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

Missing from the list

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Missing from the list

[Anonymous Coward]

What's a goatse?

Re:Missing from the list

[iminplaya]

Probably about the same thing you and I do, but possibly in black and white.

Re:Missing from the list

[jimicus]

This has to be the first time in history a link to goatse could reasonably be modded +5 Informative. It won't, of course - it'll be modded -5, Troll.

But since you ask:

http://www.goatse.cz/

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.

Re:Missing from the list

[elrous0]

It's a /.er's way of saying "Welcome."

Re:Missing from the list

[Mattintosh]

I went ahead and tested it with my fingers poised and ready on ctrl-w, just in case...

Damn good thing, too. It's back. Beware.

Re:Missing from the list

[Bretai]

gives me an idea for another extension which stitches these kinds of articles together

Firefox repagination: http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2099

Of course, once you do that, it becomes even more obvious that the content to garbage ratio on that site is well below 50%, but at least you don't have to click and wait at each break.

Re:Missing from the list

[Bretai]

You're breaking the social contract, you bastard!

So, would it be wrong to show people the whole list, allowing many people to ignore their ad-laden web page altogether?

Fasterfox
NoScript
Adblock Plus
PDF Download
VideoDownloader
Greasemonkey
ScribeFire
TrackMeNot
Tabbrowser Preferences
Tabbrowser Extensions
FormSpy

Hmmm. It doesn't feel wrong.

Re:Missing from the list

[lowrydr310]

From TFA:

For some reason, paranoia seems to be cool among Web geeks, but for the most part, it is totally unwarranted unless you're sending and receiving sensitive data.

I'm not using Noscript because I'm paranoid. I ran into many sites that used Javascript to float ads over the entire page. Noscript puts me in control of the content I wish to view.

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

[walt-sjc]

What pushed me to adblock isn't ads, it's ANNOYING ads. It's ads that make noise, that flash, that move around the screen, that pop up, etc. Regular simple ads were not annoying to me. Now all content providers suffer because of the behavior of some advertisers.

That said, I do pay for some premium content, such as the Wall Street Journal, and a couple other work related (and work paid for) news sites. Unfortunately, we don't have a viable micro-payment system yet, so when you hit a site that you would pay 5 - 10 cents to read an article, you can't.

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).

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[misleb]

I think he's saying that most sites simply wouldn't get any revenue because at least he (and probably myself) would neither pay for the content (in most cases) nor suffer ads. I think he's just being honest. Fact is that a lot of sites just wouldn't exist without ad support. But then, so what? That isn't his (or my) problem beyond there being a smaller number of sites available to browse. There was an internet before advertising was ubiquitous, ya know. Even today, plenty of sites manage to get by without advertising OR charging for content.

Finally, what's the "winning" scenario here - consumers (if they can be called that) - getting everything for free?

Winning is businesses finding better ways to make money than by annoying the general user. And yes, I find any and all ads annoying. I don't care if they are relevent or targetted or whatever. If I want to see/here about a company, I will seek them out. If there is any "legitimate"
form of advertising, it is in the form of yellowpages-like directories or catalogs. Beyond that, I don't want to see it or here it. And quite frankly, I don't give a crap how it affects business.

-matthew

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[misleb]

I disagree, and would argue that the web started with DARPA.

But there was a time when the vast majority of content was essentially ad free. Much of it even useful information. Heck, even today I visit plenty of sites that have no ads nor do charge for content. Although maybe that has changed in the last couple years. Adblock Plus is just so effective, I'm often shocked if for some reason I have to browse without it. Like I am actually overwhelmed. You just don't realize how in prevelent advertising is until you've shielded youself from it for a while. Mass ad blocking is like a drug. A sweet, sweet drug that I never want to come off. ;-)

-matthew

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[Fordiman]

Yeah. I was gonna say, Adblock at number 3 the avoid? Not if you're an end-user.

Though, I gotta say, videodownloader is overrated, especially if you're only after YouTube videos. The below link will work more quickly:

javascript:(function(){var x = document.createElement('iframe'); x.style.width='1px'; x.style.height='1px'; document.body.appendChild(x); x.src='http://www.youtube.com/get_video?video_id=' + window.location.toString().match(/v=([^\&]*)/)[1]+ '&t='+ document.body.innerHTML.match(/\&t=([^\&]*)/)[1]; })();

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[ergean]

What would be a pertinent ad for an article with Firefox? ... ...
RAM!

Re:Sorry but the list is BS

[BalanceOfJudgement]

Like I am actually overwhelmed. You just don't realize how in prevelent advertising is until you've shielded youself from it for a while. Mass ad blocking is like a drug.

You just said something else, although you didn't realize it:

That mass advertising itself is also like a drug. I'm constantly amazed when I hear people talk about their experiences when they don't watch TV or go on the internet for awhile.. it's like they see the world completely differently, and in fact, they do: without the constant drum of advertising against their skulls, they start to see a world NOT based entirely on crass consumerism, a world where there IS meaning and simply joy in things like going to a picnic or talking to your family or reading a book on a gentle afternoon.

We've become so conditioned to be the perfect consumers that we're actually surprised when we step out of that mold. I never watch or listen to ads anymore, and advertisers be damned: I'll buy your product when and if I need it, and only then will I go looking for it. You do not need to spend every waking moment of my life telling me I am a worthless piece of shit because I don't have the latest gadget or waving things in my face that you KNOW I'm going to have to use credit to buy.

