Slashdot Mirror
Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Avoid
jcatcw writes "First there were the 20 must-have Firefox Extension and ensuing Slashdot discussion. Now Computerworld has the top 10 to avoid. For example, NoScript, which does make Firefox safer, but isn't worth the hassle, Or, VideoDownloader for slow downloads, when it works at all. Then there's Greasemonkey — on both lists."
GoToGoatse - The extension takes you to that famous page everytime you click a link.
I'm still not sure why anyone would install it though.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
I use NoScript not for security but because it cuts out one more way that web sites can annoy me, with their javascripted pop-up ads.
Yeah, it takes a moment to re-enable JavaScript for sites which insist on using it for navigation (which is itself annoying, but sometimes a site has content I want.) But it's less than the aggravation of having the text I'm trying to read covered with a pop-up layer.
I don't mind polite advertising, but anything that moves (Java, Flash, and most recently Javascript) is going to be worthless unless I absolutely require it.
Wow, that was the most biased article that I have read in a long time. The summary, for those that didn't RTFA, they pretty much say avoid all the things that make a web master's life difficult; it was from a website perspective and not from the user. Anyhow, it is not worth the read and definitely is not news.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
Number one extension to use: IE7 God, what a lot of drivel.
They're just pissed that NoScript and AdBlock knock down their revenue stream.
"...while continuing to support the sites we love by allowing most ads to appear."
Bzzt - sorry. I chose to not see ads.
When It Counts.
Adblock is bad because it makes their site readable?
NoScript bad because it stops nasty/naughty javascript?
PDF download bad because it stops embedded PDFs breaking your system (but also stops hacked tracking links from working)?
TrackMeNot because it stops you being tracked and wastes bandwidth?
I'd suggest the only waste of bandwidth their is their site!
Unless you like being bombed by an endless stream of crap, that is.
Avoid any so-called "performance" tweaks that do nothing but open a few dozen connections to every web server you visit. It's fucking pointless and does nothing but piss off server admins. Cut your max connections down and make sure pipelining is on to get real, actual performance increases.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Really, sites like Slashdot, Google, etc. have it right. Minimally intrusive ads with quality content == a good experience for most users.
Sony ha
...but that's probably because my NoScript and AdBlock settings impaired my viewing experience.
Have you read my blog lately?
They practically beg for you not to use adblock or adblock plus. I say too freaking bad. If they really want to keep cheap bastards like me from using their site, they will have to do some artful coding to detect that I am not looking at their 3rd party ads.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
I also love how they put in 'Adblock' and 'Adblock Plus'. They say, well we don't like it being an advertising web site, but trust us, it is not very good.
I thought 'Adblock' was a great extension and very effective.
I also like 'Noscript', it is simple to prevent sites that insist that they and every site they connect to should be allowed to run javascript on your browser. 'Noscript' allows me to specify only the sites, like the one I am browsing, to actually run Javascript instead of every ad aggregator that wants information on you.
Yes maybe for the average user it's a hassle but for me, I LOVE NoScript. It does what I want and allows me to filter websites.
I actually use AdBlock as well, another nice extension.
I used to have VideoDownloader but then I realized I wasn't using it...I found no need to download those videos.
Scribefire, another one that I tried and never used...Gone from my FireFox
Ooops, looks like slashdot cut me off at page 2....
fasterfox - I am sure this only appeals to dial up users (like me, unfortunately), there is no way they are going to be a bandwidth hog.
videodownloader - I use this all the time and love it, not many problems, maybe 1 out of 10 times I get a page not found. When I am on dialup and use this I let the video play completely in the browser, while I go drink a beer or walk the dog. When I come back and the video is done I click the videodownloader icon and instantly get a save to disk dialog and save the file. It obviously pulls if from the FF cache.
Paranoia is not "cool among Web geeks,", it's an unfortunate necessity when wandering the jungle that is the World Wide Web. How many times do we hear about exploits using JavaScript? Too often, in my mind's eye. If a particular site that you trust needs JavaScript to run, then whitelist it, even if just temporarily, with two mouse clicks.
I don't call it "paranoid," I call it "due caution" and it is, in fact, worth the minor hassle.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
I agree, it's far less bother to disable script in about:config, avoid sites that require js for basic functionality and forget about it.
This is a good opportunity to bring up a problem with NoScript. It seems to have a flaw with certain sites. With digg, it sometimes makes the thumbs and the show/hide comment links not work properly. It breaks the thumbs completely and instead of the show/hide working in a DHTMLish way, it instead follows the href version of the link. This bug doesn't show up all the time, but on a page where it does show up, you can reload over and over and still get the bug every time.
It does this even when all the sites it lists for the page are set to allowed. But if you set it to "Allow script Globally" (basically, letting EVERYTHING through) and reload the page, the bug goes away. So something there is being blocked that shouldn't be.
I freely admit I block every ad I can. If I'm going to buy something, I'll actively go looking for it. I resent people telling me that I'm damaging them by not displaying their ads on my PC. Your ads are valueless when displayed on my PC anyway, so why should I expose myself to them? The ad industry has not endeared itself to the internet community. They have only themselves to blame for people wanting to block them.
Adblock and Adblock Plus
Obviously, we have some bias when it comes to ad-blocking extensions, as Computerworld is an ad-supported site. We also understand that these are very popular extensions. But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?
