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20 Must-have Firefox Extensions

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the so-it-comes-to-this-then-does-it dept.

An anonymous reader noted that Computerworld is running a story on the 20 must have Firefox extensions. Several of my favorites are in there so I'm looking forward to playing with the ones I haven't heard of.

28 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Adblock? by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Why isn't adblock mentioned?

    *fires up internet explorer, browses tfa*

    Oh.

    Two flash ads & an animated gif (along with the pop-up). Not surprised they didn't mention ad block plus and filterset g.

    Install them & never see another ad again. Ever. (without any sort of configuration).

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    1. Re:Adblock? by Tx · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It may be selfish, but I kind of wish people wouldn't mention those too often. If they get too widely used, it will just mean more annoying, unavoidable ads. Like those ones that make you visit an ad page in order to then get the link to the actual article. Those piss me off.

      --
      Oh no... it's the future.
    2. Re:Adblock? by Yosho · · Score: 4, Informative

      If you're using AdBlock Plus, I'd recommend that you subscribe to EasyList rather than use Filterset.G. Filterset.G is designed for the original AdBlock, and doesn't take advantage of a number of featues that AdBlock Plus has; for example, it features automatic subscription updating, so you don't need another extension just to update it. Also, the Filterset.G updater will blow away any customizations you've made to the block list when it updates, while EasyList won't. For more info, read the FAQ.

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    3. Re:Adblock? by Whiney+Mac+Fanboy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      It may be selfish, but I kind of wish people wouldn't mention those too often. If they get too widely used, it will just mean more annoying, unavoidable ads.

      I don't know, I think that if it comes to an arms race between the ad makers & the ad blockers, the ad blockers would win. For example, the TV stations had to do deals with tivo et al to stop ad-skipping tech.

      It's easier for people to control what's displayed on their computer than most think.

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    4. Re:Adblock? by Inda · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes, true, because banner ads in the middle of TV programmes are so much better.

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    5. Re:Adblock? by GetSource · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In a way, I agree -- but more about people blocking *all* ads in general.

      However, while I don't mind people mentioning Adblock, I do mind people mentioning Filterset.g. For me, though, it's because ads are what make the internet run: if it weren't for ads, we wouldn't have near the amount of free sites that we do. Heck, Google would probably not even exist anymore.

      The reason that I *do* like Adblock is that it allows you to get rid of the ads that should have never existed in the first place: Shaking/blinking ads, video ads that eat up all your bandwidth, and ads with blaring auto-starting sound.

      What I generally do ... is leave most ads on, then block the ones that are especially irritating. This allows places to continue to have revenue, but only stunts the growth of the companies that produce ads that are more obtrusive/use more resources than an ad should.

      It's a little hypocritical, perhaps, but I think that when choosing an ad provider, a site should think about the users' comfort at their site as well as about ad revenue.

    6. Re:Adblock? by NeMon'ess · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Okay, but what about sites like fark, slashdot, and IMDB? I don't want to pay money every month or year to support them to avoid ads. Unless it was only a dollar a year per site or something really, really low like that. If everybody blocks ads, the only way for them to keep offering free content is if users pay for it.

    7. Re:Adblock? by CodeBuster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The argument that you have put forward in favor of ads (i.e no ads then no content) is a common one among marketers and other people in the advertising business, but my response to them is and will always be, "Welcome to the free market". If people really want your content then they will buy a subscription. The government does not and cannot protect everyone from the rigors of competition. I have to compete everyday with software engineers in India and China who are getting better all of the time and work for much cheaper than I am able to. My message to you and all of the others who complain when the rules of the game change is, "Get used to it...adapt or die and let your competition step over your corpse". The world does not owe you a living and if technology changes or allows people to break your business model then tough. The world got along fine for generations before marketing and advertising, and it will be fine, indeed much better, without it. I use adblock to block everything that I don't want to see all of the time and I have absolutely no qualms about doing it. You may ask where my sense of sympathy or mercy went, well all I can say is that it was beaten out of my during long months of unemployment following the dot-com bust. I have no illusions now and neither should anyone else.

