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."

Comments

Sorry but the list is BS

[A beautiful mind]

For example, NoScript, which does make Firefox safer, but isn't worth the hassle Says who?

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[Gr8Apes]

No kidding. This article should be renamed:

What users need to do to maximize our cashflow.

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[voice_of_all_reason]

It derides fasterfox for wasting bandwidth (a genuine concern), videodownloader on spurious speed/usage claims, and adblock specifically by saying "where would the web be if everyone blocked ads."

This news source is not objective and is, therefore, made of Fail.

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[deanoaz]

If the web content disappears because I don't see the ads, then I'll happily live without the content. If my favorite TV shows go off the air because I skip most of the ads when I watch, I'll watch something else instead. If every TV show goes off the air, I'll read more books.

What I won't do is expose myself to more advertising than I have to.

"Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people." - George Bernard Shaw

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[Andy Dodd]

I think that's why Google has been so successful with their ad system.

The targeting is one thing, but far more important is that Google's ads tend to be far less intrusive (and thus far less likely to get added to a user's blocklist).

here's the tell...

[Naurgrim]

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.

#3 = Adblock? No bias there

[Excelcia]

But if everyone blocked ads, how would sites such as ours continue to offer content free of charge?

If everyone who didn't want to see ads blocked them, then the ads that were seen would have more value because they would be seen by people who wanted to see them. Pushing an ad on someone who doesn't want to see it is, what, going to suddenly make that person buy something?

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.

Fasterfox

[SevenHands]

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.

Re:Missing from the list

[ShieldW0lf]

That's funny as hell.

#1 Fasterfox: Don't use it, it hammers webservers! There are a lot of links on the page that you are NEVER going to click on, mostly ads. This prefetches all those ads from the adservers webserver, but you're not looking at them! Not cool!

#2 NoScript: Don't use it, it's annoying. Plus, it screws up important scripts. For example, the article has these scripts:

function popup( ...
function popup_noscroll( ...
function switchPage( ... // this ord is used for Double Click Integration
ord=Math.random()*10000000000000000;

Do you really want to have to deal with the trouble?

#3 AdBlock: Do you think we do this to provide you with lame lists? We don't. We do this to make you watch ads. And you have to watch them! Didn't you get that under #2? You're breaking the social contract, you bastard!

What a joke.