Jeromy Anglim's Blog: Psychology and Statistics


Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Bookmarklets to Improve the Browsing Experience

Bookmarlets can improve the browsing experience. This post lists bookmarklets that I regularly use.
Going up a directory
Context: Many webpages have a hierarchical structure of nested folders. When a site has poor internal navigation, getting to the home page can be facilitated by an "Up" bookmarklet.
  • Up: (goes up a directory)
Webpage no longer available
Context: If you follow a link to a webpage that no longer exists, a copy may exist on the Internet Archive.
Hard to read webpage:
Context: There are many reasons why a webpage can be difficult to read. Common causes include: (1) distracting animation, plugins, videos, and so on; (2) text that runs the whole width of the screen when viewed on a large montitor; (3) distracting background colour; (4) distracting background picture. There are bookmarklets that attempt to re-draw the webpage in ways that make remove the above mentioned reability issues.
URL Shortener
Context: I use Twitter a little bit. Bit.ly has some useful bookmarklets.
  • Bit.ly: In particular, I use the bit.ly sidebar.
Feel free to post any other good ones.