We'll be the first to admit that there are some horribly annoying ads out there. (Buzzing bee, anyone?) But we prefer using Nuke Anything Enhanced to zap the annoying ads while continuing to support the sites we love by allowing most ads to appear.
What a crock of crap! Pure nonsense, to suggest that a extension is worthless to users because it takes away from your revenue is just showcasing blatant bias. Come of your high horse (if you ever had one)
Worse yet, in the intervening time, Internet Explorer caught up. Its tabbed browsing is now superior to Firefox's, for example, and it added plenty of new features, such as anti-phishing capabilities (which Firefox also has). Firefox is no longer the better browser; its extensions and add-ons are superior, but that's about it.
IE's tabbing is superior? Says who? Based on What? The author dismisses extensions like yesterdays news, when they wrote a story about the top 20 and 10 worst? Besides that, extensions are a key and valuable component to FF.
Compuworld is on the MS bank roll?
I don't understand, three of those are on my must have without fail list. ( NoScript, Adblock, PDF Download ) They are what recommends FireFox to many users.
The point here; security is a hastle, trust the browser, you're being paranoid if you think bad things happen when you surf websites...
What hell is this guy pushing, IE?
From TFA:
Adblock and Adblock Plus
Obviously, we have some bias when it comes to ad-blocking extensions, as Computerworld is an ad-supported site. We also understand that these are very popular extensions. But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?
I stopped reading right there. That's not obvious bias, that is straight "we want to make money of YOU, so drink our cool-aid!!".
I use Adblock because I don't ever click ad's on random sites like Computerworld. To be honest, I don't click on ad's period. So Adblock (and more accurately AdblockPlus + Filterset.G) are among the most useful and wonderful extensions for Firefox. It is 'the' extension that have made several people around me (engineers, friends, family) switch to Firefox when they saw what it could do.
Sorry Computerworld, a little bias is one thing but this is just pathetic.
How about a plugin that fetches all subsequent pages of articles and condenses into a single webpage so a user doesn't have to follow five page links to read the whole article.
Claim that NoScript, Adblock and Adblock Plus are useless can only come from some one who is a popup artist! Enough reading this article!!!
I'll be happy when slashdot submissions list the allononepage version of articles.m mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015599
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?co
How about PrefBar?
It takes up a small amount of vertical space, but gives you one-click toggle switches for just about everything -- clearing cache/cookies, a pull-down for specifying a user-agent, whether or not to send referrer, whether or not to animate (or even load!) images, colors, fonts, cookies, whether or not to use your ad-blocking proxy (or select another proxy), and whether or not to run Flash, Java, and of course, Javashit.
When you can turn on/off Javashit with a single mouse click, you stop caring about which sites are permitted to use it. Turn it on for the 10 minutes you're using Google Maps or your bank's website, and leave it off the rest of the time.
It's like NoScript on steroids. Good thing CNet doesn't know about it, or it'd be even higher on their "avoid" list than NoScript.
The Henry Earl extension! If you don't know about Henry Earl, read up on him here. Show the brother some love.
Seriously. I don't often cry "worst evar!" but this qualifies. I'm going to be installing that PDF-downloader extension just as soon as I'm done mocking this list for sucking so hard. And while I do agree that NoScript just breaks too many sites (and it's only going to get worse as the web gets all AJAXy and buzzword-compliant), I don't think I'd bother with the web without tools like Adblock Plus. What can I say - I'm sensitive to noise, both visual and audio. I find it harder than most people to filter out extraneous crap from my sensory input. Maybe it's because I grew up muting the TV audio during commericals (it got to be reflexive in our family) but advertising grates on my nerves like nobody's business. I'll tolerate Google-style text ads, but I find anything with graphics distracting and want it gone.
And yeah, some of it is my significant anti-consumerism bias, too. I block ads on principle, as I consider them an ever-increasing intrusion into my life. Yes, people have the right to create and use advertising, but I have the same right to use any legal means to keep them away from me. And for those who ask, as this article did, "what would happen to all the great ad-supported sites if everyone used these tools," well, they'd be replaced by something else - subscription-driven services, smaller clusters of free services, etc. I love the web as much as the next guy, but it's not like I'd be lost if the entire web went dark tomorrow. I have other interests. But that's not going to happen anyway.
On a side note, my Firefox 2.0.0.3 does not have spell-checking enabled. How do I get it working?
Completely avoid using the Open Sores Browser commonly known as Firefux. Use Internet Explorer 7 instead as it never crashes.
Exactly what I was thinking. In most situations ads make me not want to buy those products because anything that is mass marketed is usually crap anyways. A few exceptions hold with car companies but overall I think that is a good rule.
This story is simply a scam to get you to read 5 or 6 pages of advertising. It's even scammier because it has the ulterior motive of trying to get you to switch off your adblockers. Again...there are millions of geeks out there doing interesting stuff, how come the /. editors considered this story to be more interesting?
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
I echo the sentiments above: NoScript is not useless. NoScript is absolutely essential to force Web sites to behave themselves and maintain a sane browsing experience. It's installed on every machine I use. And I don't regard having to turn JavaScript on and off for certain sites as a problem. Quite the contrary: Any site that can't be used with JavaScript turned off is, with rare exceptions (such as Google Maps), seriously defective.
