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Essential Firefox Extensions
There are thousands of extensions for Firefox. They add a whole raft of additional functionality to Firefox, such as allowing users to download videos from websites, integrate more closely with social networking sites, and create web content. Whilst it is perfectly reasonable for some users not to wish to experiment with extensions, they are missing out on harnessing the real power of Firefox. |
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Comments (13)
That would make a fine LXer feature!
That's an excellent list.
For my part, though, I don't use AdBlock, as I figure that the advertisers are "paying the freight". Admittedly, I might feel differently if I was distributing systems to kids, or setting up for a younger member of the family.
As it is, I find I get most of the practical benefit, and more flexibility, by installing FlashBlock and something kike QuickJava.
I also dump cookies by default whenever I close the browser and use a cookie management plugin for those cookies I might want to keep around and for managing third-party cookies.
I also like Tab-Mix Plus, to customize tab behaviour and options, and Session Manager for preserving different sessions ("live" and "fixed") for conveniently returning to ones I'm not finished with.
For my part, though, I don't use AdBlock, as I figure that the advertisers are "paying the freight". Admittedly, I might feel differently if I was distributing systems to kids, or setting up for a younger member of the family.
As it is, I find I get most of the practical benefit, and more flexibility, by installing FlashBlock and something kike QuickJava.
I also dump cookies by default whenever I close the browser and use a cookie management plugin for those cookies I might want to keep around and for managing third-party cookies.
I also like Tab-Mix Plus, to customize tab behaviour and options, and Session Manager for preserving different sessions ("live" and "fixed") for conveniently returning to ones I'm not finished with.
Adblock Plus and NoScript are absolutely the first Addons installed on any machine I setup. Thanks for the tip about Ghostery.
Ads per se do not bother me nearly as much as the video ads that pop up and insist on playing their audio at half again the volume of the page you are listening to. Youtube finally got rid of them but there are a ton of other video sites that incorporate them. Problem is, most of them will not allow you to mute or turn down the sound in their little windows. What makes it worse is that many of them loop for 5-15 minutes. That alone makes me not only use adblock but contribute to them annually. I agree that ads pay the freight for many websites but when they begin to interfere with the user experience, they get the ax, by whatever means necessary.
Cookies on the other hand are a necessary evil in my household. Diane likes being able to click in the login field and have her username and password autofilled. Not safe, I realize and she's been warned. I only made the mistake of removing those cookies once....her wrath was breath-taking.
Cookies on the other hand are a necessary evil in my household. Diane likes being able to click in the login field and have her username and password autofilled. Not safe, I realize and she's been warned. I only made the mistake of removing those cookies once....her wrath was breath-taking.
That's why I like FlashBlock so much -- I can see that there's a flash object there, and I can click on it if I think I might actually be interested. I can even white-list a sire or two where I can be sure it's something appropriate (eg. the optical illusions section on a science site I like)
Cookies are a bit of a no-win; if you let the computer remember them -- you forget them. So if I were to let the computer or browser remember them for me, sooner or later, I'd be screwed. For important, security-essential passwords like banking, this makes a double-whammy, so I just memorize them. For sites like this one, I rely on simple means for generating easily remembered, not too-easily guessed, passwords and let my computer at home keep them on hand, too.
For some sites, this breaks down, because I don't use them often enough to even remember if I have a password there, and every site has it's own rules for both IDs and passwords. But then, those sites are not much of a loss.
Cookies are a bit of a no-win; if you let the computer remember them -- you forget them. So if I were to let the computer or browser remember them for me, sooner or later, I'd be screwed. For important, security-essential passwords like banking, this makes a double-whammy, so I just memorize them. For sites like this one, I rely on simple means for generating easily remembered, not too-easily guessed, passwords and let my computer at home keep them on hand, too.
For some sites, this breaks down, because I don't use them often enough to even remember if I have a password there, and every site has it's own rules for both IDs and passwords. But then, those sites are not much of a loss.
Web Developer is a handy thing to have even if you don't do web pages. View Source :: View Generated Source is the only way I've found to save the bottom-of-the -page comment stream along with the copy text when the stream is held by such as Disqus.
It's All Text opens any textarea field in your preferred editor, along with whatever text is there already, then updates the webpage's form field when you save-and-close. My preferred editor is jstar, a textmode tool, but 'preferring' this bit of script gets it working in my KDE system:
It's All Text opens any textarea field in your preferred editor, along with whatever text is there already, then updates the webpage's form field when you save-and-close. My preferred editor is jstar, a textmode tool, but 'preferring' this bit of script gets it working in my KDE system:
#!/bin/sh konsole -e jstar -rmargin 65 -wordwrap $1 exit 0
Quoting:ghostery: Who is watching your web traffic? Freakin' everyone, that's who. Ghostery not only shows you a list of those websites and companies, it allows you to block them as well. It takes a short wizard to set it up but once you finish, ghostery places a bubble at the top right of the opened webpage, showing you a huge list of those "interested" in your browsing preferences. You will be offered a group of "blacklists" to choose from but the default one offered is more than sufficient. Some will be amazed at the length of the popup list. (It fades away after 5 seconds or so.) Ghostery stops them in their tracks.
