So, I downloaded and tested it, using a passage from an article I’d already published on Triond. I picked one I’d thrown together without editing (yes, I admit I do sometimes do that) and this was the corrected result:

I’ve recently made the decision to educate my eldest son at home. He’s been slipping behind academically ever since he started senior school, three years ago, and I just don’t believe he will achieve his full potential there. My son isn’t exactly impressed, but he understands my reasoning and agrees he’ll probably study more productively at home. If there were a better school locally, or I could move nearer to one, I would prefer for him to stay in mainstream education. However, I sincerely believe this is the best route for him. In order to make this decision, I had to look into all aspects of home education to be sure we could implement everything required of us to enable him to achieve the necessary exam results. Here’s a list of the pros and cons involved to help you decide whether this is something you might consider for your own child. (Please note that most of the following information applies only to those in the UK (and England in particular) as rules differ slightly, depending on where you live. Those of you who reside elsewhere in the world should check the local policy regarding home-education before making any plans.)

Please compare that passage to the original, via this link: Why Home School?, to see how helpful this tool actually is. And don’t poke fun, either!

It has a thesaurus; it’s easy to apply corrections with; and it improved my paragraph massively. I also learnt a little from having to correct “negative sentences” and was praised for using no “passive verbs”. All aspects of your work are scored, from word complexity and sentence length, to grammar, punctuation and spelling. It’s a God-send for all amateur writers, and I expect everyone to reward me accordingly, with lots of lovely presents throughout the year! (Okay, clicks, likes and comments will do nicely…)

And now, the moment you’ve all been waiting for: it’s called White Smoke, and you can get it HERE.

Have fun!

If you enjoyed this article you may be interested in the following:

How to Choose Winning Titles for Your Triond Articles

Brilliant Books to Improve Your Writing Skills

Me, Myself, and I – Do We Really Need Grammar?

Firefox is a free, open source webbrowser developed and maintained by mozilla foundation! But what does this mean? It means that as long as it is open source it will be free and everyone who wants can get access to the source (the code) of firefox! This means that for the more expirienced coder, this is a way to get a webbrowser that acts and looks entirely as you wants it to do! This is a good reason why to choose firefox, but not everyone is a skilled coder, right? I have no idea how to edit something like firefox and I don´t know anyone that does! But why should we “mortal” computer users choose firefox? Well, that´s our subject in this article! I will bring up my top 5 reasons!

1. Customizable! You can change just about every aspect of the firefox interface using free themes from firefox homepage!

2. Plugins! Install free plugins to make firefox even better! You can install an automatic spelling correction or almost anything! This way you can make the webbrowser your own even more!

3. It´s fast! It starts faster and browses faster than the internet explorer I have preinstalled! I have Vista on a PC so I can´t tell you how firefox´s speed is against safari!

4. But I do know that some of the webpages that I have been trying to view in the PC version of Safari (which really isn´t that great! Sry Apple!) doesn´t show right! But Firefox view these correctly! So Firefox just works with everything!

5. Firefox is crossplattform! Every user can enjoy firefox, if they want to! Firefox supports Linux, Mac and Windows and that pretty much covers all systems!

This is why I think everyone should choose firefox as their standard webbrowser!

If you like this, check out my other articles at Triond: https://www.triond.com/users/Hampus+Tagerud

Thunderbird 2

Thunderbird 2 (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/)—the new version of Mozilla’s email client—offers security upgrades, email importance ratings, customizable folder viewing, and many other features that provide for a novel and adventurous way to organize and engage in the email experience.  The truly unique feature of this email client is people are able to now access multiple email accounts (such as Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Gmail, etc) through one stand-alone application. 

FoxyTunes           

Tired of opening and controlling your music player while trying to read emails or shopping online?  Then get FoxyTunes (www.foxytunes.com)!  This add-on, available for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox, is a ground-breaking way to listen to music while surfing the internet.  This software non-invasively integrates controls for your music player into the web browser.  Far from cumbersome, this amazing software not only integrates controls for 19 popular music players such as iTunes, Winamp, Pandora, Rhapsody, and Windows Media Player; this player can also search for the lyrics of current music, display album artwork and offers several customizable features to play music the way you want to play it.

