Firefox addons

By
Ed
– March 26, 2008Posted in: News

In this article, I will tell you about my favorite Firefox add-ons. Some are for safer browsing, some for convenience, and others to make it look cool. Enjoy.

Update 03/31
-Added ChatZilla to the list of add-ons.
-Added some new add-ons, such as the All-in-one sidebar, Greasemonkey, and URL Fixer.

1) StumbleUpon – This add-on is excellent for finding sites that interest you, it’s where I find many things I’ve shared with you here on this site. Just create an account at stumbleupon.com and fill in your interests, then download the add-on here. Have fun stumbling! Oh, and on a side note, it can get very addicting!
2) Adblock plus* – Sick of those useless ads? All they do is clutter up the screen, make the page bigger than it needs to be, and can be unsafe. Well, have I got just the thing for you. It comes pre-defined with a list of filters to block ads by web address, you can add more filters to block things that it might have missed. Another great tool to keep Firefox more convenient and safe.
3) Cooliris preview – Preview links before you click them. Can be a more convenient way of Google searching, as you don’t have to waste time waiting for the page to load, if you’re not sure that you’re clicking the right site, and then waiting for Google to reload the results by clicking “back.” Comes with options you can set, whether you want the preview to load on link mouse over, while pressing control, or on a delay. A great time saving add-on.
4) Fasterfox – Speeds up your web browser by tweaking many network and rendering settings. Settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay. Which, essentially, means that it allows Firefox to load more items at once, allows Firefox to begin loading another item before the first is completed, holds all information in the cache for faster visits the next time, and, in addition to the cache settings, allows Firefox to load all items on the page faster the first time. In my opinion, if you only download one on this page, download this one.
5) Googlepedia – This add-on connects to the Wikipedia server everytime you do a Google search, and displays a relevant page from Wikipedia to the right of your Google search. Good for if you want quick information, and want to look up something from Wikipedia on Google (such as a definition of a word, or if you don’t have a basis of something to search on Wikipedia, you can Google search it).
6) Linkification – This add-on converts any text links to clickable links, so, if there was a text link like www.google.com, as this has not been converted to a link by the site, you’d be able to click it with this extension. Good for other sites that only allow text links.
7) RefControl* – Ever been to a site where someone wants you to click a link, so they can refer you to another website and get credit for it? Well, if you think you haven’t, think again, this happens even without your knowledge, and, chances are, it’s happened to you. This can, not only be unsafe (as they know what site you came from), but also annoying. This add-on makes sure that this doesn’t happen, and lists who would have referred you. You can blacklist sites from acknowledging your referral, and set a default behavior when dealing with a potential referral.
8) SafeCache* – This amazing tool segments your cache, so that other sites cannot determine your web history. For example, www.example-a.com cannot tell whether you’ve been to www.example-b.com,as they have separate cache entries. Also checks cookie settings to determine desired privacy level.
9) SafeHistory* – This is another tool, that, for full effect, must be used simultaneously with SafeCache. This also prevents websites from recognizing your web history, so as to prevent a similar situation as the above.
10) Tab Mix Plus – Definitely one of my favorite add-ons, this is a very useful tool in organizing, adding convenience to having too many tabs open, as it can move tabs to a second tab row, copy tab URLs, a built in “reload every…” function, undo a closed tab, protect/lock tabs, duplicate tabs, and many, many other things. Also adds a “open new tab” button on the tab bar, which can be amazingly useful for organization as well.
11) Tab Scope – Quickly view a tab’s contents just by mousing over the tab. Scope too small? Options can be changed according to preference, you can easily reload tabs, go back (according to your browser history), and even click links and scroll.
12) All-in-one sidebar – This add-on adds a sidebar to Firefox, similar to that of Opera’s. Helps you organize your downloads, add-ons, bookmarks, web history, and page information, the bar can even display custom items, by just dragging and dropping icons to the sidebar.
13) Greasemonkey – Allows you to customize the look of any website using custom Javascript. Can also download precoded layouts from userscripts.org. Can be useful for convenience and to make sites look cool.
14) URL Fixer – Ever typed in a URL wrong accidentally? This add-on can fix that. By using what it knows to guess what you meant, it can correct most any URL, for example if you type ‘www.google,com’, it will automatically correct it to ‘www.google.com‘, can also enable confirmation to make sure it gets the right URL.
15) Chatzilla – An IRC client integrated right within Firefox. You can connect to many of the same servers as in mIRC, and is easy to use.

Items marked with a * have been approved by Hazard for safer browsing.

These are fifteen of my favorite Firefox add-ons, enjoy.

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