Facebook wants to control how many words you type. Whether typing on someone’s wall or updating your status, Facebook likes to keep control over your thoughts. It accomplishes this task by limiting the number of words allowed per box to 420. Now, we don’t condone writing more than 420 words (or even near that number) per Facebook post. But, just in case you want to, there’s a Firefox add-on that makes this easier.

The Facebook Status Counter counts how many words you have added to your Facebook status box – before it’s too late (saving you a lot of time and trouble). The counter begins counting as soon as you begin typing. For reasons unknown, Facebook has not added a counter of its own, so there’s no way to know if you’ve gone over the word count limit until it is too late.

Why You May Need the Status Counter

The most obvious reason for using the Status Counter is to save time. After all, nobody wants to write out more than 400 words only to be told that a status update is too long. You could type up your update in a Word document before you add it to Facebook, but who has the time? Aside from preventing you from going over that pesky word limit, there’s another reason to use the Firefox add-on.

Sometimes, it’s just better to cut down on what you want to say. Limiting yourself to a certain number of words will ensure that you don’t say too much. It will also force you to become a clever thinker – writing down complex thoughts in a few words isn’t an easy task. If you think that your Facebook posts may be too long, the Status Counter will do you a world of good.

A Free Firefox Tool

The Status Counter is also a free tool. In fact, it joins a long line of useful free Firefox tools. Even though Facebook’s team overlooked the counter issue, someone out there created a useful tool that will help you with every status you write. The Facebook Counter also works when you’re posting a note to someone else’s wall – just in case you have a lot to say.

Once you go over that set word amount, careful editing is your only option. Of course, you can simply add another status to back up the first one, but this isn’t recommended. If you use Firefox regularly, and you are an avid Facebook fan, you will appreciate all that the Status Counter can do for you.

If the Status Counter interests you, make sure to download this add-on straight from the Status Counter website: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-status-counter-by-/.

Note: at the time of this writing, Facebook has not fixed it’s counting blunder. Yet, there’s still a word limit that you must abide by. We certainly hope that the people over at Facebook will realize this fault, and create a counter within the near future. If this is the case, the information contained in this article is no longer valid.