Fuck you, all of you. I am a human being, not a machine you can control.

Hey, I like NoScript

[jfengel]

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.

Re:Hey, I like NoScript

[Hatta]

Exactly, you only have to whitelist a site once. And it takes all of 2 seconds. Annoying scripts however, will fuck with you every time you visit a site. It's not long until the benefits manifest. And since we tend to spend most of our time on sites we've been before, it's really pretty rare that I have to whitelist anything.

In a perfect world, we wouldn't have to deal with client side scripting at all. It's inconvenient, dangerous, and downright impolite. If you want me to see your page, do your processing on YOUR computer. Until then, noscript will have to do.

Re:Hey, I like NoScript

[Saint Aardvark]

One more "me, too". I hate dancing baloney on a web page, and doubly so when it's for useless, distracting, intrusive advertising. Not to mention all the stupid security problems that come up when you just blindly trust any code to run in your web browser.

For a handful of sites, JavaScript is worth turning on; for everything else, there's NoScript.

Re:Hey, I like NoScript

[Mr2cents]

FTA:

For some reason, paranoia seems to be cool among Web geeks [...] Can you be paying attention to security and not be paranoid at the same time?

Re:Hey, I like NoScript

[flynt]

I hate dancing baloney on a web page, and doubly so when it's for useless, distracting, intrusive advertising.

Is there any other kind of dancing baloney?

Re:Hey, I like NoScript

[Red Flayer]

I hate dancing baloney on a web page, and doubly so when it's for useless, distracting, intrusive advertising.

Is there any other kind of dancing baloney?

Umm, dancing baloney not on a web page?

Re:Hey, I like NoScript

[Red Flayer]

Wow. My comment is neither interesting nor informative, AFAICT. Funny, maybe, since the PP was referring to the "useless, distracting, intrusive advertising" aspects of the dancing baloney... but I guess this goes to show that one man's funny is another man's informative/interesting.

Sure

[utlemming]

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.

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.

As pointless as the last article

[WarwickRyan]

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!

Re:As pointless as the last article

[AJWM]

Run a website of your own, see how many people call or email with problems that are caused by noscript and adblock

I run a bunch, and nobody complains because I don't do client side scripts or run other people's ads.

because it actually enhances the browsing experience.

I go to websites for information, not a "browsing experience". What enhances my browsing experience is delivering the information I'm looking for without a lot of singing and dancing. If I'm looking for entertainment, again it'll be the specific content (eg video clip) I'm looking for, not all singing all dancing all popup crap.

Any "Performance" tweaks as well

[Pope]

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.

Adblock and Adblock Plus?!?!

[Skadet]

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?

Who says free content at the price of advertising is a good thing? Take a good look at TFA. Do you SEE those ads? I'm on page two, which weighs in at 136kb. That's for what, two paragraphs of text? And don't forget -- gotta navigate all 4 pages for maximum impressions!

Really, sites like Slashdot, Google, etc. have it right. Minimally intrusive ads with quality content == a good experience for most users.

Re:Adblock and Adblock Plus?!?!

[StormReaver]

"And don't forget -- gotta navigate all 4 pages for maximum impressions!"

You hit on one of my pet peeves -- web sites that break a single article into multiple pages. I rarely go beyond the first page, and I only read the first page of this self-serving article. If I knew ahead of time that this was one of those articles, I would have skipped it entirely. Maybe a [WARNING: multiple pages] heads-up is warranted on future Slashdot postings.

Re:Adblock and Adblock Plus?!?!

[p0tat03]

Part of the problem is that websites have zero clue what they're doing when they're laying out the page. They put the ads in the largest, most obtrusive places in an attempt to gain eye-time, but all it does is piss off the user.

Look at a print magazine. Most of them have remarkably good layout - ads are clearly ads, and text flows around the ads naturally. The site in TFA has horrifying ads that break the flow of the article and send your mind into unnatural gymnastics trying to follow along.

Ads and web content can coexist peacefully, but not until webmasters realize that layout is not just a 5-minute job in Dreamweaver, but is rather a full-time job that requires real qualifications and real training.

That article sucked

[14erCleaner]

...but that's probably because my NoScript and AdBlock settings impaired my viewing experience.

A little Bias

[Herkum01]

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.

Re:Article translation

[gEvil (beta)]

Number one extension to use: IE7 God, what a lot of drivel.

Where can I find this "IE7 God" extension?

#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.

Printer friendly link

[stormpunk]

I'll be happy when slashdot submissions list the allononepage version of articles.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?com mand=printArticleBasic&articleId=9015599

The web with NoScript is so much better!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, I miss some content, but normally NoScript is saving me so much time getting there and missing junk adds, flash garbage etc.etc. that the benefit outweighs the losses hundreds of times over.

constantly having to whitelist sites so that scripts can execute in order

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.

VideoDownloader *is* extremely useful

[cos(x)]

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.

Fasterfox

[glwtta]

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?

The Real List of Extensions to avoid.

[mr_3ntropy]

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.

[shudder] I prefer THIS informative link

[Ahnteis]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goatse

At least, I think so. There's no way I'm actually clicking on your link.