The top music add-ons for your favourite browsers

Gone are the days when the browser was used only for browsing. With hordes of such software clambering over each other to get the netizen's attention, it's only natural that various add-ons should start sprouting by the dozen to make browsing an inclusive experience.

Today, there are multitudes of add-ons of various kinds - especially for browsers like Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome - that deal with utilities as diverse as gaming, news and entertainment. Once you get the hang of these utilities, you will find little reason to ever exit your browser to change the playlist on your music player, or download that mp3 file.

GOOGLE CHROME


>>Buddy FM

Creating a customised playlist can be quite a pain, and here's where Buddy FM comes into play. Buddy FM automatically creates a personalised radio station out of your favourite musicians - expanding your collection of niche artistes by finding those similar to the ones you like and scouring the Internet for album art.

>>ZazooM
Zazoo takes you beyond just listening to music, enabling you to make some of your own. It even lets you turn YouTube into a karaoke machine. Zazoo adds scrolling lyrics to thousands of official music videos on the site, allowing you to partner with Rob Halford in letting out that ear-splitting refrain as he sings 'Painkiller'.

>>PartyCloud

Want to try your hand at DJing? PartyCloud, which gives access to over 20 million house and trance tracks from Sound Cloud, allows you to mix music right from the convenience of your browser. Providing all the DJ tools you may need to remix music, it enables you to scratch, beatsync and mix tracks before recording and sharing them.

>>Flutter

Hate having to grope around for the mouse each time you want to pause a YouTube video? A browser add-on that acts as Kinect for your computer, Flutter uses your computer's built-in camera to identify gestures aimed at playing, pausing or skipping songs and videos on websites such as YouTube, Pandora and Grooveshark.

---

FIREFOX


>>FindThatBand

With the FindThatBand add-on installed on your Firefox browser, all you have to do to research a band or artiste is select the name and right-click to have tonnes of information from websites like Grooveshark at your disposal. So, who was the lead singer of Rainbow? You would know if you got FindThatBand.

>>Grooveshredder

This Firefox add-on enables you to download mp3 files directly from online radio station Grooveshark. Once installed, it adds a download button to Grooveshark's 'Now Playing' section and a link to the preferences at the top of the page. However, the developers also mention that downloading music from the radio station is against its terms of use.