StumbleUpon

 Enter into a new social network that is larger than a single website.  StumbleUpon (www.stumbleupon.com) offers an unrivaled toolbar that allows all of cyberspace to become your social network.  Users enter their interests into a customizable profile and ‘stumble’ away!  StumbleUpon software uses your suggestions to find websites that may be of interest to your web-browsing experience.  Users can stumble through their favorite sites such as Wikipedia, Youtube, Myspace, or stumble through the entire internet.  While stumbling, people can opt to explore the internet’s wide-variety of pictures, videos and many websites that suit their personal interests.  While exploring, users can rate, review and suggest websites to others through an enormous social network available through a single toolbar and active website! 

Personas

Mozilla Labs has a new experiment that may peak your interest.  Personas (http://www.getpersonas.com/) for firefox is clothing for your web-browser.  This free service offers a new skin for your web browser to spice-up how you see the internet.  These skins suit a wide-array of interests so that users can dress their browser how they please.  And when users become tired of their current skin, they can simply design a new skin or get another from this fun website.

WOT (Web Of Trust)

Not sure if the website you are viewing is safe?  Concerned that it might not be secure enough to recommend to a friend?  Worry no more with WOT – Web Of Trust (www.mywot.com)!  Web Of Trust is an free and easy-to-use application available for Mozilla Firefox.  This software turns the entire internet into a safer peer-reviewed internet experience.  If several people have found a website to be a security risk, a simple colored ring will appear on your browser warning you of the risk.  This software prevents people from websites that attempt to load your computer with viruses, adware and spyware; in addition users of this software are protected from fraud, scams, websites that fish for passwords, and many more security threats.

BetterPrivacy

Whenever people travel to various websites, they are unknowingly providing industry and market research with information on their browsing history.  Websites upload various files onto our computers into to track how we surf the internet.  This however is generally without the permission of the user and can be considered an invasion of privacy.  There are several ways to stop this violation of our privacy but for some whom are not computer savvy, this may be more challenging than the simple, and user-friendly application known as BetterPrivacy.  Better Privacy is an add-on available through the add-ons section of Mozilla’s website (www.mozilla.org).  BetterPrivacy gives users the power to delete and or prevent websites from monitoring web-browsing, restoring privacy and control to the user.

I had read lots of good things about IE 8, how it was going to have all these great features, and be fast at the same time.  But c’mon people, this is Internet Explorer.  IE 8 makes gains to catch up to Firefox in terms of tabbed browsing features (including a colorful tab grouping feature that is handy), and it is noticeably faster than IE 7, but it still is not up to par with the other major competitors at this list, and doesn’t pass the Acid3 web standards test even a little bit (only recorded a 23/100 on my computer).

The Verdict: *** (3/5 Stars)

The famous open source competitor to Internet Explorer, Firefox is the second most popular browser on the web, holding about 20% of the market.  I have been a Firefox user for years, but I have never really explored my options.  Compared to IE, Firefox is great, and it is a solid product for anyone who wants a good internet experience.  It doesn’t handle Javascript as well as Chrome or Safari.  Overall, though, for users that want a mixture of features and performance this is a great option.

The Verdict: **** (4/5 Stars)

Famous for being “the fastest browser in the world” on Mac computers, I was not sure if I had downloaded the right browser when I got Safari.  Fast?  Oh ya.  The chrome has a redux for Windows and it even looks great, and it passes the Acid3 web standards test.  On the downside, it is a tad overly simplistic and gimmicky and Apple has a tendency to shove Apple products in your face at every corner.  Probably the best option out there if you can get past the fact that it is Apple.

The Verdict: ****’ (4.5/5 stars)

The browser that’s been all news recently, Google’s latest darling is great, but with some minor drawbacks.  Chrome offers some excellent features that could potentially revolutionize the way modern browsers function.  The so-called OmniBar, an address bar that has Google Search, Wikipedia and other popular website search destinations built in.  It also has the best looking interface, private, or Incognito, browsing, super-fast Javascript, and it runs Google applications superbly.  On the downside, it crashes tabs fairly frequently (I would say around 10% of the time it will crash when I am browsing), and sometimes it is just plain gimmicky.  A great idea with some minor glitches that Google developers are constantly fixing.

The Verdict: ****’ (4.5/5 stars)

A highly-rated, little used browser, Opera is excellent.  Take the speed of Google Chrome and mash it with the features of Firefox, and you have Opera.  In addition to those features, it has these things called Mouse Gestures, where by holding right click and moving the mouse in a certain way you can go back, forward, open a new window, and a plethora of other things.  Yet despite all of those things, it just doesn’t feel right.  The pages are fast, and it looks fairly nice, but it just doesn’t feel right.  It can be a little laggy at times, and despite the bright future that Opera 10 has (the Alpha release is blindingly fast), right now it’s just not the one for the average user.