If you think you "need" JavaScript to create your site, there's a good chance you haven't thought about it enough.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
I admit I don't use myspace / facebook and things that go boing (though I guess that even if I did, whitelisting two sites one time wouldn't really stress me out) but I have to say that you are sadly deluded if you think that I keep whitelisting your site to see the stupid scripts on it. Most of the time, if it doesn't work straight up, then it's a good sign that the content wasn't worth it. You learn this quickly since on the first day you use noscrpt you do try whitelisting, but soon you realise you aren't really seeing anything worthwhile.
Simple message: if you are designing a site; make sure it works fine without the scripts. Otherwise you will lose viewers who just don't care enough.
I know a lot of you guys on Slashdot are programmers - and probably clever ones at that. Can one of you come up with a Firefox extension that somehow manages to fit a 2000-word article on a single page instead of spanning it across four pages? And then send it to Computerworld so they can offer it to their readers? Thanks.
For those who cannot (*BSD, non-i386 Linux) or do not want to run Flash, VideoDownloader is pretty much the only way to watch YouTube videos. That, and sometimes it actually is great to fetch a video from YouTube for offline viewing, even if you have Flash installed. Sure, the server that the extension uses may go down sometimes, but so what? Just wait a couple of seconds and try again.
Computerworld, you get no sympathy from me for being an ad-supported site.
... small banners, no animation) get killed too is collateral damage, and it's the advertiser's own fault that people see fit to block the crap. Many even constitute security hazards. Yeah, I'm going to allow THAT to be displayed on my browser (yes, it is MY BROWSER, and it is meant to render things as the USER sees fit...many seem to have forgotten that).
If ads had continued to be a small banner at the top or bottom of the page with NO ANIMATION, or even small ads down the sides that didn't interrupt the flow of the CONTENT (again, no animation), then guess what? I would never have seen a need to use ad blocking software.
The fact is that advertising has gotten very intrusive and counter productive. Hell, I'd likely visit a few advertiser's sites, but now I never see them because of the way they were changed to be as intrusive as possible, hence sent to the bit bucket. WHy do advertisers believe that being as in-your-face as possible would do anything BUT piss people off about the stuff they are trying to sell?
That decent ads (see above
So cry me a river. I'll stick with adblocking software. It's your own damned fault that people block your precious advertisers these days.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but Fasterfox doesn't prefetch links unless you specifically enable that option (or they are marked for prefetching, and who does that?). It doesn't matter which level you select, the indiscriminate prefetching is a separate option.
Its main benefits are multiple connections and pipelining (oh and the timer - I love the timer). To say that you should throw the whole thing out because they don't like prefetching (which is indeed a poor idea) is just plain silly.
Also, what's with the extremely patronizing tone of the whole article? Who made them the hall monitors of the internet?
sic transit gloria mundi
Guy's an imbecile.
Greasemonkey is just great, and allows for doing things like killfiles for web fora.
Noscript isn't a hassle at all. Once you unblock a site you'll NEVER have to do it again, which in my case took me all of a week to unblock all of my regularly visited sites and as for the rest, well, I just simply handle them on a case-by-case basis which is not at all any more of a hassle than clicking on a link in the first place. Additionally if you have some slower machine, for example older desktops or some notebooks(my case), no script actually makes many pages useable again while also allowing you to temporarily turn on scripting as desired.
Never leave home without adblock. 'nuff said there.
VideoDownloader. Aaaawwww did wittle baby not get his insta-gratification?
etc.
Bottom line is this lackwit picked all sorts of extension which he doesn't like for one reason or another rather than ones that are really and actually bad or just don't work.
Within just a few minutes, CW was slashdotted. It's mindboggling that any real media company converting to the web can't handle the hit rate.
That's no bug... It's a feature!
Here is the real list of problematic extensions. I found it when trying to figure out why my FF has become so slow that I have had to go back to IE (yes, imagine how bad it must be). My tabs just remain stuck on "Loading..." with a white page and nothing happens. And the memory usage keeps climbing. Yes even with all latest versions of everything. So I set out to minimize my add-ons to the barest that I must have.
So far I have 4 I can't live without. Adblock, IE View Lite, Firefox View, and BugmeNot. Out of these I am assuming only an "Always on" types like Adblock can cause memory + slowdown issues. The others should not hurt much right?
The blacklist has some popular extensions like Adblock, but usually its only the older versions with problems. Tab Browser Extensions and Tab Browser Preferences particularly stand out as they are not recommended.
Oh and the article is drivel.
In other news ... Russian mafia releases list of 10 pieces of software to avoid. Topping the list are anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities. Details at 11.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
On a few sites, there seem to be CSS "interstitials" (if that's the right term) which float up despite my having no JS enabled and popups blocked.
Naturally, I avoid such sites.
I can't get to the article, but I'd love to know why it, and so many people here, are claiming that NoScript is a hassle. I get a nice little icon in my browser's status bar. That's it. If a site needs javascript, I click on it, and click Allow or Temporarily Allow, and I'm done in two clicks. Where's the hassle?
SIG: 11
Be careful, there are several different Firefox extensions for video downloading. The one that's actually called "Video Downloader" is probably *not* the one that you should be using, as it "phones home" to its author with the URLs that you download! I was quite surprised that an extension with this behaviour was allowed on addons.mozilla.org.
The addons.mozilla.org search will find alternatives. I'm currently using something called UnPlug.
but don't take my Adblock. The web is practically unusable without it. It's bad enough we have website where you have banner ads blinking and flashing all over the page, and you have maybe one paragraph before another ad, and then two paragraphs before you have to go to the next page and even more ads. And if you're really unlucky you've got "interstitial gateways", pop-ups, and web bugs. Is say NO, and stamp down my foot for anti-commercialism. No more bourgeoisie apparatchiks hoping to fool the proletariat into buying more junk! Down with the capitalist fiasco, and give me plain old web pages I can read in peace!