  2. Re: 20 Must-have Firefox Extensions by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    20 Must-have Firefox Extensions

    or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bloat.

  3. 20 is too many by Mostly+a+lurker · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Based on my experience, Firefox often becomes unstable when too many extensions are included. The problem is that extensions can conflict with each other. This risk is low with a small number of extensions but increases as the number of extensions increases. Extensions are a great feature of Firefox, but it is best to select the 10 or so that really increase your productivity and let the rest go.

    1. Re:20 is too many by ScrewMaster · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I agree, but I think that if you ask a hundred users what their "key" features would be, you'd probably get 101 different answers.

      --
      The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
  4. What about unplug? What about flashgot? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2254/

    It allows you to rip streaming content easily from websites. It can handle everything from flash movies (.flv) on youtube to mp3 data streamed to your web browser. Paired with the Flashgot plugin:

    https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/220/

    You can download all of the links on a webpage, just like certain download managers used to. Its a great combo.

  5. And add in flashblock while you're at it. by cliveholloway · · Score: 4, Informative

    Flashblock makes sites browsable again. Stop autoplay falls into the same category :) And No script is just plain sensible.

    Other simple extensions that make life saner include copy as plain text (A life-saver in this "MS-we-know-what-you're trying-to-do" world) and the BugMeNot extension.

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  6. For those without Adblock by Spad · · Score: 4, Informative

    As the site has been Slashdotted already, have a Coralised, Printer-friendly version.

    1. Re:For those without Adblock by pla · · Score: 4, Informative

      As the site has been Slashdotted already, have a Coralised, Printer-friendly version.

      Oh, for shame! Such an easy chance to plug something on-topic, yet another FF extension... ;-)

      Resurrect Pages lets you check all the major internet cache sites for dead content.

  7. Might have been just me . . . by OverlordQ · · Score: 4, Insightful

    . . but I just dont see why many of those are 'Must have'. I mean how often do I need to measure stuff?

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  8. sensationalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    IAAFPS and i call bs on this one


    if this list were anywhere near accurate it should have included these extensions:

    • Navigation
      • Thumbs - Shows the first thumbnail from each linked gallery, letting you skip galleries that don't look interesting.
      • Linky - Open all links in tabs, etc.
      • firefusk - view all images from galleries with numerically named image files.
      • Browse Images - Use the Forward button or Alt+Shift+Right to go to the next image.
      • Location Navigator - Select a portion of a URL that varies, then navigate up or down.
      • Digger - Navigate to parent directories in URLs, etc.
      • refspoof - Modify your HTTP Referer to gain access to sites that use insecure login mechanisms.
    • Downloading and saving
      • DownThemAll - Download all the links to images/movies on a page at once.
      • FlashGot - Download all the links on a page at once using an external download manager.
      • Download sort - Save files to folders based on extension or download date.
      • spiderzilla - Download entire web sites.
      • Super DragAndGo - Drag a link to open it in a new tab; drag an image to save it.
    • Videos
      • Launchy - Open links to video files in an external player, streaming, so you can watch a video without waiting to download it. (Note that not all video players support streaming video; for example, WinAmp 5.111 hangs. VLC works well. Here's my launchy.xml for VLC.)
      • MediaPlayerConnectivity - Open embedded video in an external player, so you can use features like Full Screen.
    • Images
      • Image Zoom - Convenient shortcuts for zooming images.
      • mozImage - Browse images on hard drive or view them in a slideshow.

    Most of the authors of these extensions are not yet members of the Pornzilla project.

    1. Re:sensationalism by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A lot of that looks like it is not for making regular internet viewing easier, but for streamlining the viewing of internet porn (not saying net porn viewing isn't normal, but there is a distinction between using the net and using the net for porn). Kinda freaky what you can tell about someone from what extensions they have installed...