The Verdict: **** (4/5 stars)

The Final Verdict

While other browsers might offer shiny chrome or nifty features, Firefox just plain works.  It is fast enough for the average user, is stable, and has lots of customization for the person who wants more out of their browser.  It also is open-source, which automatically makes it near and dear to me in my heart (the only other open source project on this list is Chrome, which mysteriously does not have a first-party Linux port out).  Looking ahead, the Firefox 3.5 beta is due out in April and it should be a major improvement over the current beta release (3.1 beta 3).  The battle for the best browser is only going to get more intense, as all the above mentioned competitors are sure to put out excellent products in the future.  Only question is, who will be number one?

And so, when news broke that Google was to unveil their own browser, I approached the idea with hesitation. I was happy with Firefox, why should I venture back into the murky waters of Browser Purgatory? 

But, being infinitely curious and always on the lookout for the next breakthrough gadget or software, I decided to give Chrome a go. And, I have to say, I’m impressed.

The first thing you note when using Chrome, is how simple it all looks. Not basic, by any means, but minimalist, in true Google style. Located at the top of the window is the now obligatory tab bar, but gone are the file, edit menu bars of Internet Exploder (ahem, excuse me, Explorer).  Beneath this are the standard back, forward, refresh and home buttons, and next to these stands the impressively named Omnibar, from where you can launch your web experience by either typing a full web address or, if you want to perform a search, enter keywords and hit the enter key, to which Chrome will redirect you to the Google search results pages you are all undoubtedly familiar. More than just an over – hyped search field, the Omnibar also suggests web pages and searches as you type, saving your finger from extended keyboard- bashing. In all, I found this quite useful, but – enough to abandon my first love, Firefox? I needed a bit more convincing than that, thank you very much.

Well, Chrome managed to persuade me – not with showy looks like IE, or fancy names, but with what its made of.  Because really, it’s what’s under the bonnet that make Chrome revolutionary in its Browser approach. Google built Chrome because it found other internet Browsers simply could not cope with the type of features Google wanted to bring to the web, and from the ground up, Google have spent their time ensuring that Chrome is tweaked to get the most out of the web. For starters, there’s an internal task manager. While this sounds dull in itself, it’s worth considering what this means for your internet experience. Opening up this task manager allows you to see what tabs or pages are using up the most resources, and prioritise or close them as necessary. In addition, this also means that Chrome has done away with the infinitely annoying issue of browser crashes. If one page succumbs to internet death, then Chrome ensures that all the other tabs do not go down with it, something that causes me endless headaches, expecially when forced to use Microsoft’s own Explorer. Add to this task manager some nifty features, such as creating ‘application shortcuts’ for web apps such as Google mail and Google Docs, effectively turning these internet based services into desktop – based programs, and it starts to become clear that this is now ordinary run – of  - the – mill effort to steal some of Microsoft or Mozilla’s profit margins (yes, I know, Mozilla is not – for profit, but allow me some poetic licence, please!). 

What astonishes me most, however, is its speed. I have a humble broadband connection, but Chrome forces my webpages to load at a breathtaking pace, much faster than I have ever seen with IE or Firefox. Navigating your favourites is easy too, and Google have also incorporated a ’speed dial’ style service into Chrome, displaying your most viewed pages in thumbnail form whenever you open a new tab. Bookmarking is easy: simply clicking the star button by the omnibar saves the currently opened page into its archives. 

Another interesting, albeit controversial feature, is Chrome’s incognito mode. This allows a user to open up a separate window, in which no cookies or website addresses will be saved to your history. Whilst it is debatable what this could be used for other than, shall we say, dodgy browsing, its a unique feature (or at least will be until IE8 is released, with a similar feature) for those who do not want their traces to be, well, traced.

All in all, I’ve been impressed by Chrome over the last three weeks of use. While it may seem basic at first, once you have used it awhile you begin to see how complex it actually is. And Google have managed all this without overwhelming the user with techical jargon or more buttons than you could shake a tailor at. I’m now using Chrome as my default browser of choice. Don’t get me wrong, I love Firefox, and it will be many years to come until Google manage to steal the ground made by Mozilla. But there is a shakeup coming, you can be sure of that. Google have made the first step into a brave new world. Microsoft and Mozilla had better be fast to pick up their own pace. 

