What you need are plug-ins--extra programs that can make your browser do anything from displaying real-time video to stealing your money. And the great thing about plug-ins is that most of them are free! Just spend half an hour downloading, an hour installing, and two hours reconfiguring Windows, and your browser will never be the same!

Here are some of the most exciting plug-ins around. These programs are sure to drive you wild!

Make the site beautiful! Make the site romantic! Make the site of no practical value! Yes, make it Fabio! Sites supporting RealFabio will grow long blond hair, huge pecs, and long-stemmed jungle roses. Fabio did not write the plug-in himself, but he admits that "a program can speak for me when I cannot put any of my feelings into code."

Streaming, real-time, 30-fps, HDTV-quality video! How does Cinema Slideshow do it? Through a special, patent-pending technique that compresses 30 frames into one image with the dimensions of a full-sized icon.

Meet other Webheads in such exciting virtual reality social milieus as laboratories, ships’ holds, and sewers with this expected-to-be-popular viewer for the Virtual Rodent Modeling Network (VRMN). Morph from mouse to rat to wolverine as you make new friends and help spread bubonic plague. The texturing is extraordinary, allowing you to see every hair on your friends’ bodies as long as you wait the required 10 minutes per download.

If you play games on the Web, you’ll soon need this must of a plug-in. With Migraine installed, surfing the Web will give you plenty of opportunities to solve puzzles, capture mischievous demons, and watch amazing colors flash across your screen. And that’s just while reconfiguring your system! When a game really starts going, you’ll soon think of your entire computer as one big migraine.

The number of documents on the Internet using Stucco’s Portable Layout Optical Presentation (PLOP) format has doubled in the last six months, and by the end of the year may well reach 14. Pratfall lets you view these documents, which include legal briefs, VCR instructions, and insurance applications in their original hexidecimal form.

The first fully-functional calendar program for the World Wide Web that is not one of the others, TimeOut lets you post your entire schedule where everyone else in the world can see it. You can link events to other people’s calendars or other sites, and download extra holidays at no extra cost.

While you sit complacently reading a Web page, HyperHog is busy in the background, following every link and downloading everything it finds. When it’s done, it downloads everything linked to the last six pages you visited. Then it starts working on the U.S. tax code. Soon it uses proprietary search tools to find every page containing the word the. Then it turns around and uploads all of these files onto your private Web site. The plug-in keeps working as long as you have a cooperative ISP.

The problem with standard chat technologies is that they require you to interface with other people, who are seldom swayed by your arguments and never laugh at your jokes. VChat solves this problem by providing virtual people guaranteed to say what you want to hear (or at least type what you want to read). Sites can include stock phrases like "I never thought about it that way" and "Boy, are you sexy!"

Files in thousands of formats are available on the Web, and EschewView allows you to read as many as eight of them. Supported file formats include WordStar 1.0, dBASE II, VisiCalc, Lotus Manuscript, and Modern Jazz. An upgrade to the next version, which will include support for Microsoft Word 4.0, will be available for little more than the cost of the program.

This collaboration program allows up to 18 users from all over the world to offer their two cents worth as you create and refine a document. Special Don’t-Miss-a-Thing technology ensures that everything anyone types ends up in your document, while control of the mouse is passed to whoever has the most RAM.

Want to listen to the latest music without having to download large files first? Grab this little 7.3MB quickie for all the big-time audio fun you’ll ever hope to have. Once you have the plug-in installed, all you need do is find one of the six Kazoo -supporting sites, click a link to the cool sound of your choice, and download the 7.4MB upgrade to Kazoo 1.0a. Once you get Kazoo up and running, you’ll never get it out of your system!

Perhaps the most necessary plug-in of them all, QuickHTML lets you view Web pages transparently from within your browser. What better way to enjoy HTML code?