Tweetbar is a freeware Firefox-sidebar based client for the Twitter web service. It’s a nice idea, but I found it didn’t work too well (for me, anyway).

• It conflicted with the security add-on NoScript. Tweetbar could not log on to Twitter unless I temporarily turned off NoScript. (After logging on, it had no problems retrieving information, though.) There’s probably a workaround for this I would try to find if I wanted to keep using Tweetbar, but, for the following reasons, I don’t.
• Loss of spell-check. I use Firefox’s built in spell-check — a lot. Right click on a text field, select “Spell check this field,” and you’re off to the races. Not available (apparently) with Tweetbar, meaning I’d have to add steps (i.e. difficulty) to post with Tweetbar. Why, when I could just open Twitter itself and still have fully functioning spell-check?
• Entry box display mangling. When I tried entering a tweet which scrolled past the initial size of Tweetbar’s entry box, the display did not properly follow and I could no longer see what I was typing. It’s bad enough I can’t check the spelling mechanically, but I can’t even see what I’ve typed to use my own brain for spell checking? Uh-uh. No thank you.
• The key combination to bring up Tweetbar (Shift + Ctrl + T) didn’t work for me. I don’t know why. Nothing happened. I had to manually open it using the menu. Annoying process.

There’s probably more, but that’s enough. Overall I was left wondering, as long as I already have Firefox open, why not just load Twitter itself into a tab of its own? It works far better and easier as far as I can tell.

Posted: March 31st, 2008 under Product Reviews, Software Reviews.
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