Chrome: simple. yet effective. 

Play with Google Chrome Bookmarks

Sometimes you need to make a note of a page which you like or which you would like to visit at a later point of time. Almost all the brosers provide the “bookmark this” option for the same. Chrome also allows you to do the same thing. Towards the left of your address bar, there is a star symbol which allows you to bookmark a site. If you need to see the websites in your bookmark list, google chrome allows you to view it using a short cut. The Ctrl+B keyboard shortcut allows you to toggle between the bookmark bar on and off. When you use this the first time, a small bar will appear below your URL address bar which has a list of your bookmarked sites. If you repeat the shortcut again, the bar will disappear.

A task manager only for Google Chrome

You might know the windows task manager you call every time your system hangs or when you want to check the system resource utility etc. Well, Google chrome comes with its own task manager. To invoke this task manager, you will have to use the keyboard shortcut “Shift+Escape”. This will open up a small window with the task details. For each tab you have opened, it will tell you the memory utilized, the cpu time utilised and the network utilised. Now, if you are a real nerd, then you are going to love this. Google has got a link in its Task manager which will allow you to have a closer and more detailed look at the task manager. I leave that for you to ponder.

Be the invisible man using the “incognito Mode”

There will be times when you have to browse in stealth or invisible mode, for example, to plan surprises like gifts or birthdays, Google Chrome offers the incognito browsing mode.  The web pages that you open and files downloaded while you are incognito won’t be logged in your browsing and download histories. All  new cookies are deleted after the incognito window is closed. One can browse normally and in incognito mode at the same time by using separate windows. Ctrl+Shift+N opens a new window in “Incognito Mode.”

Useful Global browser keyboard shortcuts applicable to Google Chrome

Jump to your address bar

Sometimes while browsing, you need to go to the address bar to type a new website. Usually people use their mouse to point to the addrss bar, click it to hightlight it and then type in the new website url which you need to visit. Well if you use this next shortcut, you will never use the mouse for that again. The keyboard shortcut “Ctrl+L” will allow you to jump to the address bar no matter where you are.  This way you can save a few milli seconds, but while browsing, every second counts. This keyboard shortcut has made my life easier as i am too old to use the point and click option.

“Google it” using Google chrome

Well, this was quite obvious when google came up with the new browser. It has done a neat little trick which allows you to do a google search without going to google home page. This shortcut allows you to do just that, ie do a google search without going to the www.google.com home page. Ctrl+K allows you to do a google search from chrome. Just like the “jump to address bar” shortcut, this short cut takes you to the address bar. But it does one extra thing. That is to put a question mark (?) in the begining. Now if you enter a key word and press enter, instead of searching for a website, chrome treats that as a google search key word and displays the google search results for the same. Try it out,  you will love it.

Open or close a new Tab

Ok, dont shout at me. I know that most people already know that the short cut i am talking about is “Ctrl+T“. But without this shortcut, this list will not be complete. This was one of the first shortcuts which caught my imagination when tabbed browsing was first introduced. I dont know who introduced tabbed browsing first but i had my first experience with firefox. Prior to that i used the Ctrl+N for opening a new page. But i found it difficult to keep track of related pages. But ever since tabbed browsing was introduced, you can logically group all the tags and keep it together. You can even drag and rearrange the tabs. 

So, how do you close a tab when you are done with it. Dont even think of putting your hand over that mouse. In chrome (or in many other tabbed browsers) you can do it by Ctrl+W shortcut. It will close the tab which you are currently in and move the control over to the tab which is immediatly lef to it. If it is the only tab which is open, then this shortcut will close the chrome window itself.

OOps i did it again. I have to type in the url of the tab which I accidentally closed just now. right?

Wrong. We all make mistakes. And before i knew that there was a shortcut to open the last tab which you closed, i really wished there was one. Most of the time i reach a page through a google serach and i dont necessarily remember the URL or the links which led me to the site which i just closed. So this shortkey was a real blessing for me. Ctrl+Shift+T opens the last closed tab while you were browsing. Remember that it is only applicable when you have not closed the main google chrome window. If you have closed the main window, this shortcut key cannot help you.

