MaximumPC 2004 08

40 MAXIMUMPC AUGUST 2004

CHECKY

Check your web site’s

compatibility

There are a lot of web page standards

out there: HTML, XHTML, CSS, RSS,

BBQ, to name a few. Just because a

page you designed looks good on your

browser doesn’t mean it’ll look the

same, or even work, on everyone else’s

web browsers.

Checky adds dozens of valida-

tion robots to Firefox ’s context menu.

With three clicks, you can see if your

page passes W3C’s HTML standards,

or test the validity of your RSS feed.

“Compliant” will be your web site’s mid-

dle name after you’ve validated it with

Checky.

AUTHOR: JOACHIM SCHREIBER

SPIDERZILLA

Download entire web sites

to your hard drive

Spiderzilla is an extremely handy little

extension for downloading and saving

web sites. It uses an open source program

called Httrack Website Copier to download

entire web sites to your hard drive. All

HTML, all pictures, all linked media and

files on the site are saved to your com-

puter for later examination. It’s a great

tool for archiving and preserving your

favorite web sites. Our only hope is that

future versions include a downloading

progress bar.

AUTHOR: LENROCK

EXTENSION

UNINSTALLER

Remove your

extensions

Firefox ’s extensions system is unbeliev-

ably useful for web-goers, but it suffers

from one major flaw: You can’t unin-

stall extensions once they’re loaded.

Extensions can be removed manually,

but it’s a tricky procedure that involves

fiddling with several files that are criti-

cal to Firefox ’s overall well-being. Firefox

is supposed to support extension remov-

al in its next release, but until then we

have to use an extension to remove

extensions.

Extension Uninstaller automates the

process of removing Firefox extensions,

letting you uninstall them in a few

clicks instead of several minutes of tense

system file editing.

AUTHOR: JEREMY GILLICK

BLOCKFALL

Play Tetris and other games

Tetris is the sport of kings, gods, and

everyone who’s ever touched a com-

puter. Alexey Pajintov’s greatest work is

now available as BlockFall , a minigame

extension on Firefox. Whenever a page is

slowly loading, just pop open a game of

BlockFall and watch the hours blow by!

BlockFall and other Firefox exten-

sion games are interesting because they

demonstrate the remarkable flexibility

of this browser’s extension system.

Rather than using simple forms, scripts,

and robots, Firefox extensions allow

the development of full-fledged applets

and games. Other Firefox games include

Minesweeper and Solitaire clones, and a

text adventure emulator called Gnusto.

AUTHOR: STEPHEN CLAVERING

BOOKMARKS

SYNCHRONIZER

Take your bookmarks with you

anywhere you go

This extension is essential for anyone

who works on multiple computers. It

works by uploading your bookmarks to

an XML file, which is then uploaded to

an FTP server of your choosing (your ISP

usually grants you a few MB of space for

free). Once this transaction has taken

place, you can retrieve your bookmarks

Firefox extensions can even play games!

Is a Firefox Quake port far off?

BROWSER

(^) BOOSTERS
Jeremy Gillick’s
Extension
Uninstaller
helps v0.8 users
remove unwanted
extensions quickly
and easily.
Extension Uninstaller
Blockfall