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By David Rothman

Web Search ProI’m kicking myself for not having earlier discovered Web Search Pro. This Firefox toolbar plays well with the latest beta of the browser.

Have a search going on? Want to try the Cambridge Dictionary of American English, then Webster’s Online Dictionary, without retyping the word? Then Web Search Pro is for you. The key is use the options menu, which contains a huge selection of search engine possibilities. Other plug-ins will allow similar feats, but Web Search Pro does it better. You can have a flat list of search engines in the order you choose, for example, or else you can group them by category, as the screen shot illustrates.

Beyond that, it’s easy to double-click on a word, then search for it within a search engine of your choice. And, yes, some popular book-related sites such as Amazon and Abebooks are included—but not Fictionwise or eBooks.com. What does that tell you about e-books?

The library angle: The Librarians’ Index to the Internet is among the sites whose search engines you can plug in, but on the whole, I see surprisingly few library-related possibilities. Hello, librarians? You may want to arrange for your system to be added. The one in Columbus, Ohio, is already there.

Related: Previews and screen shots of Web Search Pro. Meanwhile, yes, I’m really enjoying the inline spelling checker in the Firefox browser beta.

 
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