/Culture/ The top 50 Firefox extensions
09/03/2007 | Filed under Discover > Culture
Firefox is fantastic, but with the right add-ons you can make it bigger, better and faster and more flexible. Gary Marshall shares his list of the 50 esential Firefox extensions
In each episode of MTV’s Pimp My Ride, celebrity rapper Xzibit takes an ordinary car and turns it into a blinged-up monster. Well, we’re going to do the same, but instead of a celebrity rapper, we’ve got a slap-headed Scotsman. Instead of a car, we’ve got Firefox. And instead of lurid paint jobs, neon tubes and silly stereos, we’ve got some excellent extensions. It would make crap TV [believe us, you don’t want to hear Gary rap], but we’re sure you’ll agree, it’s considerably more useful.
01 Aging Tabs
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3542
Some of our favourite add-ons are simple, such as Aging Tabs. Tabs you’ve looked at recently appear in bright colours, while those left for a while go dark. It’s a handy visual prompt for Windows or Linux users.
02 All-in-One Gestures
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/12
An old favourite, All-in-One Gestures enables you to navigate by waggling the mouse, scrolling the mouse wheel and using the rocker switch. It’s a huge time saver and you can customise it to suit your way of waggling.
03 All-in-One Sidebar
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1027
If you like Opera’s sidebar but prefer to stick with Firefox, this add-on gives you the best of both worlds. Once installed, it gives you a panel at the left or right of the browser window which you can use to switch between each browser’s features.
04 BlueOrganizer
www.adaptiveblue.com
BlueOrganizer is a cross between a search tool and an information organiser. ‘BlueMarks’ are like bookmarks that enable you to add tags, give a URL a rating out of five, add a description and add them to the bookmarking service of your choice.
05 Browster
www.browster.com
The Browster plug-in adds a live page preview to search results, which makes it a powerful ally in the fight against search engine spammers and other dishonest types.
06 Clipmarks
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1407
Clipmarks is a handy research tool that enables you to highlight and save bits of web content such as article excerpts, quotes or images. The clips are stored at the Clipmarks site.
07 Delicious Bookmarks
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3615
This official Yahoo plugin replaces Firefox’s standard bookmarks with the more useful Delicious bookmarking system (that we use for our very own .net article links).
08 Drag de Go
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2918
Another time saver, Drag de Go enables you to do useful things by dragging text, links or images. Depending on the direction in which you drag and the options you choose, this add-on executes tasks such as opening a link, searching for the selected text, saving the selected item or viewing the page source.
09 ErrorZilla Mod
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3336
Fed up with 404 errors? ErrorZilla replaces the default 404 page with something more useful that enables you to retry, check Google’s cache or the Wayback Machine, or carry out network tasks such as ping, trace and WHOIS.
10 FasterFo
http://xFasterfox.mozdev.org
Fasterfox makes your browser prefetch links, blocks Flash plug-ins, or shows how long pages are taking to load. It also provides you with control over key settings, including how much data should be cached.
11 Google Toolbar
www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar
Like its IE equivalent, the Google Toolbar for Firefox adds features that include autofill, warnings about potentially unsafe pages and a one-click way to see a site’s PageRank.
12 GTDGmail
www.gtdgmail.com
Here’s one for the Getting Things Done crowd: GTDGmail attempts to make Gmail more useful by adding GTD-related labels and reviewing options with tasks and reminders.
13 Repagination
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2099
Repagination enables you to view more search results onscreen. Right-click on a ‘Next’ link and choose how many search results you want to see on the page.
14 ScrapBook
http://amb.vis.ne.jp/mozilla/scrapbook
A quick and effective tool for anyone who uses the web for research. ScrapBook enables you to store web ‘clippings’ in the same way you would organise bookmarks or images in a, you guessed it, scrapbook.
15 StumbleUpon
www.stumbleupon.com
If you’re looking for inspiration, StumbleUpon takes you to a new web page based on other users’ recommendations and your feedback on its choices. While most add-ons are time savers, this one’s a great time waster!
16 Tab Mix Plus
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1122
Tab Mix Plus gives you even more control over the way Firefox handles tabbed browsing. You can specify how links should be opened, how they look, what appears on the tab context menu and what order tabs appear in.
