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The Joy Of Firefox


welo

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While Firefox is not free of criticism, I am still sticking with it because of the large choice of available add-ons.

Sometimes you have a rather specific problem and it turns out that there is a straight forward solution available via one of the add-ons, and sometimes you stumble over an article and it turns out that there are really useful add-ons that can make your (online) life just so much more convenient ;)

Just google 'best firefox add-ons' and you will find zillions of websites with recommendations.

Be careful though: you should basically avoid installing too many add-ons for your Firefox might suffer from bloating - review your add-ons regularly and disable those that you hardly ever use.

I have 15 enabled add-ons, but 55 add-ons installed total ;)

Just the other day I found the AddonFox extension, that allows automatic installation of about 200 selected addons ;) Does anybody know of a convenient way to batch-install your own selection of addons in Firefox (e.g. on a friend's browser).

If you had to choose only 5 addons to keep, which ones would it be?

My most valued addons:

  • TextAreaCache - saves your time by autosaving text typed into any TextArea, e.g. the reply box on Thaivisa
  • WOT - warns you about malicious websites
  • Firebug and Web Developer - this is technical stuff not relevant to the average user
  • Easy Youtube Video Downloader (just one among many Video/Youtube downloaders)
  • Sorry not allowed by Thaivisa (astral)

welo

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By far the most useful addons are related to privacy (eg. script blockers and search engine optimizers).

I realized I only use 6 addons.

no script

optimize google

firebug

web developer toolbar

ultrasurf tool

If I were to make it a short list of 5, then I'd remove the ultrasurf tool.

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To back up and restore your own extensions as a single batch you need CLEO Compact Library Extension Organiser which is a partner to the excellent FEBE - Firefox Extensions Backup Extension.

I have many extensions installed and the ones I use most are

Tabmix Plus - All my tab settings in one place

Down them all - for fast downloads

Feed sidebar - for RSS feeds

IE Tab Plus - open those IE compatible only sites as a Firefox tab

Quick drag - Dragging text does a search on that text, and dragging something which looks like a URL but is not clickable wil open the url

Email This - Select the text, ctrl click and an email is created with the selected text, page link and page header

Edited by thaimite
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If I had to limit my add-ons to 5, I couldn't and I probably wouldn't use Firefox (the stock version is pretty useless). Until version 3 of Firefox, I hated Firefox! Internet Explorer provided for more. I don't even consider Chrome because of the add-on limitation.

I live in my browser. But since I don't have to limited to 5 add-ons I love Firefox! The add-ons provide the functionality!

By the way, I hate predefined toolbars. I want to select what's displayed and what I can do. I hate the screen being consumed by useless and redundant crap!

Just like, would you have only 5 programs installed on your computer? What about only 5 apps on your smart phone? I don't think so.

I'm a power user and proudly so!

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Nobody has mentioned the Thai Visa toolbar. I used to use it for the easy radio player but that does not work in Ubuntu, so I have ditched it.

If anybody knows a similar simple Linux compitable web radio player that can sit in the toolbar (NOT its own toolbar) then I would be interested to hear about it

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I use mainly Opera these days but still keep my FireFox using it mainly for work.

top 5 addons:

No script

AutoPager

Greasemonkey

Minimap

ohhh, and FootieFox of course. B)

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^ go ahead! Will be a long post for sure! There is just so many of them!

@DadaDeluxe

BugMeNot is a nice one ;) And didn't know about the problem with Flash Cookies either (->BetterPrivacy). Thx

@NoScript users

Don't you end up excluding websites all the time to make them work?

But I might give it another try since I think blocking flash might be worth it (not least because of the Flash Cookie problem)

@thaimite

I kicked the IETab out long time ago - are there really still websites that require IE? Boo!

@filingaccount

I heard some negative feedback on UltraSurf some time ago, might have been false alarm, see here: http://www.how-to-hide-ip.info/2009/08/29/developer-denies-ultrasurf-is-malicious/

@Rama

What are the advantages of UpdateNotifier compared to the built-in update check?

Top Extensions

After a thorough statistical analysis using MatLabs ;) I conclude that the most popular add-ons (in this thread) are:

NoScript

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I have to edit some posts here.

Thaivisa relies on advertising for revenue........ :D

Therefore certain add-ons are not up for discussion. Sorry.

My list is

DownThemAll

Downloadhelper

FEBE

ForecastFox

ReminderFox

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Aside from all those that are strictly in the background (like noscript)

cookiekiller or cookie culler

old location bar

scrapbook (replaces saving pages to files)

xmarks

flashkiller

flash & video download

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@filingaccount

I heard some negative feedback on UltraSurf some time ago, might have been false alarm, see here: http://www.how-to-hi...f-is-malicious/

I did some snooping around when I noticed some odd behavior with ultrasurf+FF addon.

I came to the conclusion it was non-malicious (although I could be wrong). But to be sure, I don't use it for secure sensitive sessions anyway (not even gmail). I have better tools for that ;)

But thanks for the heads up anyway, and with a link no less. :thumbsup:

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Not One ive used yet, but it looks so good I thought I would post it here :D ... Tab Candy

Tab Candy is a new tab management feature for Firefox that organizes tabs into groups to help you keep your tabs grouped by task. Not only does it offer incredibly handy features, but it looks beautiful.

Windows/Mac/Linux: Firefox Tab Candy is a new tab management feature for Firefox that organizes tabs into groups to help you keep your tabs grouped by task. Not only does it offer incredibly handy features, but it looks beautiful.

Watch the video above, by Mozilla's excellent interface designer Aza Raskin, for a quick overview. The idea is sort of like the new app folders in iOS 4, or like a better version of OS X's Exposé—except for it's all about your browser tabs. You can drag and drop to re-arrange all your tabs into groups, create new groups by simply dragging a web page outside an existing group and dragging another item on top of it, and name all your groups based on what task they're related to.

Another favorite feature is that Tab Candy effectively collapses different windows inside of one, so when you're looking at one group, your others are waiting inside the switching interface. Sure you can open a new window if you need multiple Firefox windows open at once, but most of the time you don't need the extra clutter. Currently Tab Candy has a few hiccups in use, and there's not much I can see for keyboard friendliness yet, but it's promising.

Link - Lifehacker

TL :jap:

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If I had to limit my add-ons to 5, I couldn't and I probably wouldn't use Firefox (the stock version is pretty useless). Until version 3 of Firefox, I hated Firefox! Internet Explorer provided for more. I don't even consider Chrome because of the add-on limitation.

I live in my browser. But since I don't have to limited to 5 add-ons I love Firefox! The add-ons provide the functionality!

By the way, I hate predefined toolbars. I want to select what's displayed and what I can do. I hate the screen being consumed by useless and redundant crap!

Just like, would you have only 5 programs installed on your computer? What about only 5 apps on your smart phone? I don't think so.

I'm a power user and proudly so!

for many of those reasons I use Opera, have for years. I particularly like the handy drop down I put up in the right which allows me to resize the page/text to larger. 120% is just right for many sites, I have the lappie about 4 feet from my face.

It's fast too. Tried Chrome, yawn, deleted it a day later.

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Nobody mentioned A****** Plus. Surely everyone must be using this.

They did. See this post:

I have to edit some posts here.

Thaivisa relies on advertising for revenue........ :D

Therefore certain add-ons are not up for discussion. Sorry.

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