Top 10 Best Firefox Add-Ons for Improved Browsing Discussion

By Jay Garmon

Firefox has quietly become a forgotten browser lately, with Google Chrome taking on the mantle of preferred geek browser. Don't let the hype fool you. Firefox holds roughly 30% of the browser market, second only to Internet Explorer. And while Google Chrome may grab headlines for its excellent extensions (including the fake ones), Firefox takes a back seat to no one in the browser plug-in department. Below is the top 10 best Firefox add-ons to improve your browsing experience.

Read the full content of this Article: Top 10 Best Firefox Add-Ons for Improved Browsing

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I personally cannot live without Multi-Row bookmarks and Linkification

 

May be personal choice/needs, I ve the following essential list in order of preference.

1. AdBlockPlus
2. DownThemAll
3. FireGesture
4. Weave
5. IETab
6. TinyMenu
7. DownloadStatusBar
8. PDFDownload

 

If Chrome didn't already have most of these extensions, while being faster, I'd switch back. I wonder what the % for Chrome use is, if FF is 30%.

 

It's never been fast for me. Firefox has been consistently faster than both Chrome and Opera, at least for me.

 

I'd say you're the exception then...?

 

I can't live without mouse gestures anymore, ever since I first started using it in Firefox 1.5. Then, after making the jump to Opera (mouse gestures built in!), I also installed gestures in IE for the occasional sites that load better in IE.

 

The essentials:

- Fox splitter: it allows to open multiple webpages in the same windows. Amazingly convenient to compare texts and the like.
- Adblock plus: to disable on websites doing a responsible use of ads.
- Downloadhelper: to easily grab videos.
- A few dictionnaries.
- Noscript: java when you need it only.
- Fireftp: no need to explain.

 

What happens to NoScript?

 

I only use NoScript, FireGestures, and LiveHTTPHeaders (and prefer Opera and Chromium over FF ).

 

I am also a fan of Multi-Row bookmark

 

AdBlock and NoScript have got to be mandatory.
BetterPrivacy deletes Flash tracking cookies, FF doesn't.
BugMeNot for bypassing compulsory registration to read walled sites

Interface & view tweaks, but nice:
SearchOnTab toggles searchbox results to open new tab, instead of current
ImageZoom quickly magnifies individual image
Fission puts the progress indicator in address bar
TinyMenu & TabMixPlus

 

Ditto, and not just Java, but flash, javascript, silverlight, etc. Nice protection against cross-site scripting attacks too.

 

What I have installed now:

• AdBlockPlus - the best ad-blocker.
• Firebug - easily the best web development tool ever.
• ForecastbarEnhanced - link
• FoxTab - 3D tab management
• NoScript - control your browsing experience!
• Poster - a developer tool for working with URLs
• SessionManager
• Stylish - so I can use a "dark" theme consistent with my desktop
• TabsOpenRelative - tabs open to the right of the current one.
• WeaveSync - completely private way to sync your entire browser from computer to computer. Better than the recommended XMarks.

 

I love Fx for its extension capabilities. I run 33 so I won't describe them all here!!

No one has yet mentioned TreeStyleTabs or Colorful Tabs. I use them to organize tabs in a vertical, color coded tree on the left side. Notice the yellow tabs in the photo. They are blank tabs, renamed to be headers. The little arrows on the left let me expand and collapse groups of tabs in the tree. Very cool!



You can also notice "Compact Menu 2" that puts the menu row in a single drop down icon (upper left). "All in One Sidebar" gives me extensions, dowloads, bookmarks, etc in the side bar (column on the right).

And, of course, AdBlockPlus, Tab Mix Plus, Session Manager, Organize Status Bar, NoSquint, Yet Another Smooth Scrolling.......

 

1. Adblock Plus
2. DownThemAll
3. FastestFox
4. NetVideoHunter
5. Searchbar Autosizer
6. TabMixPlus
7. Update Notifier
8. WOT
9. Yahoo! Mail Notifier

 

I like -

DownloadHelper
Firebug and WebDeveloper
Fire.fm
FoxyProxy
DownloadStatusbar
Color Toggle
FireFTP
NoScript and Adblock Plus
Save File To

 

Just because everyone else is doing it, here is what I use:

Adblock Plus - obvious reason
Adblock Plus Element Blocker - To block text ads.
Download Status bar - easy way to see downloads without opening another window
DownThemAll! - Easy way to download multiple files off a site with a few clicks
Flashgot - Interfaces with a download manager (which used to be wget for me, but I don't use this addon much anymore)
Greasemonkey - sky is the limit, a nice profanity filter is available (for when you get tired of hearing that four letter word again and again)
MD5 Reborned Hasher (to check hashes on file downloads to check file integrity)
NoScript - see post above
Xmarks - Bookmark sync
Zotero - Top-notch bibliographic software that pulls citation info off journal articles, books on amazon.com etc etc etc. Also interfaces with Microsoft Word and Open Office for easy generation of citations and bibliographies (wonderful for big research papers).

 

I also like that dictionary spellchecker add-on. So if I type 'thatt' , it will automatically change it to 'that' or underline it in red to show i made a mistake.

