AniWeather for Firefox for Windows

There's no shortage of weather-related add-ons for Firefox. Cleeki's AniWeather stands out by combining a high degree of customizability with animated displays and real-time weather data for thousands of locations worldwide. You can quickly switch between different locations and access the conditions, forecast, radar information, and other data for each. You can place AniWeather's unobtrusive icons where you like in Firefox and mouse over to expand animated views with more details, or click them to keep the expanded view open. It's free, too.

AniWeather uses a Web-based configuration process that is otherwise like any other program's properties, with check boxes for selecting a variety of typical options, which we accessed via Firefox's add-ons manager. It's also possible to access the program's preferences through its Web site via links on the animated pages that open when you click any of its icons. First order of business was to enter our location and set it as the default, though you can toggle between five locations worldwide by simply selecting one from pop-up page. The program offers a number of graphic report options for U.S. locations, including satellite, radar, UV, precipitation, and temperature. We opted to place AniWeather's icon console at the right-hand side of the navigation bar, though we also tried the menu bar, bookmarks toolbar, and status bar. AniWeather's small suite of icons blended in nicely, displaying the current temperature, the day's high temperature, and several icons, including a flashing icon alerting us to a local high-water warning. Hovering our cursor over the precipitation, temperature, or UV icons called up real-time satellite imagery; clicking any icon opened an HTML page with much more detailed information and additional displays.

A weather widget needs to be available yet unobtrusive and to deliver more information on demand. AniWeather's customizability makes it an excellent fit for Firefox. We especially like the flashing alert icon, which is visible enough to catch the eye without taking up much real estate.