Posted 02/04/10 at 10:00:00 PM by David Murphy

One of Mozilla Firefox's bigger advantages over Google Chrome has just been wiped away and, dare we say, Google Chrome has actually one-upped its rival in terms of overall usability and ease-of-installation. We're referring, of course, to Greasemonkey. You might have heard this name echoed across tech and tweak sites far and wide. As well you should have--the functionality you can achieve by this upgrade to your surfing experience is simply unsurpassed in its depth or scope by any conventional add-on or extension.

It's quite simple, really. You install Greasemonkey to gain access to a gallery of add-ons that benefit your browsing experience just as much as your favorite official "add-ons," if not more. By add-ons, we mean "scripts." In its conventional format, Greasemonkey is a browser add-on that grants you the ability to automatically integrate new Javascript-based modifications to a site whenever you load up the page. You don't have to design these modifications yourself--a huge gallery of scripts (more than 40,000!) have already been written for a wide swath of functions and locations. Consider Greasemonkey scripts to be analogous to extensions for Greasemonkey--itself an extension for your main browser.

Sound good? Because now, Google Chrome users have the ability to tap into Greasemonkey scripts as much as any other browser user. You don't even have to install a separate add-on, since scripts work natively in the browser! 

But here's the catch: not all Greasemonkey scripts work perfectly in Google Chrome. The running estimation is that roughly 20 percent of what's out there is currently broken for Google's browser. That's not great news for a person who's easily frustrated by failure. However, here's where Maximum PC comes into the picture. We've run through a large swath of awesome Google Greasemonkey scripts to achieve two key goals: to see what works and to see which scripts, of the 40,000+ available, are awesome tweaks for your browser. Click the jump for a look at some of the top Greasemonkey scripts you could (or should) be slapping into your Google Chrome browser right now.

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Posted 02/02/10 at 08:23:57 AM by Paul Lilly

Grown tired of Firefox or simply want to shake things with your browser? If so, you're in luck. Never has there been a better time to consider Google's Chrome browser, now in version 4. Not only does Chrome finally support extensions, but Google has now added native support for Greasmonkey user scripts as well.

"Ever since the beginning of the Chromium project, friends and coworkers have been asking me to add support for user scripts in Google Chrome,"  Aaron Boodman, a Software Engineer on the Chrome Project, wrote in a blog post. "I'm happy to report that as of the last Google Chrome release, you can install any user script with a single click. So, now you can use emoticons on blogger. Or, you can browse Google Image Search with a fancy lightbox."

No small deal, the addition of Greasemonky gives Chrome users access to over 40,000 scripts on userscripts.org along, Boodman points out. And because each one installs just like an extension, they're easily accessible to all users.

Boodman warns that not all Greasemonkey scripts will work in Chrome right off the bat. The reason? Greasemonkey, if you're not aware, is a Firefox add-on, which means that scripts written up to this point have been aimed at working with Mozilla's browser. Because of this, Boodman expects some 15-25 percent of Greasemonkey scripts won't work in Chrome, but recommends letting the author know if you run into one that appears busted.

"In the meantime, we'll keep working on bugs on our side to bring our implementation closer to Greasemonkey," Boodman added.

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Posted 07/03/07 at 04:32:49 PM by Will Smith

Will's going to celebrate Independence Day by trying out new Firefox add-ons. Will your favorite make his list?

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