What I use: Firefox extensions

Firefox is the greatest internet browser ever. According to my site metrics, 42% of you already know that. This post is for you. (for you 44% Internet Explorer people, get with the program already!) My favorite feature of Firefox is the extensions, which allow you to extend the functionality of Firefox to do pretty much anything you want it to. Here are the extensions I use nearly every day.

• Adblock - The first extension I download onto any new install of Firefox. Block any ad, anywhere. It only takes a little while before you stop seeing ads on the internet at all.
• Google Browser Sync - Powerful new extension that lets you sync your bookmarks, passwords, browsing histories and more across multiple computers.
• FasterFox - I don't really know how much impact this has, but it tweaks various application settings to speed up the downloading and rendering of web pages. Things seem faster, so I keep using it.
• Web Developer - A whole suite of tools essential to anyone who builds for the web. Worth it for the CSS editing and DOM Element info alone.
• Firebug - Really powerful Javascript viewer / debugger. Finally.
• IE View Lite (Windows only) - This contextual menu item makes it easy when you run into that rogue site that only allows IE. Just right-click, select "View in IE", and the page opens in IE. Much more stable for me than the similar IETab
• Colorzilla - A little Photoshop-style color picker you can use to find out just which retina-searing color your little sister is using on her myspace page (hint: it's #0033ff).
• Screengrab - Saves screenshots of full web pages (not just what's visible in the window at the time) to your desktop. I've had mixed results getting it to work on different machines since it uses Java, but when it installs correctly it is a huge time-saver.
• Feed Your Reader - You know that RSS icon that shows up in the address bar? Or the one on this website over on the right? If you use Feed Your Reader, it will automagically send the feed address to your reader of choice when you click on the link. This is a small thing that should be built into Firefox by default.
• Del.icio.us - If you use del.icio.us, you really have to have this extension. For some weird reason I went a year before installing it. Don't be like me.
• Greasemonkey - Finally, if you haven't pimped Firefox out enough, there is greasemonkey. Greasemonkey uses small bits of javascript to alter any web page nearly any way you want. For example, I wrote this script that adds links on Amazon book pages for the book at the Salt Lake City library. If you don't feel like writing your own scripts, there are thousands to choose from at Userscripts.org.

Technorati Tags: what i use, firefox extensions

Posted by Mark Allen on Tuesday, September 26, 2006 Comments (3)