Earlier this week (this morning) I had a sorted break up with long-time-used FireFox add-on TwitterFox. Admittedly, I didn’t really plan for it – it just happened one day. Then there I was using the Web interface to update my Tweets. Which is fine, I actually prefer the Web interface over all the desktop apps that have been built.

Breaking up is like knocking over a coke machine. You can’t do it in one push, you’ve got to rock it back and forth a few times, and then it goes over. - Jerry Seinfeld

I had been unhappy with TwitterFox for a while (almost since the beginning), I was just using it because I needed something, it was the best I found, and I didn’t feel like doing more research on it.

Overall, it was an OK experience because I feel like I know exactly what I want in a Twitter updater. I know what I liked about TwitterFox, and, most importantly, what I hated about it.

TwitterFox Pros and Cons

Pros

• Presence – I have a browser open all day, and it’s right there, very fast to update, not a separate app eating up all my RAM
• @replies – It usually caught my @replies even when I wasn’t the 1st @ listed in a tweet

Cons

• Pop ups – I hate the intermittent pop ups of tweet. I’m sure it can be turned off, but I hated it
• Pop up interval – on the off chance that I wanted to read a tweet as it popped up, if the text was long, it didn’t stay popped up long enough to read. Then I’d have to stop and go read the tweet
• Lazy – it stopped catching all my @replies (the last month or so).
• Replying – the way replies functioned bothered the crap out of me
• I just didn’t like it.

Researching replacements

Just by looking at some people I follow on Twitter, I came up with a pretty good list of TwitterFox alternatives to investigate.

Apps

I don’t like the external apps for Twitter updates, but I’m going to give them all a try and see if I can get into it:

• Twhirl
• EventBox
• destroyTwitter
• Twitterific
• TweetDeck
• Twidget
• Digsby
• Snitter

In-browser options

• TwiterGadget
• TwitterBar
• TwitKit
• TwitBin

That’s what I’m planning to look in to right now. Are there any I missed? I’m open to pretty much anything right now. I was with TwitterFox for a while (maybe a year?) and generally not pleased with it, so I want to make sure to find something that really fits.