Mozilla Suite 1.7.11 has been released. It fixes a couple of regressions (extensions that stopped working) introduced by 1.7.10. I have just three extensions installed in Moz 1.7.10, and they all work, so the hell with it.

And speaking of extensions, I plugged Wizz RSS News Reader and SessionSaver into Firefox 1.0.6 this weekend, and I highly recommend both. Wizz RSS is a simple sidebar-based feed aggregator that nicely supplements Fx's native LiveBookmarks. It isn't all that intuitive, but there's a good amount of documentation online, with links built into the extension's UI. SessionSaver does just what you'd expect it to do, and does it pretty well. Give it a try.

In other news, things have kind of sucked lately. There's this huge, gnarly old tree standing in the far northwest corner of the back yard, it must be over a hundred years old, and last night just before 1:00 AM an enormous limb, bigger than most trees around here, fell off it with a huge shuddering crash. It's bisected the yard, reaching all the way to the gate at the southeast corner, and when it fell it nearly crushed Maggie, our rottweiler. Scared the bejeezus out of her. Fortunately, a couple of branches impaled the roof of the garage and lodged there, and a few shingles were sheared off the corner, so the homeowners' insurance will cover the removal of the whole mess, as well as repairs to the garage. But it's still a pain in the ass.