Awards go to Computerworld.com for:
The #1 "Informative" article to avoid, because it is useless and a waste of time.
and...
The #1 website to avoid if you want useful information.
It's about time for Computerworld to lay off some writers.
Just by the way, "virii" is a Latin word - the nominative plural of "virus." However, it can be found in two forms "virii" or "viri" with the two i's combined.
That is all.
wow, this top 10 list is great for someone that hasn't explored the options that firefox offers; now i know just what extensions to acquire to make my web-life easier. thanks computerworld, for spawning this discussion about firefox utilities that i hadn't actually tinkered with or heard about yet.
Just realized I didn't have noscript installed on this particular machine. Thanks for reminding me!
For those annoying animated gifs, just use Page Animator, which only shows the first frame from the gif. It works like a charm.
EVERY website I visit is completely static, unless I whitelist it. These two programs make my browsing experience so much better. I heart Flashblock and Page Animator!
From IDG, the people who conveniently provide you a trial to all their other publications and then call you relentlessly via their call center in Banglore to "renew your subscription". Apparently, you have to tell them no 10 times before it's counted as a real confirmation you don't want their free magazine.
The userContent.css from floppymoose.com and NoScript make the web enjoyable. I'm sorry it cuts down on their ad revenue, but the fact of the matter is that animated graphics, jumping Flash ads and things that scroll across my screen ("Take Our Survey" -- NO!) are annoying and increasingly intolerable. And when I visit a site, adbrite, doubleclick, casalemedia and the rest have absolutely no business executing javascript on my computer. If that affects your web business, maybe you better find something that people don't find intrusive and offensive to their privacy.
I'm sure if you listen to Computerworld long enough, you might come to the conclusion that the world would be a much better place if everyone just used Internet Explorer. We tried that, it wasn't working out so well.
Overall, the article is quite clear about which extensions it recommends for which levels of users and why. A lot of people here would give much of the same advice to their less tech-savvy friends.
"We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals." --The American President (20.1.2009)
I just added computerworld.com to my "Untrusted" list :)
They provided a very useful link.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Two that I don't believe should be on there:
PDFDownload: "Don't use it because sometimes it crashes our system". Bah. I use PDFDownload all the time, and I like it. The Adobe plugin is a bloated piece of crap, but now I have some warning going to a PDF link and some choice of what to do with it. And it's never crashed my system.
Scribefire: "Don't use it because we don't understand why you'd use it". Bah. I've used Scribefire and it's predecessor for a while, and I like it. Yes, I could just log in to livejournal or whatever, but it's easier to just hit F8, type in whatever thought has occured to me or whatever link I've found, and be done with it. Less clicks = more use. And, as we all know, the "blogosphere" needs more short, random thoughts posted.
Some of the others had merit to be there, but mostly this just seemed like a hackneyed list of "This is what we don't like for our random reasons". Much less informative, enjoyable, or useful, than their 20-best list.
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
TFA doesn't even render right with NoScript enabled. This is excusable, I use javascript to position HTML things all the time, but what is UP with the long list of OTHER sites that's being block. Why the heck would I want to enable any more sites for sole ability to display ads?
The only possible interpretation of any research whatever in the 'social sciences' is: some do, some don't
Reading all the comments about how the article was complete crap because it featured this or that extension became a little annoying, so I'll add my own input into the discussion. First, let me say that I use Opera but still have Firefox installed with a few extensions to test on web sites I make.
Fasterfox -- You don't really need this with a cable or DSL connection. It just leaches bandwidth.
NoScript -- There's a similar feature in Opera inside "Site Preferences" which I use in a different way that makes it easier. If NoScript could work the same way, there would be no reason for this extension to be in the list.
AdBlock -- Yes, web sites need to pay for their hardware and bandwidth. It's true that subscription services could replace ads but I already have to pay for many other things and bills can add up real fast. Looking at ads cost me nothing. Of course, I disable the most annoying ads with the "Enable plug-ins" option placed inside Opera's status bar. And while it's true that there just too many ads on some web sites now, I remember seeing the first ad blockers when most sites had, at most, two simple banners.
PDF Download -- I've had the problem described in the article before. I don't see the point of installing an extension when you can change the way Firefox handles PDF's under Tools->Options->Content. Basically, it's useless.
Video Downloader -- Because the servers can be slow shouldn't be a problem. It's better to download a file slowly than not being able to download it at all.
Greasemonkey -- It shouldn't be put in the ends of some idiots because you know they'll end adding scripts from shady places for silly little things such as falling leaves or animated cursors. That's even after you've told them they should only add scripts from the places you told them about.
ScribeFire -- I didn't use it but I believe it handles multiple blogs. This is perfect for people with multiple blogs. If you have only one blog, why not bookmark your editing page to the Bookmarks Toolbar? Remember that having less extensions is better.
TrackMeNot -- Useless...
Tabbrowser Preferences -- I love this extension. I set all the tabs behaviors to what I like every time I install a fresh copy of Firefox. I don't care if I can't change the tabs preferences back to what they were if I install the extension. I've already set them to my liking.
Anyway, the list was just one guy's oppinion as this text was mine. Everyone has different needs and preferences. Of course he'll defend ads. His pay comes from them.
