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Top 10 Firefox Extensions to Avoid

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the segfault-plugin-still-highly-recommended dept.

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."

26 of 538 comments (clear)

  1. Missing from the list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Missing from the list by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      What's a goatse?

    2. Re:Missing from the list by iminplaya · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      What?
    3. Re:Missing from the list by jimicus · · Score: 5, Informative

      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/

    4. Re:Missing from the list by ShieldW0lf · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      -1 Uncomfortable Truth
    5. Re:Missing from the list by elrous0 · · Score: 5, Funny

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

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
    6. Re:Missing from the list by Bretai · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      Controlling complexity is the essence of computer programming. -Brian Kernigan
  2. Sorry but the list is BS by A+beautiful+mind · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For example, NoScript, which does make Firefox safer, but isn't worth the hassle Says who?
    --
    It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
    Be yourself no matter what they say
    1. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by Gr8Apes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No kidding. This article should be renamed:

      What users need to do to maximize our cashflow.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    2. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by voice_of_all_reason · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    3. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by walt-sjc · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

    4. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by deanoaz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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

      --
      If 'the people' in Amendment 2 are 'the state' then Amendments 1, 2, 4, 9, and 10 benefit the state, not you.
    5. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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).

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    6. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by misleb · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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
      --
      "THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
    7. Re:Sorry but the list is BS by ergean · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  3. Hey, I like NoScript by jfengel · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Hey, I like NoScript by Saint+Aardvark · · Score: 5, Informative

      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.

      --
      Carousel is a lie!
  4. here's the tell... by Naurgrim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    --
    .......You Are,
    ...What You Do,
    When It Counts.
  5. Adblock and Adblock Plus?!?! by Skadet · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    --
    Sony ha
  6. #3 = Adblock? No bias there by Excelcia · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.
  7. Fasterfox by SevenHands · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  8. Printer friendly link by stormpunk · · Score: 5, Informative

    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

  9. The web with NoScript is so much better! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative
    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.
  10. VideoDownloader *is* extremely useful by cos(x) · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  11. The Real List of Extensions to avoid. by mr_3ntropy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  12. [shudder] I prefer THIS informative link by Ahnteis · · Score: 5, Informative

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

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