by InspiredWritingResearch

Created on: January 22, 2009   Last Updated: March 24, 2011

My favorite Firefox extenisions include an addon called Shareaholic - a very apt name for an addon for internet writers and bloggers who can't resist meeting up every 5 minutes on Twitter or Facebook to see what everyone else thinks of the latest new technology, software or gadget! After hearing great reports about from online writing buddies I decided to install it - and to write this Shareaholic review.

Apparently the new Shareaholic addon allows you bookmark and share favorite web pages with your contacts instantly - without even leaving the browser. It works with e-mail too, making it even easier to share webpages with followers - who may also be readers.

It seems to be better than all the current bookmarkers or Firefox addons for several reasons.

Firstly, those long lists of social networking sites or buttons that are at present scattered all over our desktops or packed into our browsers can be accessed 'on one button alone' with the little green Share icon.

Also, with the new Shareaholic Firefox addon it will so much quicker and easier for us to submit web pages we're reading or researching to our favorite bookmarking services for sharing.

The list of social bookmarking sites it works with includes:

• Delicious,

• Yahoo Buzz

• Digg

• Facebook

• Twitter

• ycombinator

• FriendFeed

• Magnolia

• Stumbleupon

• bit.ly

• weheartit

• Meneame

• Gmail,

• Twine (bookmarks and notes)

• Kaboodle

• tumblr

• tipjoy and soup.io.

Shareaholic also lets you know how popular a web page is by showing how well it has been voted up on some services such as Delicious or Digg.

It works with Flock! and also with Firefox 2.0+ and Songbird, both on PCs and Macs. I'm also told it's free of spy or malware - some online writing buddies are using it OK. It seems to be one of the Firefox Addons which are popular with bloggers!

Bloggers who want to reach their readers with personal recommendations for further reading will find this extension very useful. It could also be useful for teachers and tutors who could share useful resources with their students at the touch of a button. Students or blog readers could read the useful content presented to them, and then participate in forums or online discussions or polls on the content.

One handy service that Shareaholic gives access to is Twitter. Upon clicking the Shareaholic icon, options are presented to the user in the form of a list. All the user has to do is to scroll down the list to find the service upon which they wish to share the content - and check the relevant box.

A drop-down menu then appears which enables the Firefox addon user to select which category they want to place their 'shared item' in. In the case of Twitter, the @ character then appears in a 'tweet' box, followed by the url the user wishes to share. It is even possible to add a preface such as 'reading this' or 'browsing' or 'check this out.'

Firefox has been criticised in the past for being slower than some other services, but this Shareaholic Firefox addon should make sharing useful or entertaining content with friends, contacts or readers much, much quicker!

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