Cycle through the open tabs

Ok, this one is also pretty familiar to you guys right? Ctrl+Tab will cycle through the open tabs which you have in chrome. Geeks, you can move on to the next one if you want. Let me tell my “new to tabbed browsing readers” a thing or two about this short cut. If you have opened 20 tabs and finding it difficult to locate one particular tab in those 20, you dont need to point and click your mouse on each tab and check  it out. You can use this short cut instead. You will have to press your Ctrl button and while you are pressing it, you will have to press the tab button multiple times. Each time you press the button, it will take you to a tab which is open under your main chrome window. The order is from left to right and when it reaches the last tab, it jumps back to the first tab again. If you want to reverse this effect, you will have to press Ctrl+Shift+tab which will allow you to cycle from right to left.

From sequential to direct access. Go directly to the Nth tab

If there are 10 tabs open and if you want to go to the “N” th tab (where n is a number between 1 to 9) then you can do it by using the Ctrl+ 1 through 9. For example if you want to go to the 5th tab, then you will press Ctrl+5. You cannot press Ctrl+0 or any number greater than 9. It will not simply work. I dont use it much often. But different people have got different styles of browsing. You can use this if you find this suiting your style of browsing.

Size does matter

Sometimes you will reach a website or a blog which is using a very small font type which is imposible to read without a microscope. In such cases, the following shortcuts will come handy. If you want to increase the font size of the text in the website, use Ctrl +++ . If you want to reduce the size, then use Ctrl —. That is right, the plus sign (+) will increase the font size and the minus sign(-) will decrease the font size when used with the control key. If you want to restore the page font size to the default as it was when it was created, you can use Ctrl + 0.

Hope these keyboard shortcuts will enhance your browsing. If you have any shortcuts which you found really useful and want to share, you can share it through the comments section. Please make sure that you pass on this website to anyone who you feel does not know about the wonderful world of tabbed browsing.

It’s been on the news it quite a lot of places, who knows, maybe Google will be releasing an Auction website soon enough and it may over take eBay over time. The official BETA release date was September 2, 2008 11:59:59 PM. Right now they do not know the actual launch date of the new web browser, but there is websites where you can keep up to date on what is happening.

When you install Google Chrome, you have the choice to choose if you want to send crash reports and other things to Google if the program crashes so they can fix it. Some people agree that it is nice they allow you the option to choose.

I hope this helps you in making a good choice on which web browser to shoot for, thanks for reading.

Safari

Safari is one of the fastest web browsers on any platform. It loads pages up to 1.9 times and executes JavaScript up to 6 times faster than Internet Explorer 7. It has excellent features like tabbed web browsing, resizable text fields, snapback and easy book marks. As expected from any apple products, this web browser is designed for more security and easy usage.

Latest version: Safari 3.1

Mozilla Firefox

Mozilla Firefox is an excellent free web browser. With this browser you can view the pages faster and it requires less computer memory. You can avoid online scams with Instant Website ID. It offers a wide number of features like anti-malware, anti-virus and anti-phishing options. This web browser is available in more than 40 languages. Pop-up blocker, Spell checker and many more wonderful features are available with this browser. Whenever I get a problem with IE, I use this browser and personally felt that this is the best alternative to IE.

Mozilla web browser is faster in Java script processing when compared to other web browsers.

Latest version: Firefox 3.0 Beta 5

Opera

Opera is a superfast web browser. It is a free Web browser and can access web pages 30% faster than Internet Explorer and much faster than Firefox when using tabbed browsing. Moreover it offers lots of great tools for Web Developers. This is more secure and stable with fraud protection, cookie control and security bar.

Latest version: Opera 9.5

Maxthon

Maxthon is a powerful web browser with many interesting features like Tabbed Browsing, Feed Reader, Ad Hunter and Web Sniffer etc. The super Acceleration Mode improves your browser speed. URL Alias enables you to visit your favorite website by setting its name in the menu and typing just the name in the address bar than the whole web address. The Filter pack feature removes ads on a specified website and also gives you the possibility of modifying web page source code. Some excellent features include Anti-Freeze, Web Bar, Super Proxy, Screen Capture and Undo List. It offers Trusted Website Check by indicating with green color.

Latest version: 2.1.2.649

Avant

Avant is another web browser with many interesting features like Active X controls, Java Script, Real Player and Macromedia Flash. The Flash Animation Filter helps you to block the unwanted advertisements (which are mostly flash files). Additional mouse functions, multi window browsing, ATOM Reader and Pop-up Blocker are some of the important features of this.

Latest version: 11.6Build20