    2. Re:sensationalism by djSpinMonkey · · Score: 5, Funny
      IAAFPS and i call bs on this one

      You are a first person shooter?

  9. Addons memory usage by secolactico · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is there a way to see how much memory is each extension using?

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    1. Re:Addons memory usage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Informative

      Nope.

      Firefox extensions are generally simple JavaScript and XML files that are effectively appended directly to the core JavaScript and XML files that make up the browser. (Obviously I'm oversimplifying a bit here.)

      In any case, because extensions just add on to the general browser in the same namespace, there's no way to separate what memory is used by one extension and what memory is used by another or what memory is being used by the core browser itself. They're all in the same namespace. This can cause conflicts with extensions, of course: if two extensions make different use of the same variable (or XML id) they'll conflict and the results will be unpredictable.

      But in short: no, it's not possible, because the extensions are effectively loaded as if they were part of the browser, and there's no way to tell when something is part of an extension or part of the core browser.

  10. Extensions by JohnyDog · · Score: 4, Informative
    Well most of them aren't really 'must-have' at all, and half of them are tied to some specific service. Anyway, as everybody will be posting they're favourite extensions, i'll add few less popular ones, that i found really useful for daily work:

    DownThemAll! 0.9.9.7 - can download all files from page (both links and directly embeddeded) with settable filter, custom renaming and all other features you'd expect form download accelerator

    Image Zoom 0.2.7 - zooming images (and only images) - i found it very needed for high-dpi displays, or where the OS-specific zoom-tool isn't enough.

    MR Tech Local Install 5.3.2.3 - nice tool for managing extensions - can make any older extension compatible on one click (simple change of required firefox version), also can generate installed extension list like this one you're reading now, either in text, HTML or BBcode

    Remove It Permanently 1.0.6.3 - more useful version of NukeIt - shows you what content is actually being removed in red outline, can remove parent widget of what you're hovering over, or 'all similar items', on per-page,per-domain,per-website basis;useful for pages heavily infested with ads

    Tiny Menu 1.4.2 - the whole menu is compacted to one button 'Menu' which you can drag on your address toolbar (it's actually the other way round), saving needed screen space

    Unread Tabs 0.3 - shows opened-but-yet-unread tabs with Italics

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  11. Wow by HalAtWork · · Score: 5, Funny

    Someone takes their porn browsing seriously!

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    1. Re:Wow by ArAgost · · Score: 3, Informative

      You betcha.

  12. PrefBar and LiveHTTPHeaders by hweimer · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have only encountered two really useful extensions so far, the rest usually being too bloated or insecure to install them.

    The first is the PrefBar, which allows to quickly change browser options.
    For example, enable or disable Cookies, Java(Script) with a single click. Or choose from different proxies, which is very useful in combination with Tor.

    For web developers, LiveHTTPHeaders is a must. It allows you to track redirects, view Cookies or view and manipulate POST requests.

    --
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  13. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 3, Informative

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  14. The complete list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Tools for taming the Web
    StumbleUpon
    Yahoo Mail Notifier
    Gmail Manager
    Greasemonkey

    Visual Improvements
    Firefox Showcase
    Cooliris Previews
    Colorful Tabs
    ChromaTabs

    Matters of convenience
    Google Browser Sync
    Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer
    Session Manager
    All-in-One Gestures
    IE Tab
    Download Statusbar
    Download Sort
    Nuke Anything Enhanced

    Information gatherers
    Forecastfox
    Answers

    Web developer essentials
    FireFTP
    Firebug
    Web Developer
    MeasureIt
    ColorZilla

    Yes, there are more than twenty, but 20 sounds better, doesn't it? By the way, please skip the IE tab. If you are using Firefox, it is in your best interest to abandon sites that only support Internet Explorer. I should go on to say something more, because I apparently don't have enough characters per line: more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more more

  15. threat level by magarity · · Score: 5, Funny

    Those plugins are all very cute, but the plugin I rely on most is the one that displays the Homeland Security department's current threat level.