The humble web browser has become an integral part of peoples lives. It gives us access to the biggest pool of information available - the Internet - whilst providing the tools to navigate its unimaginably large scope with ease. It's for this reason that extensions/add-ons, additional software which adds extra functionality to the browser, have become very popular in recent years. People want software customised to facilitate their needs and wants, not what a team of developers think is best.

I've come to rely on many add-ons of late. In the interest of sharing these, I've chosen ten of my favourites for both Chrome and Firefox browsers.

1. Lazarus Form Recovery
Firefox | Chrome
This awesome extension does exactly what it claims - form recovery. Have you ever written a lengthy piece of text within a web form, hit submit, and had the server time-out? Or perhaps the auto-logoff 'feature' caught you off guard? Sometimes you can hit 'back' on your browser and have all your text remain intact. Other times, however, you're greeted with a black canvas, ready for you to re-type your message. Fortunately, Lazarus logs all the forms you fill out, and keeps them in an encrypted database for future reference. If you're concerned about privacy, you can set it to disable logging of secure https pages. It's a brilliant safeguard to have.

2. ChatZilla
Firefox only
ChatZilla is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client based on the Mozilla framework. It's a neat add-on to have if you're still communicating via this 22 year old technology. I know I do, and so should you!

3. ChromoDoro
Chrome only
Chrome's answer to the Pomodoro. "What's a Pomodoro?" I hear you ask. It's an Italian kitchen timer. Now why would you want a kitchen timed in your browser? It's the perfect way to use the Pomodoro Technique whilst working within your browser, of course! For people who want a structured study/work system, this is a really cool way to go about it. The extension adds a timer to the browser that when activated, initiates a countdown from 25 minutes. When the timer's up, you have the opportunity to take a five minute break (also timed). Want to know the specifics? Read about it here.

4. Net Usage Item
Firefox only
Keep finding yourself capped due to heavy Internet usage? This add-on will provide you with a constantly updated percentage of your used quota, including a marker informing you where you should be that month. Go beyond that mark, and you're setting yourself up for being capped. It's a handy tool for managing your Internet usage in Firefox.

5. SmoothScroll
Chrome only
For some unknown reason, Chrome doesn't natively support smooth scrolling. Fortunately this has been solved with the arrival of SmoothScroll, a customisable smooth scrolling extension. The default settings are a little odd, but after some tweaking, the result is silky smooth scrolling. For reference, these are the settings I'm using:

Frames per second: 60
Animation time in milliseconds: 200
Stride size per scroll in pixel: 50
Pulse Scale: 2
Pulse Normalize: 1

6. Firebug
Firefox only
Unlike Chrome, Firefox doesn't support element inspection natively. Firebug allows Firefox users to inspect the elements of a given web page. This includes viewing and editing markup on a live page to quickly determine how changes will affect particular elements. It's a handy debugging tool for web developers.

7. UndoIt! (Firefox equivalent, Undo Closed Tabs Button)
Firefox | Chrome
UndoIt! is a simple concept. A one click solution to restoring the last tab closed. Accidently close a tab you needed? Just hit undo and you're set!

8. Flashblock
Firefox | Chrome
Flash can be a pain sometimes. It can be used for annoying purposes (automatically loading videos), malware (via Flash exploits) and uses up valuable CPU cycles in machines such as netbooks. Flashblock solves this by replacing flash content with an icon inside a blank box. If you want to see the Flash content, you click on the box to activate it. If you trust a site, you can add it to the whitelist so that Flash can run on that particular domain at any time.

9. Turn Off the Lights
Chrome only
Turn Off the Lights darkens the screen exposing Flash elements. This is handy when watching videos online, similar to the YouTube feature 'lights off'.

10. DownloadThemAll!
Firefox only
The download manager in Firefox is dismal. It's unreliable, often slow, and is limited in the amount of features it offers. DownloadThemAll! solves this problem by integrating a full-fledged download manager right into the browser itself. Batch, segmented and closely controlled downloading is no longer an issue with this brilliant add-on installed.

Now that I've shared my picks, I want to hear yours! Let me know what you use in the comments section below! :)

Data backup is one of the most critical aspects to computing. There's always a risk of losing data when using our PCs, whether this is due to a hardware, software or user fault. It's for this reason that backup routines must be performed regularly to ensure irreplaceable data can be restored in the case of unfortunate events. But what's the best way to do this? I've collected five of my favourite methods to help spread the word about the importance of data redundancy.

Dropbox
http://www.dropbox.com/
Dropbox is a fusion of data synchronisation and backup. The great thing about this product is that you can share data between computers via dedicated online storage. All you need to do is install the client software to each of your computers, of which a custom folder is created i.e. your 'Dropbox'. Any files you place in this 'box' can be accessed via your online account, or through any PC directly via the aforementioned client software.

This software is a blessing when working on large documents where you're constantly switching between computers. Not only can you work off a single copy in the cloud, but you have essentially created an off-site backup - which is very important in case of tragedies such as natural disasters, or large scale local mishaps.

PaperBack
http://www.ollydbg.de/Paperbak/index.html
PaperBack is really neat. It combines the reliability of paper with the wonders of compression and high DPI printing. PaperBack will take any file and turn it into a bunch of strategically placed dots on a piece of everyday copy paper. To read the data back, you just scan it back in! According to the developers website, up to 3MB of data can be stored on a page. This might not sound like much, but for vital files such as assignments, this is a great addition to your backup arsenal!

Skydrive
http://skydrive.live.com/
Skydrive is similar to Dropbox in that you store data in the cloud (online). The main difference is that there's no client software as it's all web based. The great thing about Skydrive is its large 25GB of free storage, compared to 2GB on Dropbox. It's another great off-site solution for your photos and vital assignments - and a lifesaver if you have a habit of leaving your flash drive at home!

External HDD and RAID1
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAID
An external Hard Disk Drive (HDD) is a simple on-site backup solution for protecting data against HDD failure. Due to the delicate nature of HDDs, it's not unheard of for internal drives to fail suddenly. Regularly copying data to an external drive is a quick and easy way to ensure you have a safeguard in place for your critical data. However, being an on-site solution means you're not protected against fires, floods, and any other nasty phenomena which may damage the device.

RAID1 (or Redundant Array of Independent Disks) is a storage set up where you insert a second internal HDD into your PC solely for backup purposes. A RAID1 configuration will automatically mirror any data you store on your main HDD to the second one. In the case of either HDD dying, you still have your data intact on the second HDD. Of course, if both die, you're out of luck.

Ubuntu One
https://one.ubuntu.com/
This is one for the open source folk among us. Ubuntu One is the Linux community's alternative to Dropbox. You get 2GB of free storage space, which can be accessed online. You can also backup your contacts which is quite handy. At this point in time, the synchronisation facilities are limited to the Linux platform.

There's many websites which offer online storage for free, or a small fee. And there's several other ways to backup your data, such as flash drives and optical media. Choose your favourite methods and use them regularly - it'll save many headaches when bad things happen! :)