NoScript is one of the best Firefox addons. This isn't news - it's some bozos opinion. And not a very educated opinion at that. What - he downloaded a bunch of scripts an hour b4 deadline on the article? That's how it comes across to me.
that and AdBlock keep me sane.
If I wanted my web pages to have video auto-run and constant bouncing moving images, I'd turn on their scripts.
But I don't.
Either serve up static or slow ad pages - with NO SOUND - or you die by my NoScript and AdBlock enabled mouse!
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
NoScript is the first plug-in that I install. I love that thing hands down. It's blocking "doubleclick.net" right now that Slashdot is trying to include. =)
Pushing an ad on someone who doesn't want to see it is, what, going to suddenly make that person buy something?
Why do you think telemarketers hate do-not-call lists? They should be celebrating to high heavens, since all their non-customers got sorted out of the pool. *BUZZ* wrong answer. There's plenty people that don't want to be bother with them but who respond to ads - not directly but then you don't see a TV ad and immidiately call and order unless it's TV shop. Hell, there's plenty people like you that'll deny they get affected by ads that still do. There could be ten brands of tooth paste with exactly the same goop and you'd pick the one with the best commercials, or the best packaging, or the best store placement. Or the one you got last time, which amounts to the same.
Face it, for every thing where you're choosing on facts (for example for most of slashdot, computer equipment) there's a hundred things you're not, and you have neither the time or inclination to investigate. All people are like that, except maybe for them it's fashion clothes or ecological food or vacation resorts or whatever. Then we can sit and laugh at the people that buy memory-starved Dells while they laugh at us for going to that overpriced beach resort when there's a better and cheaper one just nearby. And if you really seriously mean that you're in the small minority that doesn't get affected by any ad, ever, well you are still indistinguishable from the rest. Don't expect them to give up trying anytime soon.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
FTFA:
Does NoScript make Firefox safer? Sure. Is it worth the hassle? No. For some reason, paranoia seems to be cool among Web geeks
I guess they think that having your system pwned and turned into a spam-spewing zombie DoS machine of death is what really makes one cool.
Insanity is a gradual process; don't rush it.
That's a great list, I'll be installing a couple of those in a minute, though I knew about most of them already.
Now where's that list of not recommended extensions?
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Welcome to gopher at slashdot.org!
I just noticed I don'T have Tabbrowser Preferences installed anymore. I use Tab Mix Plus instead.
The "writer", or should I say "typer", put out self-serving (Ooo, you don't want to block Javascript, it's _hard_...why yes we use Javascript heavily as do the advertisers on this site...same thing for Adblock) lists, where the reasons for not installing something are either ill-considered or simply not factual.
If you have ever said "my browser" you should ignore the article. It *is* your browser and your choice on how it should work.
Here is a list of MUST HAVE extensions. The ones that mean I use Firefox instead of a superior browser such as Camino, Opera (Mac and PC), or even the bang-the-false-metal-head-that-doesn't-drink-beer Safari.
Must have extensions:
NoScript
Adblock
Almost-must have extensions:
Flashblock
Stop-or-Reload Button
Copy Plain Text (on Windows PCs)
Forecastfox Enhanced (optional if you live in SoCal)
Controle de Scripts
Tab Clicking Options
Open link in... (on Windows PCs)
New Tab Homepage
Stop Autoplay (on Windows PCs)
Stylish (now *this* is hard to use, but can bring great rewards)
repagination (sites are now taking action to block this!)
PDF Download
CookieSafe
Long Titles
Some real good ones:
TinyURL Creator
Download Manager Tweak
Reuse Home Page
Tabs Menu
Quick Preference Button
And for work I find these additional ones help:
RefControl
FoxClocks (yes, for Mumbai)
SwitchProxy Tool
IE View
Live HTTP Headers
User Agent Switcher
So far I've only seen people who say they're downloading it. But my question is why?
The article missed one important fact about PDFDownload - if you just want to open PDF differently than in the PDF plug-in, go to Tools->Options->Content->File Types (Manage) and change the way PDFs are handled. I just delete the handling of PDFs altogether, and I get a nice little download window asking me what to do with the file: open in Acrobat (external app), a different app, or just save to HD. And if you can pick your own app, then why view in HTML?
Cheers,
m
View in IE Tab ??? :-)
One annoying thing with Greasemonkey is that sites can detect that you have it, even if you're not using it on their site. There are sites (neopets.com, for one) that will have different behavior for their pages if you have greasemonkey. Is there any way to avoid that?
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse
At least, I think so. There's no way I'm actually clicking on your link.
If the plural of an 'ius' form is 'ii', i.e. (mal)stating the rule as dropping the s and changing the u to an i, then the malconstructed plural form of virus would indeed viri - or if the rule is stated as drop the 'us' and double the i, viir.
For those who refuse to use normally constructed plurals like viruses, there's always virusen. Or virusoj.
Liquor
Sanity is a highly overrated commodity.
Until the advertisements are cleaned up and are not annoying, I will use AdBlock. I do not feel the slightest bit guilty. I understand the need to generate revenue to support a site. Annoying ads and pop-ups are not the way to do it. If your business model is not working... change it or watch your business fail.
This list look like it has been made for webmasters, not for the users. FasterFox? Help the user, not good for web server. NoScript? Help the user, webmasters might not have their script running so they don't like it. AdBlock? Sure we want to block ALL ads, who said we want to support ads from sites we like? Keep the internet ad-free!
