It’s true, certain Web sites you may like to visit don’t always update very often. So, you can visit them as much as you’d like, but they won’t change. That can be time wasting and sometimes annoying. Then again, if the site doesn’t update regularly, you may find that you miss out on important updates or news posted on the site. If you’ve ever been in that dilemma, I would like to present you with a solution right from Firefox. Let’s give it a spin!
1.) You can download the Update Scanner extension from this Web site. Install the add on and when prompted, restart Firefox.
2.) As I mentioned before, the Update Scanner monitors select Web sites for changes. That’s extremely useful for Web pages that don’t provide RSS feeds. I like to use the Update Scanner to see when some of my favorite Web sites are updated.
3.) To begin using the Update Scanner, go to a page you’d like to monitor. For my example, I will be using the AxCrypt download page.
4.) Right click on the page and select Scan Page for Updates.
5.) This box will then appear:
6.) Here you can set how often the page is scanned for changes and which changes will be detected. To set the options, just drag the slider across.
7.) The scan intervals range from five minutes to every day. I selected every day.
8.) Now, select which changes you’d like to be notified about. Your choices range from “All Web Page Changes Cause a Notification” to “Major Changes are Ignored (less than 1000 characters).”
9.) You can also choose whether or not you want to ignore a change to numbers. I set mine on “Medium Changes are Ignored” and I unchecked “Ignore Changes to Numbers.”
10.) After you’ve finished that, hit OK.
11.) Now, you should see a panel on the left hand side of your screen. You can click on this icon to continue adding Web sites:
12.) Next, to check for updates on the Web sites, click on the Scan button.
13.) On the button in the left pane, you will see the progress bar appear and the changes will be displayed in bold.
14.) To see the changes, click on the site and they will be highlighted.
I hope you enjoy this little gem of an add on!
~ Neil Patel