17 ColorZilla
www.iosart.com/firefox/colorzilla
Wouldn’t it be great if you could get Photoshop’s eyedropper tool in your browser? That’s the idea behind ColorZIlla, which enables you to zoom in on, identify, adjust, copy and paste colours from any site you visit.
18 FireBug
www.joehewitt.com/software/firebug
This clever little extension provides a range of tools for poking around page code and includes a JavaScript/CSS error console, a code debugger, Ajax traffic logging and a code inspector.
19 Greasemonkey
http://Greasemonkey.mozdev.org
There are more than two million Greasemonkey scripts at userscripts.org, ranging from scripts that bypass download sites’ “wait for 30 seconds” systems to adding extra file types to Google’s advanced search.
20 IE View
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/35
Sooner or later, you’ll need to check your pages in IE. The IE View extension makes this as simple as possible by adding a “view in IE” option to the right-click menu.
21 User Agent Switcher
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/59
For as long as developers use browser sniffers that block non-IE browsers, then this add-on will be a necessary part of any self-respecting web browser’s toolkit.
22 View Dependencies
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2214
The View Dependencies add-on sticks an extra tab on the Page Info window that enables you to see all the files loaded by the current page, grouped by category for easy identification.
23 AdBlock Plus
www.adblockplus.org
AdBlock Plus gets rid of most online ads without any tweaking, but if the odd one sneaks through, you can block it with a single click. Genius.
24 Always Remember Password
www.roachfiend.com/archives/2005/03/03/alwaysremember-password
This add-on makes Firefox ignore the code in sites that says “don’t remember this login info”. You shouldn’t use it on a shared computer, or if you like using the Quick Reply feature on phpBB forums, which this add-on breaks.
25 BugMeNot
www.roachfiend.com/archives/2005/02/07/bugmenot
One of our pet hates is when we’ve clicked a link to an article and the site expects us to hand over our entire life story. Thank crikey for BugMeNot, which gives you other people’s login details so you can read stories without first having to provide your own.
26 Forum Fixer
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3267
Developer ‘Quirky’ is a man (or woman) after our own hearts. This add-on strips giant avatars, off-site images and silly signatures from sites whose URL contains the word “forum” or “vbulletin”.
27 ImgLikeOpera
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1672
Here’s one for the dial-up users: ImgLikeOpera enables Firefox to treat images in much the same way that Opera does. So, for example you can block third party images.
28 NoScript
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/722
NoScript disables Java and JavaScript for sites that don’t need to use them, and it uses a whitelist, so you don’t lose functionality on the sites you know are safe.
29 PDF Download
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/636
Have more control over PDFs: save them to disk, open them immediately or view their contents as good old-fashioned HTML.
30 Remove It Permanently
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/521
One-click deletion of things you don’t want to see ever again. We recommend running this in tandem with Adblock Plus, though it does seem to hide things rather than prevent them from loading in future.
31 CoComment
www.cocomment.com/tools/extension
CoComment enables you to view all your online conversations in one place, and it’s particularly good for blogs and sites such as Flickr.
32 Deepest Sender
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1811
Although originally designed for LiveJournal, Deepest Sender enables you to update WordPress and Blogger blogs using its own post editor.
33 Live Writerfo
http://xaddons.mozilla.org/firefox/3214
If you’re using Windows Live Writer to compose your blog posts, this add-on enables you to send links or text from Firefox to WLW. As WLW is Windows-only, there’s not much point trying to run this one on a Mac.
34 Performancing
www.performancing.com
When it comes to blog editing, Performancing is the daddy. It works with all major blogging platforms, supports trackbacks, Technorati tags and Delicio.us, and can also handle multiple blog accounts.
35 Resizeable Textarea
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3818
If online forms don’t provide enough room to breathe, this nifty addon enables you to make text fields bigger.
36 Sage
http://sage.mozdev.org
Turn Firefox into a fully-fledged, multi-pane newsreader with CSS-based layout, multilingual support and full integration with your browser’s Live Bookmarks. Yes, Firefox can handle RSS feeds, but Sage does it better.
37 CookieSafe
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2497
CookieSafe expands on Firefox’s existing cookie control system to give you some extra options. With the extension enabled, you can see what cookies a site’s trying to install and where they came from.