Morons got it all wrong, their list of the extensions to avoid is actually the list of extension one should have, and vice-versa.
Adblock and NoScript are the extensions to have, they make my internet experience so much better cutting out all the crap I do not want to see.
That should've read "settle on a sane, easy-to-comprehend alternative". I am by no means implying that we should build a town in a member function.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
I can't imagine browsing without NoScript anymore. Especially when I have to visit some unsafe websites. Enabling scripts for specific domain is easy and fast too. It's an excellent extension.
Pushing an ad on someone who doesn't want to see it is, what, going to suddenly make that person buy something?
Well, to some extent, yes.
It's called building the brand. Even if you're not going to buy a coke right now, a coke ad will build brand equity so that when you're deciding what beverage to purchase, you'll think of coke, and be more likely to choose coke.
Otherwise, they are wasting their money on ads. The fact that not only is Coke still around, and is very successful, points to the fact that advertising can work.
Otherwise, why does someone buy Coke's flavored sugar-water instead of Pepsi?
This article crashes, I don't like the colour scheme, and it doesn't talk about puppies. Puppies should be part of Firefox by default! The next version of Opera promised puppies.
WTF! Mod my parent post down. I didn't preview so the closing blockquote tag had a spelling error in it, which caused what I've written to be included in the quote aswell. Seriously people, it wasn't a comment I'm especially proud of. There are many more posts that articulate the failure that is TFA way better than I did, although I guess the title of my parent post sums things up quite well. I think parent should be around +1, like it was for a long time after I've submitted it.
On the other hand I always wanted to do a "mod parent down" post referring to one of my own posts, so here it is...
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Use Lynx. Set your user-agent string to "I'm using Lynx! In your face!" Browse the article without even the other annoying crap that Firefox with pop-up block and adblock and no-flash would leave intact. Auto-reject cookies. Scripting several visits using Lynx and Perl is left as an exercise for the reader.
most firefox memory leaks are actually caused by adblock which is a buggy piece of shit. adblock plus is usable and much more stable, though.
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
You could switch to Opera and escape all the hassle ;)
Sounds like the writer of this article is whining more than anything.
While I respect that some places are ad-supported, ultimately you can "thank" the f**ktards out there who market and promote via annoying ad placement (flash, pop-under/ups, etc). These are the same idiots who have created the need for (great) products like AdBlock.
I will continue to use it. I pay for my connection, and I will not subsidize abuse of my surfing experience with annoying ads. Too bad.
He does make a valid point with Faster Fox, and I had wondered about that previously. Now someone will come up with a new version or a script that will mask the detection of this plugin so people can't detect it, and thus will have to find other means to manage their bandwidth.
The rest of the article is pretty useless, really.
That article is such a load of horseshit. Both NoScript and Adblock Plus break their ad serving so they choose to claim that they are bad and/or difficult to use. Bullshit. NoScript is easy enough for any noob to use with or even without a little backgrounding of it or a help file. Personally, I think such features should be integrated into Firefox 3.0. It is just too essential. Allowing any web site you might encounter while browsing to run scripting on your computer is and always was a very bad idea.. Now that virus/worm/trojan writers are mostly money motivated, they are going after serious stuff like your credit card numbers, bank account passwords, all that. The people writing those things now are not looking for street cred, but dollars. It's a whole new world.
I find NoScript to be incredibly easy to use. It, along with Adblock Plus, are the only reason I am not migrating to Opera. Opera is much faster on my computer at least. But the javascript whitelist functionality is too cumbersome compared to the single click ease of NoScript. And the new functionality of recent versions make it even easier to use. I recently got my computer clueless film school graduate friend to ad NoScript and he hasn't had any usability problems. This is just commercially motivated FUD.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
Since the vast majority of annoying (or really annoying) ads use flash, I use flashblock. I don't use adblock. I can ignore most ads. With flashblock I can allow flash on sites that I want either all the time or on a per instance basis.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Why don't you use AdblockPlus, then, instead of the plain version? :-)
As for the other extensions they hate:
* NoScript works great for me (VERY few sites need a whitelist, and most only get a temporary whitelist; one of the few I whitelisted once gave me a popup and tried to exploit me with something, so I'm NOT being paranoid here)
* GreaseMonkey allows me to bypass some annoying censorware (company firewall blocks games.slashdot.com, but none of the other subdomains, so I rewrite games.slashdot.com URLs as it.slashdot.com and the firewall is happily oblivious)
* Adblock, well, if I were used to popups, I wouldn't have thought much of the exploit I mentioned under NoScript. It *pays* to be paranoid in a world where probably millions of the clueless run zombie PCs, slaves to the botfarms that shove spam down our throats.
* PDF Download is great for unlabeled PDF links. Yeah, it should be faster these days, but the several second freeze just isn't nice when PDFs come up. And half the time, I don't give a damn about the formatting they used PDF to preserve.
As for the rest, I don't know or use them.
Frankly, I doubt we'll ever have a viable micropayment system - not because of technological limitations, but because deciding whether to pay $.0199 for an article is way more trouble than it's worth. Think of how you actually use the web - if you spend an hour or so surfing in the evening, you could be looking at a dozen web sites, each with several pages. No one wants to make dozens of buying decisions just to do a little reading.
The technology to do micropayments is there - but there's just no demand for it.
So I wouldn't have to page through the story, but their print button invoked javascript and noscript disabled it.