A similar FF extension, in many respects, is Do Not Track Plus. Further info on DNT+ found at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/donottrackplus/ and at http://www.abine.com/dntdetail.php. From this second website:
Quoting:Do Not Track Plus
Stop companies from tracking you
Ad companies and social networks are tracking everything you do on the web. They know what sites you visit, when you visit them and how often you do...and they know who you are. DNT+ blocks the tracking so you can browse freely and safely.
* Free tool that puts you back in control of your information
* Best available blocking stops more than 600 trackers
* Compatible with Mac or PC for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer
* Automatically updates to catch new trackers
DNT+ even has a descriptive 'How it works' webpage, found at http://www.donottrackplus.com/howitworks.php
Yes. I'm quite willing to be exposed to advertising in exchange for not having to pay a subscription, as long as those ads aren't the annoying, intrusive, distracting Flash ones -- someone has to pay the freight, after all -- but I draw the line at snooping.
Yay! There's Ghostery for Chromium!
BernardSwiss - I am in the same camp as you. The ads are there to pay for something that we get to consume for free. That said though, I really hate ads that try and trick people into clicking on them by disguising them as system alerts or mini-games etc.
Some of mine:
Gmarks - Share bookmarks (and other info) between different computers through Google.
Forecastfox - Weather from Accuweather.
Tiny Menu - Increase page viewable area by compacting menu bars.
For dial-up users: Adblock Plus Flashblock Absolute Load Control
Possibly useful: MicroFox theme
Wish still worked: Copy Plain Text (Jeremy Gillick) Cards (Stephen Clavering)
For dial-up users: Adblock Plus Flashblock Absolute Load Control
Possibly useful: MicroFox theme
Wish still worked: Copy Plain Text (Jeremy Gillick) Cards (Stephen Clavering)
I miss FireGPG
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Adblock Plus: Not only do you lose the majority of those annoying video ads that start without cue or user input, it decreases your page load time significantly. http://adblockplus.org/en/
Firegestures: Lets you use your mouse and right click button to perform browser functions in a split second. Want to go back one page? Right click-slide mouse left a quarter inch. Forward one page? Right click-slide mouse right a quarter inch. Want to go to the top of the page without moving the mouse to the side scroll bar? Right click-slide mouse left and then up (making an "L" from bottom to top). Wanna go to the bottom of the page? Same thing but right click-slide mouse right and down. There are a couple dozen pre-set gestures but you can easily program it to do functions not covered by the defaults. You can also program it to use the middle button as well if you don't like using the right click button. This is an essential extension for the carpal tunnel sufferer. http://tinyurl.com/6ylk4l3
ghostery: Who is watching your web traffic? Freakin' everyone, that's who. Ghostery not only shows you a list of those websites and companies, it allows you to block them as well. It takes a short wizard to set it up but once you finish, ghostery places a bubble at the top right of the opened webpage, showing you a huge list of those "interested" in your browsing preferences. You will be offered a group of "blacklists" to choose from but the default one offered is more than sufficient. Some will be amazed at the length of the popup list. (It fades away after 5 seconds or so.) Ghostery stops them in their tracks. http://tinyurl.com/4e8vkdm Here is a screenshot of the brief popup that shows you what websites are interested in your browsing habits. http://tinyurl.com/csh2roj
Text Link: You ever run into a url that did not have a link score under neath it? I mean the url is there but nothing happens when you click it? It's frustrating to be sure. Text Link is an extension that allows you to double click the string of text that represents the link and treats it like a clickable link. No more copy and paste into the url bar. This is a great and under-used extension. http://tinyurl.com/4e8vkdm
Xmarks I don't know how we survived without this. Xmarks allows you to have the same bookmarks on any firefox browser in the world. Let's say you are installing a new computer at work but you need the bookmarks from your computer at home. Just install Xmarks and after a brief setup, you will have the exact same bookmarks as your home computer. It is free to use, however they do ask for a 10 dollar "donation" a year, I gladly pay the 10 bucks to help insure this great extension stays around for a long time. http://www.xmarks.com/
I know they mentioned youtube downloader but I find video downloadhelper a much better extension. It has more features and power and works on many more sites than the extension offered in the article. I often watch TV shows and movies from fastpasstv,ms. Sometimes the traffic is heavy and buffering is a real problem. Downloadhelper provides a button right next to your navigation buttons that will give you a direct link to download the movie or show...usually in mp4 or flv format. http://tinyurl.com/45w8438
So what did I miss? Any others that should have made the list?