Firefox 2 addons that I now use after playing and testing out many.
Listed below are Firefox 2 addons that I now use after playing and testing out many. Except for the last, none are dependent on another website, eg del.icio.us and hence are ’standalone.’ The specifics of how I use each is also stated. All in all, the speed and enjoyment of my web experience has grown as a result of using these Firefox addons. Once installed, some addons require configuration for their optimal operation (ie Tools>Add-ons>select one>Options). Some addons are launched via the Tools menu whereas others provide icons to be then dragged onto Firefox’s toolbars (ie View>Toolbars>Customize). Also check out these addons recommended for web developers.
| Shareaholic - Used for bookmarking web pages to social bookmarking sites. Additionally, this addon is great for seeing a page’s Digg count (with comment count) and Del.icio.us saves. These and other figures are shown in the dropdown list of the addon’s toolbar icon. Using this addon for checking a page’s Digg count is superior to that of the Smart Digg Button which compromises privacy and speed by looking up every page browsed on digg.com without providing a comment count. |
| Adblock Plus - Clears banner ads. I browse in IE or SeaMonkey to view ads. |
| FireFTP - a simple FTP client, and a backup to the FileZilla app. |
| Customize Google - Removes ads from Gmail and rids it of the unnecessary sideboxes, eg invitations. The addon can also be configured to enable the continuous scrolling of Google’s search results without ever having to go to a Page 2. |
| Google Toolbar - I hide this toolbar and rather customize the browser’s other toolbars by moving onto them the Pagerank and Gmail icons that this addon provides. The Pagerank in the toolbar shows Google’s ranking of importance for each page visited. This can jeopardize the privacy of one’s browsing history to Google (like the Smart Digg Button) if it was a concern. The Gmail icon when pressed opens one’s Gmail account page and in the icon’s dropdown list are displayed the subjects of any unread emails. There is some delay in showing the subjects of newly arrived emails unless the icon is refreshed manually. I also have the Google Talk app in the system tray for receiving instant popup notifications of new emails that arrive which includes a preview of their content. |
| 2 Pane Bookmarks - Alters the Bookmarks sidebar by splitting it horizontally into two with a list of all the bookmarks of the currently selected folder at top shown in the new bottom pane. Then, to add a bookmark, I drag its Favicon in the address bar to the desired folder and do away with adding a description. I also customize the browser’s navigation toolbar and place in it the ‘Bookmarks’ icon that quickly toggles the Bookmarks sidebar on and off. In my view, this addon makes using Firefox’s bookmarks fast by the way I have described. |
| Locate in Bookmark Folders - after searching for a bookmark, this enables its parent folder to be located (right-click bookmark > locate). |
| Tab Mix Plus - Gives added functionality to the browser’s Tabs feature. I use this addon primarily to show an ‘x’ at the right end of the tab bar as was seen in FireFox 1 (ie Tab Mix Plus Options > Display > Tab bar > Close tab button) and this makes closing opened tabs quicker. The addon also allows any unread tabs to have their titles altered into a different appearance, eg italics (ie Tab Mix Plus Options > Display > Tab > Unread tabs > Customize Styles > Unread tabs > Italic Black) and this removes some confusion when many tabs are open. |
| FasterFox - speeds up page loading. |
| DownThemAll - speeds up downloads and has an improved manager window. |
| FireBug - for dissecting and modifying displayed pages. Click the browser’s bottom right pixel to open up the FireBug browser and use the ‘inspect’ function to examine the HTML elements of any page. |
| DT Whois - a button for the toolbar that opens a new tab showing the whois information for any page’s domain. |
| Bugmenot - doesn’t always work but often useful for quickly bypassing popular sites’ login boxes via the browser’s right-click context menu as used on top of the login box. |
| ChromEdit Plus - for more easily editing and tweaking the configuration files of Firefox itself, or otherwise they can be hard to locate. |
| iMacros - I am yet to use this but it is apparently good for automating repetitious browser tasks . |
| OneClick Installer for Wordpress - This enables the quick installation of any Wordpress plugin from its source webpage into a self-hosted Wordpress site. The full addon actually consists of a Wordpress plugin and a cooperating Firefox addon. |
| FireShot - Take screenshots of webpages for very easy saving and emailing. Beats ctrl-PrtSc. |
2 Comments
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At 23 Oct 2007, matt wrote:
Nice Post! Here is another useful post
http://seomization.blogspot.com/2007/10/fire-fox-addons.html
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At 15 Mar 2008, exinco wrote:
nice. i wrote about new firefox 3.0 beta 4. features can be read at my blog
