My Firefox Add-ons

January 15th, 2009 by Michael Nelson

I've been using Firefox since it was version 1.0 and I've had experience with a lot of different add-ons. I've listed my favorite add-ons below and hopefully you will find them all just as useful as I do. If you scroll a little further down I separated a list of my webmaster add-ons that I use for editing websites.

My Firefox Add-ons:

  1. Adblock Plus

    2. Adblock Plus is a whitelisting adblocking program. It is phenomenal because the database is dynamic and updated all the time. Anybody who has this add-on can simply right-click an ad or banner and select Adblock Image and voila, it disappears from the site. But what also happens when you block an image the link to that ad or banner is added to their database and you've now blocked that ad or banner for everyone else who has Adblock Plus installed.

  2. Auto Copy

    3. I am lazy enough to get tired of copying and pasting information from a website to an email or instant message. This add-on automatically copies any text you highlight to your clipboard like Linux or mIRC.

  3. Download Statusbar

    4. Don't get me wrong, I think with the v3.0 release Firefox really made use out of their download manager. Even so, I personally don't like having a separate window to manage my downloads. This add-on tacks a great statusbar at the bottom of your browser for your downloads. When it is finished you can right-click to open, delete, remove from the bar, whatever you like and it's visually customizable.

  4. Foxmarks

    5. This add is second only to Adblock Plus. Foxmarks keeps all of your bookmarks along with their order, tags, folders, ect. in the cloud and synced with any and all machines you have that use this Add-on. No more forgetting a website because you have it bookmarked on your laptop but not your PC.

  5. IE Tab

    6. I actually don't use this add-on anymore. I still recommend it to CITC staff who want to use Firefox but are retrained to using Internet Explorer because of PeopleSoft. Opening a link in IE Tab allows you to utilize the Internet Explorer engine inside of Firefox. I used this add-on before Netflix switched their online streaming application to Silverlight, it used to require IE.

  6. OpenDownload

    7. I still don't understand why Firefox still hasn't embraced the Run option for downloads. I don't want to always save a program to my desktop only to minimized Firefox, install it, and then shift+delete it off of my system. This add-on gives you the option to click Run and store the program temporarily in your cache.

  7. PDF Download

    8. This add-on is similar to the OpenDownload add-on. It gives you the a these options when you click on a PDF document: download, open, or view as HTML. Very handy if you don't want to keep opening PDF's inside your browser.

  8. Tab Mix Plus

    9. I love tabs and I use them all the time. This add-on allows you to customize your tabs in more ways than are probably necessary.

My webmaster Firefox Add-ons:

  1. Firebug

    2. Firebug is a very unique and useful add-on. It allows you to edit a webpage in real-time, HTML, CSS, Javascript, whatever you like you can insert it into the live page to see what it looks like or to test something.

  2. Greasemonkey

    3. Greasemonkey is similar to Firebug, but instead uses pre-made Javascript to alter a webpage's functionality. There is a huge database of already made scripts and it's very easy to create your own.

  3. HTML Validator

    4. This handy little tool quickly validates your HTML on a website and warns of errors you might have made.

  4. Locationbar2

    5. This add-on makes URL's more aesthetically appealing. It greys out the sub-domains and sub-directories and can create little arrows instead of forward slashes in the URL. Kind of useless but I actually enjoy it.

  5. Web Developer

    6. This and Firebug are tied in my book for best webmaster add-on. This add-on allows you to control the website you are viewing in so many ways. You can view all CSS files, disable them all, disable all images, edit cookies, forms, resize the window to see what it looks like in another resolution, the list goes on and on. This add-on is a must if you are a webmaster!