SiteLauncher is a magnificent add-on for Firefox which not only gives you ease of use and marvelous simplicity, but also delivers free milk and cookies whenever its sensors detect that you’re getting hungry. Hey, one can always hope, right?
SiteLauncher allows you to easily visit your favorite websites in Firefox via hotkeys. You simply press Ctrl + Space (this can be changed) to open the SiteLauncher window…
…and then press the hotkey for the website you want to visit (i.e. from the above example, pressing “d” would open dotTech [.org]). Of course the websites you have set to work with SiteLauncher are fully user-defined so you can put whatever websites you want on there.
I’ve used SiteLauncher for a few months now and have found it to be a very invaluable tool. Not only does it allow you to get rid of that pesky Bookmarks toolbar in Firefox, but it gives you access to all of your favorite and most visited sites at the tap of a couple keys. Here are the full features as per the developer:
- Create super quick keyboard shortcuts to URLs and bookmarklets you need access to often.
- Instant visual feedback from the Launcher panel means no need to actually memorize anything but the one hotkey.
- Just about any character key can be associated with a site, you’re not limited to a-z and 0-9.
- Highly customizable appearance – change colors, sizes, transparency, etc.
- Make use of shortcuts with visual feedback, using the Launcher hotkey; or without, using the Direct-to-Site hotkey.
- Arrange and group related shortcuts to have them appear together in a visually meaningful way.
- Set the Launcher to open sites in current or new tab
- Optionally set the Launcher to appear on startup instead of a regular homepage
Impressive feature list, no? I can’t find anything wrong with this program, really. Its a very useful addition to a very useful browser.
You may download SiteLauncher from the following links:
Version Reviewed: v1.5.0, Released May 17, 2009
Supported OS: Windows, Mac, Linux
[This article has been contributed to dotTech [.org] by Kinetix with minor edits from Ashraf.]