38 hideBad
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1052
The ultimate Boss Key, hideBad saves all the currently opened tabs, closes them and replaces them with something less likely to land you in trouble. It can also clear any incriminating traces, which is handy if you’re using the office PC to look for another job.
39 McAfee SiteAdvisor
www.siteadvisor.com/download/ff.html
McAfee’s plug-in warns you of suspicious sites and provides useful information such as, “if I give this site my email address, how many messages am I likely to get as a result?” While McAfee software tends to be Windowsonly, this extension is cross-platform.
40 Torbutton
www.Freehaven.net/~squires/torbutton
Torbutton gives you a one-click way to enable or disable anonymous browsing via Tor, but you’ll need to install Tor first to take advantage of it.
41 TrashMail
www.trashmail.net
Protect yourself from spam with TrashMail’s instant disposable email addresses. Incoming messages will be forwarded to your real email account until the time you specify.
42 AllPeers
www.allpeers.com
AllPeers is one of the easiest P2P systems we’ve ever seen, and it all happens in your browser. Sharing with friends or colleagues is as simple as dragging and dropping.
43 Download Statusbar
http://downloadstatusbar.mozdev.org
Instead of confining downloads to a separate window, Download Statusbar sticks them in a bar at the bottom of the browser window which hides when it’s not in use.
44 DownThemAll
www.downthemall.net
Download every linked file or image from a page with a single click and do it quickly. DownThemAll is a download accelerator as well as a download manager, and it can download from multiple locations simultaneously for maximum speed.
45 Fast Video Download
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3590
We’ve tried all kinds of video download extensions, and most of them don’t work - especially when it comes to YouTube, which seems to defeat even the most determined developer. Fast Video Download is the exception, and it enables you to download embedded video from sites.
46 FireFTP
http://Fireftp.mozdev.org
An entire FTP client in just 100K? Yup – and it includes directory synchronisation, SSL encryption and even file hashing. If you like it, please donate: developer Mime _uvalo gives the proceeds to deserving charities.
47 FlashGot
www.flashgot.net
If you’re serious about downloads, you’ve probably got a standalone download manager. FlashGot enables you to integrate it with Firefox, so future downloads are a one-click job that automatically loads the appropriate program. It supports all the download managers you’ve heard of, and quite a few whose names, we suspect, are known only to their creators.
48 Gmail Space
http://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1593
Let’s face it – you’re never going to fill your Gmail account with emails alone, even if you’re the most popular person on the entire internet. So why not use it as a hard disk? Gmail space is essentially an FTP front-end for Gmail, and this means you can easily upload and download files as if you were using any standard server.
49 TorrentBar
http://torrentbar.torrent.pl
As the name suggests, TorrentBar puts the power of BitTorrent in your toolbar. It provides easy access to all the main torrent search sites including MiniNova, Pirate Bay, TorrentReactor, TorrentSpy and so on, and if you can’t find it with TorrentBar, then it probably doesn’t exist. Just don’t use it for anything illegal.
50 URL: www.chrispederick.com
Chris Pederick started his first Firefox extension, the User Agent Switcher, in early 2003. Work on Web Developer began shortly afterwards. “I liked the idea of being able to customise [Firefox] to provide extra functionality that I needed,” he says. “That, and I was bored at work and wanted to learn some new skills! I knew XML and JavaScript, so the learning curve wasn’t too steep, and I thought it would be something cool to play with for a week or two.”
Web Developer was based on an extension called the PNH Developer Toolbar (www.placenamehere.com/pnhtoolbar). “I saw this extension and liked the concept behind it, but I was disappointed to see that the author had no plans to continue development,” Chris says. “So I started on my own equivalent and it’s grown from there.”
The new version of Web Developer, currently in beta, has an interesting new feature called the Dashboard. “The Dashboard provides similar functionality to the sidebar in that it allows content to be displayed without hiding the page,” says Chris. “However, because it’s a custom component, it can now be used in Mozilla and SeaMonkey as well as Firefox and Flock, docked to any side of the screen. It supports multiple sidebar features at the same time through the use of tabs. So, for example, you can now edit the CSS and edit the HTML on the same page at the same time.”
