The Firefox add-on Dcurrency displays exchange rates of up to three currencies or metals in the Firefox status bar. It will automatically display three different currencies in the status bar upon installation. Each currency can be swapped for another one with a right-click.

The first currency on display is the reference currency which is always listed with a value of 1. The two remaining currencies or metals are then displayed with their exchange rate.

The program can display rates for six metals: Aluminium, Copper, Gold, Palladium, Platnium and Silver. These are displayed in the same fashion as currencies.

Yahoo Finance is used by the extension by default, with options to switch to Google Finance instead if that’s the preferred service. Rates are updated once every 15 minutes, with options to reduce the interval to one minute. It is however possible to update the exchange rate directly with a left-click.

One handy tool is the converter mode which you can enable in the extension options. This replaces the value of the reference currency with a form to enable currency conversions right in the Firefox status bar.

The add-on can display exchange rate graphs which visualize exchange rates over time.

Especially the option to look up exchange rates right from the status bar can be useful for Firefox users who sometimes need to make those currency conversions.

Firefox users can download and install Dcurrency from the official Mozilla Firefox add-ons repository.

It is then necessary to convert the country’s currency into a local currency to know how much an item costs. With every changing conversion rates, it is not easy to get an exact price. Even worse, you may need to use a calculator to convert the prices properly.

Tools can help you with that. I have reviewed two applications in the past that can convert prices on websites (see Automatically Convert Currencies On Web Pages and Converter, On Demand Unit Conversions In Firefox if you have missed them).

Simple Currency Converter is another option for Firefox users. It automates the currency conversion further by changing all prices on a website into currency selected during initial configuration of the add-on.

The Firefox add-on supports a total of 124 different currencies, from Euro, Dollar and British Pound to Yen, Chinese Renminbi and Swiss Francs. You can access the configuration menu with a right-click on the status bar icon and the selection of Options.

Here you can use the pulldown menu to select the currency that you want all other currencies converted to, as well as the price formatting.

The extension has two modes of operation. When it is active, it will automatically convert all currencies that it supports to the default currency selected by the user. This happens on the fly on all web pages that you load in Firefox.

The second mode is passive. You can disable automatic currency conversions and switch to on demand conversions. A right-click on the extension icon and the selection of Convert Page converts all currencies on the active page on the fly and without page reload.

Here are two screenshots. The first shows the original layout and price on Amazon’s UK website, the second the converted price after installing the Firefox extension.

The conversions are almost instantly, and do not seem to tax the computer’s resources more than necessary. I was not able to detect any slow-downs during tests.

Users can toggle between original and converted prices on websites with the keyboard shortcut ALT+SHIFT+CTRL+L.

The extension itself is very unobtrusive, and its two modes of operation should suite all user needs. The exchange rates are taken from Exchange Rates UK which update the rates constantly throughout the day.

A whitelist of sites would improve the extension further.

Firefox users can download Simple Currency Converter from the official Mozilla Firefox add-on repository.

Many central Europeans for instance like to shop in the UK, because the prices there are often cheaper even if additional shipping costs have to be paid. Check out the article How Customers Can Benefit From A Global Economy for additional information and recommendations.

One problem that customers encounter are that prices in other countries are often displayed in different currencies. It is possible to do a quick calculation to find out how much those goods are worth in their own currency but a tool that converts currencies automatically can be a real time saver.

Chrome Currency Converter is such a tool. The Chrome extension will automatically convert foreign currencies on web pages into a selected one. Supported are 37 different currencies that can be converted with one currency being the base currency that all others are converted to.

The extension detects prices in different formats, updates the currency rates every hour and can display the original prices next to the converted ones.

The Amazon UK website looks for instance like this with the extension set to convert prices automatically to Euro.

currency converter

Chrome Currency Converter is setup to work on all websites by default. It is possible to change this behavior so that it will only convert currencies on whitelisted domains.

Additional available options include displaying the origin price next to the converted one, rounding prices, selected the decimal separator and using a thousands separator.

A mini currency converter is available by pressing Alt-Shift-Ctrl-C, useful to convert prices that are not displayed on a web page.

mini currency converter

Chrome Currency Converter is an excellent extension for the Google Chrome browser, especially for users who like to buy goods in other countries, or work with web pages that show currencies.

Today I receive €675 for $1000 which is €175 less than two years before. This has some consequences for non-US webmasters because advertising programs that pay in Dollar are becoming unattractive to them. I’m happy that I have one advertisement program that pays in Euro and they will soon generate more revenue than Adsense is generating which I never thought would be possible.

There is no end in sight unfortunately and the only positive aspect that I can find is that it becomes much cheaper to buy goods and service in the United States.

Want some examples ? Taken from Amazon.com and Amazon.de, in brackets the exchange price)

Item	Dollar	Euro
Playstation 3 40 GB	$399 (€269)	€399 ($591)
Xbox 360 Pro Value Bundle	$349.99 (€235)	€349.89 ($518)
Apple MacBook Pro MA895	$1919.98 (€1295)	€1798.95 ($2665)

Even if you add import tax on the US items you will make a great bargain buying many items in the United States. I really hope nevertheless that the Dollar will rise again in the near future but I honestly can’t see this happen.

Update 26 January 2012: Exchange rates have improved a bit in past years. Lets see how this turns out for a comparable product.

Xbox 360 Slim (US price: $199.99, in Euro 151,20€ – Euro price: 177€, in US Dollar $233,10).

You are not saving anywhere near as much as you would in 2007. If you add tax and shipping costs, you’d actually pay more for the product in the United States than you would in your home Euro country.

Playstation 3
Xbox 360
MacBook