There could be ten brands of tooth paste with exactly the same goop and you'd pick the one with the best commercials, or the best packaging, or the best store placement. Or the one you got last time
Or, more wisely, and most likely, the one with the lowest price. If it's something I need and all the brands are otherwise functionally identical, the lowest price wins. Advertising means precisely dick.
I use fasterfox on my 300 Mhz PC, otherwise, my computer is the one that gets hammered so I can squeeze a bit more from those cycles. Anyway, the people who put commercial webservers have more money than I do anyway...
Vi havas e-poston.
I see fewer and fewer ads. I TIVO my television shows and I certainly use Adblock. About the only ads I see anymore are funny ones that people post online. I think that is true for a fair number of people in my demographic. Advertisers and marketers are people we have learned to be very suspicious of. They are in the same morally dubious category as used-car salesmen. Inviting people like that into your life is just dumb.
At the same time I am not sure if advertisers will really miss me and people like me. People who block ads are not likely to have bought the stuff that was being advertised anyway. In a way, we are doing advertisers a favor by saving them the bandwidth they would have used trying to reach me.
This is how advertisers can reach me. Go back to their clients and tell them to produce some products that don't suck. Marketers, next time you meet with the boss, tell him to stop crippling products based on some business school case study.
One definite detractor about FasterFox and any typical precaching extension is that you may go to a link that may have a link to a questionable site. If you are running Firefox in an environment where said questionable sites are located i.e. work. You may not want to have firewall logs containing this precaching.
I don't believe TV shows would go off the air because of people skipping commercials. They might reduce the budget per episode or increase ad content per timeslot, but there's too much of an industry in place to produce ads to tolerate it going away.
Vested interests in web advertising may be more tenuous than tenacious as they have more of an opportunity to measure effectiveness. The trick will be to find a way to avoid the ads without letting them know you've avoided the ads, such as browsing behind a high-bandwidth proxy that intercepts them so they don't impact your lower bandwidth while also masquerading as you to hide its presence. (Maybe even hosting a virtual browsing environment so it can respond properly to probing scripts seeking to verify impressions.)
Meanwhile, the CSI shows are getting product placement in the show, even to the extent that the product placed in the show was the murder weapon and/or dismemberment tool! And if there was any doubt about sponsorship, at least one regular ad for the product airs during the ad break (though not yet specific to the episode with a pitch like, "If you like how our Sawzall cut through a human body in this episode, just think what other uses you could find for it in your home!").
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
This article, despite its clear bias, actually had some positive effects for me, as well as having the opposite effect that the author intended. Far from avoiding what's listed, I'm going to install NoScript the minute I get home this evening.
;-)
Am I paranoid? Who's asking? And why?
Keep the peace(es).
Bruce Lane, KC7GR,
Blue Feather Technologies
While I wouldn't live without adblock and all, I would pay NOT to use NoScript if I had to.
NoScript is the perfect way to screw up most web apps -- like client-side form validation and everything AJAX (which is becoming an awful lot of sites nowadays -- useful ones like google maps and such). And white listing 95% of the websites I regularly visit (and many others) is quite a unnecessary annoyance. All this because javascript is supposedly oh-so-unsafe... (not that I've ever had a problem with it). My stuff degrades alright, but with NoScript you're getting an awful lot of postbacks for nothing, and just a sucky experience altogether (taking all the nice parts of the web apps away)
NoSafe is the absolute very worst firefox extension *EVER*. It's a plague worse than IE itself. Why not say CSS is insecure too and make an extension to block it? Hey, images can cause buffer overflows in GDI and what not too -- insecure! Make an extension to block all images! These people make the web plain-text ASCII only if they could -- perfect way to kill the web (making it a "online" version of notepad). I understand blocking obnoxious ads, flash, sounds, etc, but javascript? That's a bit extreme.
It's not that I object to "doubleclick.net" it's that downloading slashdot freezes on this and google-analytics. Now if you want to get people to watch the ads then do something about it ..
davecb5620@gmail.com
They will have to pry Adblock Plus from my cold, dead mouse!
Unfortunately there are many kinds of payment conventions when it comes to online advertising. Some are paid per click, some per view. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_advertising#P
The only thing I'm still waiting for is firefox being controlled by voice recognition. Now, THAT would be cool.
I heard Opera has it, so I don't understand why it takes so long for firefox. I did search for firefox extensions and plugins that had something to do with 'sound' or 'voice', but the only thing that came up was something that tried to read out text on a page. Fine for blind people, I guess. But what I'm looking for is to give commands, like 'firefox, slashdot' and voila, there it opens on slashdot.
That would be cool AND useful, contrary to the majority of the plugins to date.
The only other useful thing would be a far better downloadmanager - but than again, I think that should be incorporated in firefox by default.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
This is a pretty broad set of statements to make, and I doubt the article's author has anything but his own opinion to back it up with. Example: Google Analytics javascripts are everywhere, directly allowing google to track an individual user's journey to any pages that include them. The author apparently doesn't think that visits to such pages are "private information". Or maybe the author doesn't realize how such information is tracked and might be used.
- First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then ???, then profit.
This has to be the dumbest articles to ever come from ComputerWorld.
Think every single poster we've seen here has agreed how his list of mostly good tools, and it does seem targeted against tools that target ads and privacy. There *are* many dumb Firefox extensions he could have covered (like the 'make us your portal' ones) that he didn't. But really, how stupid does he think we are? Anyone even remotely tech savvy will see through his 'list'. Who is this guy anyway? His bio doesn't exactly shine out from the crowd:
> Peter Smith is a Web developer and freelance writer with
> a special interest in personal technology and digital entertainment.
