Firefox Extensions you can't live without.

babs

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Dec 30, 2003
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1,595
I did a search and couldn't find anything really similar, so I thought it would be nice to have somewhere we can share useful extensions that others might not be aware of. My extensions list changes almost weekly, but some stalwarts are always there.

The most impressive ones for me lately have been these.

Deepest Sender: Allows you to post directly to your blog/livejournal/wordpress/etc site from your browser. At first I thought it was a bit gimmicky, after all there isn't much navigation needed to browse to your posting page, but I can't be without it now. Those extra three clicks and 10 seconds of waiting seem like too much now :)

Gspace: This handy little one lets you use your gmail storage space as a remote storage drive. It gives you a familiar ftp/explorer style view and works a treat. It's still pretty young, so there are a couple of bugs but it's still great.

A few more I can't do without are pretty obvious, things like adblock (and filterset G updater to go with it), flashgot (in conjunction with Free Download Manager), gmail notifier (removes an icon from systray at the very least), StumbleUpon (whiles the hours away) and most useful at all for me (as my profile tends to pretty frequently mess up) Extension uninstaller.

What about the rest of you?
 

Mazling

Can't get enough of FH
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Jan 11, 2004
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Firefox 1.5 users should NOT install the extension uninstaller - it already has this functionality. I now have extra menu items and no extension list item for this thing. USELESS. Silly babs.

Add bookmark here adds an item in each bookmark (sub)menu to er, well you get it.
Download Manager Tweak makes you download window a bit more compact, adds functionality, and can even turn the window into a tab or sidebar for you.
Tab mix plus adds tons of options to enhance your tab-based intrafrap-browsing experience.
Media player connectivity replaces embedded video with little boxes that have links to the video source, and can launch the video in the external player of your choice; I'm pretty sick of embedded video. Flashblock does pretty much the same thing but with flash & shockwave things.
 

JingleBells

FH is my second home
Joined
Mar 25, 2004
Messages
2,224
I have shite loads of extensions :)
I suppose the best thing to do is to categorise them:

Essential
Adblock Filterset.G Updater + Adblock Plus - Block all those ads
BugMeNot - Great to get around newspaper site registration things
FlashGot - Lets you use a download manager
Fasterfox - Tinkers with firefox to make site loading quicker
Google Toolbar for Firefox - Can't do without Google
FirefoxView - Adds a right click menu to IE so I can load a page in firefox from IE
IE Tab - Creates a Tab that is actually using IE, so you can with a click of a button be in IE, but in firefox
IE View - Opposite to FirefoxView, somewhat obsolete with IE Tab
Greasemonkey - Injects scripts into webpages, great for fixing sites and things
Nightly Tester Tools - Useful for when new ff version is released, can force it to install extensions

Tabbed Behaviour
QuickTabPrefToggle - Adds better tab options
Tab X - Adds a close button to every tab
Search Button - Makes the search box in the top right open in a new tab
Undo Close Tab - means I can access tabs i accidentally closed

Fun
Forecastfox - View the weather on the bottom toolbar
FoxyTunes - Control your music player from within ff
Next Image - Great if you are going through a gallery, press Ctrl+left/right to goto the next/previous numerical page

Web Dev
ColorZilla - Find what colour is under the mouse pointer
DOM Inspector - Comes with FF, invaluable to view the DOM tree
Live HTTP Headers - Useful to spoof referrers on sites
User Agent Switcher - Does what it says on the tin
Web Developer - Probably the worlds best extension

Other
Copy Plain Text - Copy text minus HTML formatting, useful if posting in word or sommit
Google Images Re-Linker - skip the middle page on google image searches, goes straight from search page -> image
MapIt! - Can highlight an address and find it instantly on <insert map site> (Google maps ofc in my case)
Popup ALT Attribute - FF adheres to the specs for image alt text, this just makes it repeat IEs behaviour so you can see the alt text
SearchPluginHacks - Can delete old/mis-installed search plugins
StumbleUpon - Useful if bored
TinyUrl Creator - Useful if posting large links in email/IRC
US Department of Homeland Insecurity Idiocy Level - Pointless, but fun
 

