Pimping Your Firefox Part III: Easily Accessible Favourites

Today's tip comes from an older Lifehacker post. I thought I woudl share the advice. Some of you may have the bookmark toolbar on the top of your browser and it may go unused up there. Some of you may also have turned it off. I originally had it hidden until I realized how helpful it can be. Two extensions help you make it quite useful. The first is a nice one that will put only the icons of the site on the bar. Those icons are those little pictures that appear before the address in the address bar (the orange "B" symbol for this site). All that you really need to do is download Smart Bookmarks Bar. You can change the settings for this bar by going to Tools -> Extensions. There should then be a dialog box that lists all your extensions. Just click once on Smart Bookmarks Bar and then click on the "options" button down below to change the settings. There is only one setting (Showing the name when you roll your mouse over the picture). I personally have that box unchecked because I find it distracting. You may want to keep it so you know what the sites are.

The second extension that is helpful is Favicon Picker 2. This extension gives you the option of picking what the icon is for your bookmarks (because not all sites have nice icons like this one). Simply download the program and you are ready to go. If you want to change the icon, just left click on it and click properties. There should be a section of that box that has the icon and two options: Erase or Browse... pick browse to find an icon you want to use (it has to be on your computer).

For those of you who aren't so sure how to make an icon, I will send you to a website that will help you: Favicons from Pics. Simply click on the "Browse" button on the page and select a picture from your computer. It will generate a file that can be used as an icon. You will need to download this to your computer and put it somewhere safe. I suggest making a folder for it (Call it "Icons" if you want to be safe and put it with your other pictures). You can then find this file with the above program to make your icon.

All together, this can give you several of your bookmarks or favourites right in your browser without having to open up the bookmarks sidebar or drop down menu. I personally have 34 bookmarks in my browser with room for 5-10 more. I suggest you try this and see how much easier it is to check your favourite sites.

As always, if you want to try this and are confused, just ask me any questions you may have...

UPDATE (20:50): Oops, I lied. Just after I wrote this, I updated my extensions and the new version of Smart Bookmarks Bar has more options, including decreasing the space between the icons, which allows for more icons on the toolbar. Yet another great feature of Open Source Software - constant improvements!