Boost for Facebook for Windows

As its name suggests, this free Firefox add-on aims to give Facebook users a little boost while using the popular social networking tool. Other than the skins options, we found the Boost for Facebook didn't quite live up to its name.

The program attaches a toolbar to the Firefox browser. There's a search field for looking up other Facebook features and users, as well as a shortcut button with links to manage your Facebook account. To use it, you have to be logged into Facebook, which you're supposed to be able to do from the toolbar. But more often than not, the log-in feature wouldn't let us sign in. We were able to log in directly to the Facebook site, but the toolbar never recognized our log in. On the rare occasion that we got the sign in feature to work, we found that, with the exception of the Boost Settings option, we couldn't get any of the shortcut links to work. Clicking on them returned nothing. Under the Boost Settings option, we were able to choose from tons of university and sports-themed skins.

We found it just as easy to access our Facebook account directly through the Web site, and since so many of the links didn't work, it added no extra value to the Facebook experience. There are just too many issues with this add-on for us to recommend it.