I'm not a huge fan of smileys ... the little emoticons we use to portray moods or expressions. It's not the smileys themselves, mind you, it's the software you have to install to use them. Many programs come with a sufficient set of smileys (eg. MSN Messenger). But sometimes you just can't find the right one and you'd like to have more to choose from. The unfortunate thing is that ALL the smiley programs I have seen are LOADED with spyware. Load the smileys ... welcome to spam world and spyware central.
I finally found a tool that defeats this problem. I use firefox almost exclusively now as my web browser. One of the extensions you can load is called Smiley Xtra. This little gem adds a button to your toolbar which can be used to toggle a window used to list/insert/preview your smileys. The smileys are NOT loaded on your machine, but simply linked to from many of the popular SMILEY servers. Very cool. 
So, you want smileys? Get firefox then get Smiley XTra.
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3 comments:
Thanks for the info. Does Messenger load the smileys onto your computer, or are they just the limited ones that they have that don't load spyware? What about Smiley Central? Those seem to be web based and not load into my computer, but let me know the scoop on those. Thanks!
chris, just update your database, using the options under extensions.
graybeard ... smiley central is one of the worst dude. do you use spybot or adaware? if you do, you'll probably find tons of registry entries that are tracking your surfing habits AND sending that info to there spam daterbases. :( also, have you noticed anything like mysearch menus anywhere? there are about 5 programs that i know of smiley central loads on your computer. i know, it's fun, but we gotta keep our computers clean these days. do a quick google search for "smiley central spyware" and you'll find lots of info.
Thanks for the info, Shaun. I'll do that and make sure everything gets cleaned out. They advertised "no spyware". How can they advertise that when they put spyware on a PC? I knew they put the other programs on there, not that I use them, but thought it was safe. Thanks for the info!
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