Adobe PDF is just about the best format for sending and receiving documents. For example, as a classical music lover I can tell you that most music scores available online are in PDF, because PDFs are small and are easy to upload and send via email. But what if you need to create or edit a PDF document, or fill in a PDF form? That could be a problem if you don’t have Adobe’s software installed. Well, not really. There is a number of free tools to create and edit PDF documents that don’t need to be downloaded or installed – you can use them from any computer that has an Internet connection. Here are 5 top tools to create and edit PDFs online.

1.

I know, this is a pretty obvious choice. But really, all you need to do is upload the file you with to transform into PDF, edit it, click  Save As, and save it in PDF format. No need to install any software.

2.

This free PDF editor lets you:

• Combine PDF. Create single polished PDF files by merging multiple files together.
• Edit PDF pages. Quickly rearrange, reorder and delete the pages from existing PDF files.
• Secure PDF. Protect the contents of PDF files with password-based security.
• Update PDF metadata. Make PDF files more useful and usable by setting the document information (metadata) fields, including author, title, subject and keywords.

3.

PDFescape is a great free online editor. No need to download anything, no need to register, no watermarks. It’s really handy for filling in a creating PDF forms. With PDFescape you can fill in PDF forms, add text and graphics, add links, and even add new form fields to a PDF file. Other features include:

• Open PDF Files from your local computer
• View PDF Files discovered on the web
• Fill Out PDF Forms using PDF form fields
• Forget Hand Writing with the typewriter style tool & complete non-fillable forms
• Edit PDF files & forms
  • Add Text & Shapes to PDF files, allowing customization & markup of PDF
  • Move & Delete Pages in PDF files
  • Insert Links other websites & pages in your PDF files
  • Create New Form Fields, allowing others to easily fill our your PDF forms
  • Edit Existing Content using whiteout tools
  • Rotate Default Page Views using page rotation tool
• Save PDF files to your local computer or your online account

4.

PDFVue Beta is a free online service that lets you upload PDFs or open them from a URL, edit them, and then download the edited document. You will be able to fill in and create PDF forms, add text, images, and links to PDF files, rotate and delete pages, and more. There is a very straight forward Quick Start Guide on the website, so you won’t have a problem finding your way around.

Another great thing about PDFVue is that you can download a Firefox add-on, that will let you view and edit PDFs even if you don’t have Adobe Reader installed on your computer. Unlike Adobe’s products, PDFVue is very light on system resources, which makes it ideal for less powerful computers.

5.

With PDF converter you can convert commonly used files (MS Office, Open Office, graphic images, vector graphic and other formats) to PDF. Example: you need to convert a Power Point (PPT) file into PDF. Use the “Browse” button to locate the source file on your local PC, select it and click the “Convert” button. Done!

If you know of other free online PDF editors/creators that don’t need to be downloaded and installed, please let us know in your comments!

If you’ve recently visited the Firefox add-ons website, I’m sure you liked its new design and organization. Now it’s a lot more user-friendly and finding and installing add-ons has never been easier. But that’s not all – the new Collections and the Add-On Collector extension are the real corkers!

So, what are Collections? Simple, really – they are packs with various add-ons, themes, and language packs. For example, there is a collection called Reference Desk, which is really handy for students. This collection consists of 13 add-ons, including Hyperwords (one of my favourites), Merriam-Webster dictionary, and Read It Later – a handy little add-on that lets you bookmark pages you want to read later without adding them to your actual bookmarks.

But what I really like about it all is that you can create your own Collections.  To create one, all you need to do is log in with your Mozilla account, put together your own Collection, and make it either public or private.

Another great improvement is a tool called Add-on Collector.

It lets you control your add-ons like never before. With Add-on Collector you can:

• Access your favourite collections from Firefox

Collections that you mark as favourites in the Collection Directory appear in a special part of the Add-ons Manager. You’ll be able to stay up-to-date and view the contents of each collection.

• Share add-ons with the Publishing Menu

Each add-on you install is easily shared with a friend via e-mail or published to one of your collections through a publishing menu.

• Receive notifications

Collector will alert you when one of your favourite collections has a new item, and mark it for you to review later.

