Exploring Firefox Extensions

Gary writes "If you haven't made the switch to Mozilla Firefox it may be because you aren't aware of the great benefits Firefox has over IE. Flexbeta has posted a nice HOWTO guide on Firefox extensions; my favorite is the Target Alert extension which displays a small graphic next to links that are not web pages. For example a mailto: link will display a small envelope, a link to a PDF file will display a small Adobe icon, etc."

Comments

Yet more good reasons to switch from IE

[Slashbot Hive-Mind]

FireFox features I can't live without:

1. Middle click to open link in new window/tab
2. Find as you type
3. Themes/Skins/Chromes
4. Customizable toolbars
5. Plugins that allow me to put just about anything on the toolbars
6. Great development tools - javascript console, venkman debugger, live-headers plugin

All that boils down to:

1. Easier to use
2. Easier to customize
3. Broader advanced feature set

Re:Yet more good reasons to switch from IE

[qshapadooy]

about:config

Preference Name: image.animation_mode
Value: once

my most used extension ever...

[huphtur]

...has to be Web Developer.
A MUST for every webnerd.
It even lets you edit CSS live on the web.

adblock

[seanismdotcom]

adblock is one of the greatest extensions I must say. Adblock along with the following filter block 98% of ads..

[Adblock] /[\W\d][Aa]d(server|s|remote)?[\W\d]/ /[\W\d][Bb]anner(s|id\=)?[\W\d]/ /[\W\d][Ss]ponsors?[\W\d]/ /amazon\.com.*\W(promotions|marketing|merchants|st ores|associates)\W/ /yimg\.com.*\W(a|flash)\W/

Adblock

[strider44]

As extensions go, nothing beats adblock.

Wikalong

[phUnBalanced]

A little blatant self promotion. (I apologize)

I've written up a little extension called Wikalong.

Basically, it puts a wiki in your sidebar, that is indexed off the current page you are viewing. The wiki is online so anyone using the plugin, that visits a page you make notes on will see your notes, and vice versa.

It doesn't work perfectly yet, but I'm hoping to attract some smarter people than I to help get it straightened out.

More details on the site I linked above.

Some useful links

[t7]

Texturizer.net has a nice collection of extensions you may not find on mozilla's dev site.

Some extensions I'm currently using:
Flat Bookmark Editing
Add Bookmark Here
CuteMenus
Paste and Go
Gmail Notifier(Still works)

Free iPods? Sure. freeipods.com

My extensions

[Sunspire]

Here's some extensions I like that I haven't seen mentioned yet:

Magpie. Those who've used FlashGet with IE will love this little thing. It'll snatch all the files pointed to by links from a page according to some pattern, for example *jpg, and save them to disk or open them up as tabs. Great for collecting "nature pictures".

Firefox's bookmark dialog's "Create in" feature pisses me off. It never, ever, has the folders you need in it's puny little drop down. OpenBook removes it and replaces it with the full bookmarks folder tree.

You can reorder tabs with MiniT using simple drag and drop on the tab bar. I think this should maybe be added to Firefox itself, it's pretty basic functionality.

BugMeNot

[Takkuri]

I'm surprised no one's mentioned BugMeNot yet. It connects to a database of usernames and passwords, allowing you to log in as the public BugMeNot account.

This is especially useful for a one-time posting on a site, or to read members-only newspapers and things like IGN Insider.