 

I so wish Chrome had Downthemall and this Last.fm extension. I have dropped Firefox and now use Chrome/Opera, but keep Songbird music player around because it can use those two extensions.

 

WTH? Where's noscript? That's TOP of my list of most important firefox extensions!
Oh wait, it disables NBR's ads, that's why it wasn't mentioned.

 

Noscript is so obvious that they didn't *need* to list it.

 

I found a mouse add-on that I have been hooked on for a while now...MouseGestures.

It's not for everyone but if you want to just surf with a mouse and not reach for keyboard you might like it.

http://www.mousegestures.org/

I config'd mine to use the left mouse btn instead of the default right btn to initiate a gesture.

Note: there is also another mouse gesture if you search in add-on's. I am so used to the other gesture patterns that I can't really switch but you might also want to check that one out.

 

How could you leave out "FlashGot"?

 

I created extensions for both Firefox and Chrome.
Firefox browser seems more error tolerant than Google Chrome.
Firefox team need to hire more people or volunteers as they have the ideas etc but don't have enough people to implement them quickly enough. The new Jetpack project seemed good but seems they don't have enough people to finish the framework they want to design. Also they have documentation scattered around everywhere, need to collect it and make it available at one place.

Firefox Extension Review system:
Theoretically this is awesome as it protects users from malicious extensions and also some reviewers gives good feedback to extension authors regarding how and what to improve in their extensions. But again there is a serious lack of number of extension reviewers. This is a huge pain for extension authors as the extensions are only published if its been okayed by the reviewer. The review queues are long (more than few weeks now). Before it used to take months to get your extension reviewed and published, you update (add feature, fix bug) extension then again it has to go through review process. And if you don't have anyone (no user review comments) using your experimental('in sandbox') then its never going to be published. So after creating extension the author has to go out on internet and market it all over the internet so that someone can write review.

Google Chrome Extension review system:
Google's review system is automated for majority of the extensions. They manually review some extensions that require high level of permission like ability to read write file on your computer. Right now the author submits extension to their system and hit 'publish' button and the extension is immediately available to the public. Painless. Google Chrome extension team has the advantage of starting from scratch learning from how firefox extensions evolved etc. The extension API's are very simple and clear.

Notebookreview.com extension, works on this forum:
Forum Preview
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/noieegogpoppkplmcnamnbhpeafokijg
Two modes: 1) Inline last post and 2) Photo Gallery.
Its a early addition.

Another extension that some on here might be interested in. Useful to ogle at Computers, electronics or other listings on Craigslist.
Craigslist Peek
https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/knpehhedikdgkbmhgagpcpcbclaidlmf
Lets you have a merged listing from more than one city. In other words lets you broaden search area.

Installed following Firefox Addons in all versions of ff (3.0, 3.5.x, 3.6, 3.7a5pre)
Nightly Tester Tools
Adblock Plus
All-in-One Gestures
Session Manager
Imaze Zoom
Firebug
Web Developer
Better Privacy
Ghostery
Greasemonkey
Tree Style Tabs
-- my extensions --
craigslist car research
craigslist motorcycle


Using Privoxy for blocking ads in Google Chrome and Opera browser.

 

1. AdBlockPlus - Blocks not just ads, but any element you wish. Huge bandwidth saver in many cases.
2. Greasemonkey - Thousands of awesome greasemonkey API driven scripts. One of the main reasons many people use Firefox is for this alone. (also Greasefire addon compliments greasemonkey specifically to help find scripts available for whichever site your url you may be using.)
3. Xmarks - Keep bookmarks, passwords, and other information saved and synchronized between most all web browsers. Helps show and share the ranking and relevance websites on search engines (google, etc) and allows you to rate a site either on the fly or from your bookmarks. Never loose your bookmarks and login/passwords again!
4. DownloadThemAll - Excellent download accelerator! (also works well with FlashGot)
5. Tab Mix Plus - Adds a huge array of tab functions, like timed page auto-reload, reload all tabs, tab protection (keeps you from accidentally closing it), undo closed tabs, and a bunch of other very helpful features.
6. Lazerus: Form recovery - This one speaks for itself. If you've ever been in the middle of typing a message, mail, blog entry, (like this comment for example) and you've accidentally had the page close, refresh, hit the wrong key, browser crash, etc and suddenly all that was lost, this one is for you. I can't remember how many times this addon has saved me.
7. NoScript - Great for blocking pages that run scripts you may not want running. This can be both for added security, and also to increase performance on some sites that can do without a script running.
8. FlashBlock - If you frequent sites that happen to have a lot of flash ads, or unnecessary flash apps, you know what a CPU and bandwidth hog Flash can be. This addon will block all flash, and give you the option to enable only the ones you want simply by clicking on it to enable it.
9. FlashKiller - This one is very helpful for when you don't want to block all flash, but just point and shoot at which flash objects you want to disable.
10. Iopus IMacros - Great time saver for automating web browsing and all kinds of repetitive functions. Record your action, optionally tweak or modify the macro script, and then play it back to redo the action as often as you wish or writing a macro script for performing batch operations