• Automatically publish your installed add-ons to a collection

Auto-publisher functionality keeps your collection continuously updated with your latest add-ons, keeping your friends who subscribe up-to-date.

I’m really pleased about these changes. Well done Mozilla!

Ensuring browsing safety is one of the major concerns of equally users and browser developers these days. And it’s understandable because let’s face it – a lot of people practically live online. We buy and sell stuff online, we do online banking, we socialize online, and we even get online degrees. With all that going on it’s a must to protect yourself. Firefox is a very good browser from security point of view because of it’s useful extensions. Here’s a list of top 5 Firefox security add-ons:

1. NoScript

In my opinion, NoScript is one of the best security add-ons out there. It lets you specify which websites are allowed to run active content, like Javascript, Java code and other executable codes, thus protecting you from cross-site scripting attacks (XSS) and Clickjacking attacks. There was an Adblock Plus issue, but the developers fixed it and apologized.

2. Adblock Plus

Adblock Plus is the most popular Firefox security add-on with more than 730 thousand weekly downloads. What it does is very simple and very useful – it blocks ads and banners.  All you need to do is right-click on a banner and choose “Adblock” from the context menu – the banner won’t be downloaded again. You can also replace parts of the banner address with star symbols and block similar banners.

3. WOT

WOT (Web of Trust) warns about sites that try to scam you, infect your computer with malware, or deliver spam. WOT’s colour-coded icons show you ratings for 21 million websites – safe green, suspicious yellow, and dangerous red. WOT reputation rating combines four components: trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy, and child safety.

4. BetterPrivacy

BetterPrivacy protects against undeletable long-term cookies, a new generation of so-called ‘Super-Cookies’, that have invaded the Internet.  It also blocks long-term tracking from Google, YouTube, Ebay, and other sites.

5. Stealther

If you want to surf the Web without leaving a single trace on your computer, then Stealther is the add-on for you. With it you can temporarily disable browsing history (in the address bar as well), cookies, downloaded files history, disk cache, saved forms info, sending of ReferrerHeader, and recently closed tabs list. All those don’t get wiped for good, so you can get them back whenever you need them in one simple click.

If you’ve ever used Firefox, you probably would never go back to IE, because Firefox is so much more comfortable to use, intuitive, and fast. And there are all those add-ons that, in my opinion, make it simply the best.

However, having too many add-ons can make the browser slow down and annoy you. To make it fast again, simply run Internet Optimizer, which is part of Auslogics BoostSpeed. With Internet Optimizer you can optimize your connection and browser settings. After running this tool Firefox will be as fast as ever.

But, to tell you the truth, with fast Internet connections available these days speed is not that much of an issue (unless something is really wrong with your settings). I mean, so pages will take 2 milliseconds less to render and your download speed will improve a bit – that’s not really a big deal anymore!

What is important, though, is your browsing experience – usually you don’t sit there for ages waiting for a page to load, but rather waste a lot of time clicking links one by one, looking for the entry you need in your right-click menu, and so on.

Luckily, Firefox has add-ons and here is a list of the ones that save me a lot of time and speed up my browsing experience.

Menu Editor

Menu Editor is a wonderful add-on that lets you manage and organize your Firefox right-click menu. You can rearrange items and group them together to make the context menu less cluttered and confusing. This extension is especially useful if you have a lot of add-ons installed.

AutoPager

AutoPager is a great extension which can save you a lot of time by loading the next page of a site automatically. It does it in-line, so all you have to do to see the next page is scroll down. This add-on is a real time saver when I’m looking for something on Google, because I don’t have to keep clicking the page numbers anymore.

Hyperwords

For me this is the handiest extension ever. Basically, Hyperwords makes all the words on the page interactive. You can select any text on any page, right-click it, and lots of options will appear in the context menu. You can do a search, you can look up references, translate the word, and much more.

LittleFox

If you want to get the most out of your screen and especially if you have a lot of add-ons installed and they take up a lot of screen space, LittleFox will help. This extension will make items smaller and ensure optimal screen usage.

Snap Links

Snap Links will allow you to open multiple links in new tabs by drawing a box around them. No more  clicking one link at a time! No need to say that this is extremely handy for opening search engine results. Links can also be opened in new windows, new tabs on a new window, copied to clipboard, bookmarked or downloaded.