Browsing and file management were two things for me that somehow never really came together. However Firefly, a Firefox extension gives you the power of a file manager right inside your browser, let’s take a look if it’s any good.

Once installed you can simply type a path like “c:” to get to the root of the drive to view files. They will be shown as a list and you will be able to perform simple file management tasks via the Firefl toolbar, drag and drop, or keyboard shortcuts.

You won’t find the power of Windows Commander or XYplorer, but for everyday basic needs its great, and gives you a lot of productivity by saving you the time it takes to switch between apps. You basically just get the interface to do cutting, pasting, copying, renaming, and some more basic tasks, but that’s really all I need. One unique option is that you can switch the number of viewing pane, horizontal and vertical alike. Creating 8 views might seem like chaos, but it may save a lot of time in some cases.

What I find most useful is the way you can navigate around using Firefox and Firefly combined. Since we are in a browser, we can use the versatility of bookmarks to navigate all around our computer. If you access a remote directory often, just create a bookmark with the keyword “dir” for example and whenever you type dir into the address bar you will be swooped there. With a few of these bookmarks and the ease of use of Firefly, you will be performing file actions much more productively than before.

Firefly fills a space which is rarely catered for by the software industry and it really can make you more productive, but I will still not use it probably. I don’t really know why, I just don’t like third party file browsers, I use the simple old Windows interface, so sue me.

Firefox addons page face-lift

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Productivity

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The go to page for Firefox extensions just got revamped and they did a really good job with it at that. The overall design is much smoother and more eye-pleasing, but they managed to pour some usability in as well.

Rating and commenting is now very simple and viewing screenshots is much easier using the menu below as well. Now extensions reviews look much more like Amazon reviews giving you info at a glimpse, and detailed info as well if you need it.

Mozilla is probably ready to roll out Firefox 3 soon and is getting ready with this makeover. Even if FF3 is a bit down the road I always like to see companies actively upgrading their sites.

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