So what extensions does Chris rate? “There are two types I use every day,” he says. “The first are notifiers for Gmail (www.nexgenmedia.net/extensions) and Google Reader (www.markdbd.com/proyectos/google_reader_notifier); the second are Greasemonkey and Stylish (www.userstyles.org/stylish).
Chris is now based in San Francisco, where he works with Avenue A | Razorfish (www.razorfish.com), but he did his degree in Nottingham.
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Comments
Mark / 12/03/2007 / 09:19 / http://www.traffictrader.nl
Great list of FF extensions. I especially like the first one you've mentioned. It's a great visual tool that improves orientation
Terinea Tech Tips / 14/03/2007 / 14:07 / http://www.terinea.co.uk/blogs/terineatechtips
Great list but you've missed off Foxmarks!
Alison / 16/03/2007 / 18:51
Fox Clocks and The Web Developers toolbar are another two I couldn't live without.
Jack Gordon / 16/03/2007 / 20:20
Just wanted to add that, as a flash developer, I like the soThink swf catcher extension.
Frode Hegland / 19/03/2007 / 15:58 / http://www.hyperwords.net
Great list, but may I also suggest you have a look at Hyperwords? Makes all the words on the web interactive. Version. 2.1 just out!
References, conversions, translations, search, email commands, tagging, blogging and much more.
Video demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ECehydgZ2kU
D.Bogicevic / 19/03/2007 / 22:42
Great list, but, :) - QuickNote must have....
Jane Dough / 23/03/2007 / 22:58
How could you not mention Cooliris Previews? You can preview nearly any link on nearly any page almost instantly in a large readable frame that you can manipulate like any other html frame - i.e. save, bookmark, highlight and copy text, save images, etc. A blue dot appears next to the link, you hold your mouse over it and the preview pops open. A useful feature is that you can highlight any word or phrase on any page or in the Cooliris Preview frame, and a Cooliris addition to the contextual menu allows you to rapidly look it up in thefreedictionary.com or Wikipedia, or search for it on Google or on Google Images. I find this extension the most time-saving, convenient, and useful add-on for Firefox.
Andrew Woods / 25/03/2007 / 23:00
Great list!
I use #7 Delicious Bookmarks, #17 ColorZilla, #18 FireBug, #36 Sage Newsreader, #50 Web Developer by Chris Pederick. The only extension I use that isn't on here is MeasureIt. That's a total of 6 extensions - how geek am i?
Anne / 12/04/2007 / 12:34 / http://www.bestofnutrition.com
For webmasters, I'd recommend VRE Toolbar (VRE comes from Virtual Real Estate). Search for it on http://addons.mozilla.org or in search engines.
agtile / 01/05/2007 / 03:10 / http://www.agtile.com
IMO, the idea with the FF extensions is to keep the essential ones; less is more.
One of my favorite FF extensions is called "Farky", which will dynamically style
the current (Fark) document based on my settings.
jai / 09/05/2007 / 15:33
Another list of 50 best firefox extensions
http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/12/50-best-firefox-extensions-for-power-surfing/
take screenshot of webpage / 05/09/2007 / 09:52 / http://screenshot-program.com
I'd like to introduce FireShot.
FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of webpages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers. Screenshots can be saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.
It's absolutely FREE, you can download it from: http://screenshot-program.com/fireshot/fireshot.xpi
To get it installed in firefox simply type this link in its address bar.
Screenshots are availabe at: https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/5648
Comments and reviews (at https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/5648) will be appreciated!
bball69 / 11/10/2007 / 08:45
Youlicit Firefox extension is pretty cool to check out as well. They send you to similar sites, related to the one you're visiting. They have this next button that's almost like StumbleUpon, except, it doesn't take you to random websites, which I find to be very useful and addicting.
Michael / 21/10/2007 / 20:52
Why are "Aging Tabs" number 1? They're not that good really, there's far more useful extensions that that!
Jim / 11/01/2008 / 17:03 / http://www.mortgageqna.com
I don't see my favorite Firefox extension - "SEO for Firefox". It's the first thing I add to Firefox after installing it. This extension is very useful for every webmaster. If you are a webmaster or even a blogger this is a must have extension. Here is the link where you can download it - http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/seo-for-firefox.html .
Alston / 14/01/2008 / 17:06 / http://www.expat-group.com
Great list! A must have for every Firefox user...