Web developer = my 6 year old is also a web developer. freelance = mostly unemployed. special interest = means nothing. personal technology = he owns an iPod. digital entertainment = he watches movies, not at the cinema, but straight off a DVD. Hey Computerworld and your mass media cohorts: print crap articles like this and the Bloggers will eat you alive.
Magazines piss me off too:
-When you pick it up off the shelf 5 subscription cards fall out of it
-The covers are covered with fancy bolded text for each headline hoping that one of the articles will attract you
-When you open the cover the first page is a full page ad
-The next page is an ad
-And the next
-Until 10 pages later you find the table of contents... which is conveniently broken into a page and a half with a half page ad between
-Then the article you want to read is listed, but of course the smallest text is the page number
-As you flip through finding the page, the page number text is in a small font and sometimes misplaced or in a different color because of full page ads
-When you find the article there are full page ads, half page ads, quarter page ads, and column ads between the start and end of the article
-Finally they want you to pay for your subscription so they can feed you 4 pages of useful content and 100 pages of ads
-And the back of the magazine is typically... you guessed it, an ad. So when the mail man or someone misplaces and drops a magazine, it's not the magazine you see but a STUPID AD!
There are a few good magazines out there but most are a joke.
The only real issue of NoScript is that it slows Firefox down. Opening links in a new tab is a *lot* slower if the extension is enabled.
However, this is only noticeable on very old machines with less then 500-800mhz.
Especially if you're running firefox in windows, NoScript is basically essential. I don't understand why they think it's a hassle, if the webpage doesn't work, you can just whitelist it (assuming you trust it) and never worry about it again. It's no hassle at all.
--The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
easyGestures is much better than the gestures extension they promote.
Pie Menus are, for my money, the best UI improvement since the invention of Content Senstive Help.
How many escape pods are there? "NONE,SIR!" You counted them? "TWICE, SIR!"
The list consists of two types of extensions:
1. Extensions that bug Computerworld.
2. Extensions that the authors don't see a need for.
#1 is a case of looking out for... well, number one.
#2 is a case where they've decided that, because they don't have a use for it, no one has a use for it. It's a common bias, one which crops up all the time in internet discussions (yes, even here) on software, TV, movies, books -- just about anything.
Something may be aimed at a different target audience. It may be a waste of my time. But it doesn't mean it's a waste of everyone's time, because someone else may get something different out of it than I do.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015599
I remembered to check the AC box this time...
Don't watch much television, do you?
The US free market: two halves of a government-granted duopoly are free to set the market price.
/me installs all the listed extensions. Except for the trojan one.
Because that is the implicit agreement. They offer you content and do not charge you money for it; in return, they "charge" you some ads, which they may get paid for based on the impression even if you don't bother buying through it.
I don't like ads any more than the next guy, but I don't block them. Fair's fair.
Why they don't like Greasemonkey:
Summary:
<head explodes>
Edith Keeler Must Die
I right clicked, copied the location, pasted to my friend Derek.
I'm pretty sure, judging by his reaction, that you were right not to click GP's link.
Now if you'll excuse me I need to assume a new identity...
My kingdom for a mod point!
What's the problem with VideoDownloader? I just wait the video to load in the page [i.e. YouTube] and then click the icon and ready! [In fact, I've never seen that error page in my life] Second, if a normal user instead of a ad-supported webpage money-eaters makes the list, it changes A LOT. This list fails.
Minti: What's that huge shuriken in your back?! Kin: It's the instrument of my victory.
What a crappy list.
:)). It greatly enhances the tabbing features of Firefox. The tabbing features are one of the main reasons for using Firefox. I have never had any problems ever using it.
The Tabbrowser Preferences is for my usage the most important extension (except for maybe adblock
It is interesting that the article only criticizes it for not being able to uninstall completely. First, I don't want to uninstall it and, secondly, is that enough to put it the bottom 10?
Note that this is not related to Tabbrowser Extensions which is apparently broken.
One of the nice things I like about Adblock, those websites that you do want to support and are behaving when it comes to advertisments you can simply white list their site.
:)
Yea we hear "I need ads to survive!", well stop being a dick with your adverts and people will unblock you.
Of course in the case of Slashdot, instead of adverts we get articles that are basically adverts.
NoScript not worth the hassle?
that article was obviously written by someone with a vested interest in web-bugs and other marketing spyware.
the magazine industry has always been advertising-funded, and has thus always been in bed with marketing vermin.
'don't protect yourself from our snooping! it's too hard! and not worth the hassle! honest, you can trust us"
the biased dismissals of Adblock Plus and Greasemonkey share the same motivation.
IMO, NoScript and Adblock Plus are the two MUST-HAVE firefox add-ons. i wouldn't use FF without them. and the fact that they exist is reason enough to choose FF over all other browsers.
I subscribe to both the Easy* lists and filterset.g. Adblock Plus lets you subscribe to more than one list.
I let the Easy* lists update automatically, and then every so often, I go in and manually correct the filterset.g link to the correct link (why can't they just make a symlink?)
They don't grade fathers, but if your daughter's a stripper, you fucked up. --Chris Rock
+1 Insightful. Yeah, you've hit the nail on the head. And you've even done it with a reference to Clippy!
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.