Five Best FireFox Based Applications

Web browsers built upon the same technologies that power Firefox are fairly common. (Flock, which integrates its user interface with social-networking sites, is one of the better known examples.) But there are also dozens of applications that rely on at least some aspects of the Mozilla platform.

Here are 5 useful desktop programs that run on the open-source Web browser's native technology. All of these applications are free for you to download and use -- and only one is a Web browser.

Boxee

Boxee has been one of the programs of choice for many tech hobbyists putting together their own custom-built media center hardware. But it also supports Apple TV, and you'll be able to buy an actual branded Boxee Box media console later this year.

The Boxee software itself is topnotch, organizing your media (video, music, pictures) under a series of great looking menus, and presents easy navigation through media remote controls. If you have an iPhone or iPod Touch, you can install an app which will turn either of these mobile devices into a remote control for your Boxee set-up.

Buzzbird

This free desktop client provides most of the features you need to interact with your Twitter friends and followers. You can read through the history of a discussion between two people through Buzzbird's "conversation view" when you click replies to tweets. Browsing and reading profiles, and following or unfollowing people, are all done within this program without needing to open an external Web browser program.

Buzzbird also includes other tweeting conveniences such as support for multiple user accounts, and a built-in URL shortener.

Celtx

Created originally to be a screenplay word processor, Celtx has grown into an all-in-one suite that helps you produce a film, from the script stage to shooting it.

Most screenwriting programs cost hundreds of dollars, but Celtx is not only free it also includes a host of other tools: for storyboarding, breaking down shooting schedules, online collaborating on the script. The screenwriting word processor itself abides with the strict film industry standards for page and margin formatting, and font required in screenplays.

KompoZer

There's no lack of Web page editors built on the Mozilla platform. The one in the SeaMonkey application suite is perhaps the best known, but we recommend checking out KompoZer.

KompoZer, which was unofficially spun from Nvu, is a stable and good free choice if you need some CSS support in your Web design. It also includes an FTP tool to upload your pages directly to your server.

(Another Mozilla-based Web page editor, BlueGriffon, is in current development to provide more advanced CSS support. But no release of it has been made yet.)

Kylo

What makes this, the only Web browser we chose to feature, unique from other Mozilla-based browsers? It's been developed to be used on TVs. Kylo's menus, icons, fonts, general overall user interface is specifically designed to be viewed on your big, wide, flatscreen set (plugged into your computer's video-out connection), as you sit about six feet away on your couch. A notable, very cool feature of Kylo is its on-screen virtual keyboard.

Wireless keyboards and mice are suggested for use with this TV Web browser. Kylo's developers also recommend a ring-shaped wireless mouse/remote control called The Loop that costs $99.