Mazling

Can't get enough of FH
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Jan 11, 2004
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I've missed out Paste & Go - right-click your address bar, and you can paste whatever is in your clipboard and visit it without clicking 'go'. More obvious explanations later.
 

babs

Can't get enough of FH
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I used to run fasterfox, but now i just make some changes manually in about:config. There are a few sites which actively stop you viewing them if you are running fasterfox due to the load it puts on the server.

The reason I use that uninstaller Maz, is because in the past I've had it where you choose to uninstall extensions, and it never does it, just permanently lists them as 'this will be uninstalled the next time you restart'. The only other way to get rid of them is to manually delete files and folders in your profile folder. IIRC uninstalling exts. from the ext menu has been there for aaaages.
 

babs

Can't get enough of FH
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Regardless it can be a pain, so yeah, probably best not to install it ;)
 

JingleBells

FH is my second home
Joined
Mar 25, 2004
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babs said:
I used to run fasterfox, but now i just make some changes manually in about:config. There are a few sites which actively stop you viewing them if you are running fasterfox due to the load it puts on the server.

Only if you set the settings to Turbo Charged so it breaks the RFCs, mine is just set to Optimized.
 

Mazling

Can't get enough of FH
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I too have fasterfox set to optimised.
babs: I couldn't even get the extension installed; it claimed I had to install the "uninstall API" or some tripe, which it didn't do.
 

babs

Can't get enough of FH
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Dec 30, 2003
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Yeah, it's based on the older extension set. I had it on there from a long time ago, just force of habit. You need the old 'show old extensions' to remove it from the extension list.
 

Shovel

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Dec 22, 2003
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I actually don't run as many as I used to. A lot of the 'general purpose stuff' that might once have appealed (mail/feed checkers, weather reports and stuff) makes a lot more sense to me sitting on the Desktop as a Yahoo Widget, so what I have tends to be pretty web-centric.

Currently enabled:
  • Google Toolbar for Firefox. I don't use any of the search features (Firefox's own search feature does me fine) but I do use the Spell Check. That's good that is.
  • AdBlock
  • Linkification - Automatically linkificate links posted by the lazy arses that can't use tags. Grrrrr. [*]Paste & Go - Kill...ded [url=http://microformats.org]Microformats. It's a bit of a proof of concept, but gives some hint as to how useful µf could be.

I have Greasemonkey as well, although it's currently disabled since I don't make much use of it.
 

Mazling

Can't get enough of FH
Joined
Jan 11, 2004
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Some more:

unPlug catches all embedded media in a page and can display links to it via menu. A bit useless on its own but in conjunction with noscript - which can actually REMOVE ALL EMBEDDED CRAP from a page - it is a godsend.
 

Dweller

Fledgling Freddie
Joined
Jan 9, 2004
Messages
300
babs said:
Gspace: This handy little one lets you use your gmail storage space as a remote storage drive. It gives you a familiar ftp/explorer style view and works a treat. It's still pretty young, so there are a couple of bugs but it's still great.

Just started using this, seems very handy, thanks for the link :)
 

Carbon60

One of Freddy's beloved
Joined
Jan 12, 2004
Messages
9
Apart from the built in extensions I use:

Flashblock - Replaces Flash objects with a button you can click to view them
Allow Right-Click - Defeats web sites' right-click prevention scripts
BugMeNot - Bypass compulsory web registration with the context menu via www.bugmenot.com
Adblock Plus
Colorful Tabs - Colorful Tabs colours every tab in a different colour and makes them easy to distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface.

On other computers I got IE Tab, IE View and CustomizeGoogle.

Flashblock is probably one of the most useful - surprised I haven't seen it mentioned in this thread before.
 

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