Though you guys missed a very small but nifty addon called paste and go 2 https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/3035
...this is a integral part of Opera and seems essential in any browser.
Steve / 24/03/2008 / 23:39 / http://www.gadgets4nowt.co.uk/
Cracking list, I've only recently converted to Firefox (and am so glad I did!) and only have the SEO plugin working so far. Have to agree with Jim, it is worth adding to the list.
Does anyone else have trouble with Stumbleupon in Firefox, the browser crashes when I try to use it (but was ok in IE7)? Any ideas?
Benjamin / 26/03/2008 / 08:50 / http://sexy-desktop.net/
I currently use a few of these extentions already but one I will certainly be looking in to is the aging tabs extention as I often have multiple tabs open from one website.
Harry Selent / 30/03/2008 / 13:23 / http://www.medicalcharting.com
I love the aging tabs! I use tabs for "to do's" and this will help me manage those better, thanks for the suggestion!
Tim A. / 15/04/2008 / 05:18 / http://www.promo-code.com
Here's another vote for the 'SEO' plug in, which another commenter mentioned. I use it almost daily. Colorpicker/eyedropper and stumbleupon get lots of use too.
Colin / 27/05/2008 / 01:25 / http://www.colinsplace.bravehost.com
If you download RealPlayer on your computer and enable browser recording, it automatically installs a plugin for firefox which lets you right click on a video and download it to your computer.
Andrew / 27/06/2008 / 15:15
FireNes is on of my favourites. When ever you need a break you can click a button an play one of 1000s of NES in Firefox its great.
Silas / 30/06/2008 / 19:16
Try IE tab instead of IE view. From my understanding IE view opens internet explore to view the page while IE tab creates a IE tab inside of firefox. The extension even includes a list of pages to automatically open in IE tab, such as windows update. I am also a fan of the Googlebar Lite bar instead of the standard google, and try the customizegoogle extension if you like to try your search with multiple search engines like yahoo ask and Wikipedia. Also, give Ctrl-Tab a try if you like to keep many tabs open.
an / 26/12/2008 / 13:54
D4G is a new dictionary addon for firefox . You can use babylon databse with this addon or you can add your own web dictionary . You can trigger the translation by using Ctr+Mouse click oder select a word or a pharse and press Ctrl-Z. There is also pronouciation. It's extremly customable and useful.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/9252
Kevin / 15/02/2009 / 08:12 / http://twitter.com/blogfisher
You can add faviconize tab aad-on : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3780. Add more tabs now. The width of the tab becomes small up to the size of favicon.
Laddy / 24/02/2009 / 04:49 / https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10731
Another useful add in for creating a shopping list to print out or to find the best prices online is Quick Shopping List https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10731
Eylon Yogev / 04/03/2009 / 22:25 / http://www.headup.com
I think you guy have missed just one new cool addon, headup:
www.headup.com
It gathers all the information you need on the fly from all your social networks in just a click on the mouse.
Check it out!!
bozboz / 13/04/2009 / 22:19 / http://www.bozboz.co.uk
Wow what a great resource, colorzilla sounds like a godsend, cant believe ive not heard of that before!
Steve / 14/04/2009 / 23:39 / http://sharethis.com
Have you thought about adding ShareThis to your list of recommended plugins? If you want to save space in your toolbar you can try the ShareThis Plugin/addon. It lets you share content to almost any social media outlet or bookmarking service. You can even share through E-mail! ShareThis also saves pages you have shared so you can go back and view them whenever you like, or re-share if you wish.
Download it at:
http://sharethis.com/users/download/
Jason Stevens / 18/04/2009 / 03:01 / http://pcspost.com
This is an absolutely great list of plugins! I was aware of some of these but I sure found several I didn't know about. I also found several nice plugins in the comments. One that people may want to consider is Better Privacy which can be downloaded at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623
Pratik Poddar / 17/08/2009 / 12:38 / http://pratikpoddarcse.blogspot.com
Great list... The only two absolutely great addons that I dont find on the list are:
Search Tab
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10164
and Show Password
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/10174
shoppingguru / 12/02/2010 / 05:48
if you like online shopping, pricetrace firefox addon is a very useful tool. it brings you price comparision and history by simply one click.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/13805
