Update: 10 Useful Firefox Extensions That Don’t Get Glamorised
Writing my review of 2006 has made me realise I haven’t covered Firefox for a long time. One of my popular posts last year was 10 Useful Firefox Extensions That Don’t Get Glamorised, which got picked up by all the top sites including Digg. That article is nearly 12 months old, so I though it was time I did an update.
Here is an updated list of the lesser known extensions, not just the newest and shiniest extensions that everyone promotes, that I believe really make Firefox a joy to use rather than just something to show off to non-Firefox users who haven’t seen the light yet.
You’ve probably never heard of most of the extensions below as they don’t feature in the top 50 plugins on the Firefox Add-ons site, but it doesn’t make them any less useful.
10 Useful Firefox Extensions That Don’t Get Glamorised
- Colorful Tabs - May sound really boring, but this extension makes it a hell of a lot easier to distinguish between multiple tabs
- Google Reader Notifier - will popup “unread” Google Reader items from the statusbar, so you can keep on top of your feeds before you end up with more unread items than are manageable in one session
- FaviconizeTab - This extension adds a new “FaviconizeTab” option to the context menu of the tab. When it is clicked, The width of the tab becomes small up to the size of favicon. Great if you keep a lot of tabs open like me
- WebmailCompose Fantastic extension that opens your chosen webmail compose window if any email addresses are clicked on
- Add Bookmark Here - Allows you to add bookmarks to any folder in the bookmarks menu like in Opera. Makes adding bookmarks to Firefox so much easier
- Optimoz Tweaks - If you a heavy user of sidebars this great extension makes it easier to open and close them. Use this link rather than the one on Firefix Addons, as this version is compatible with FF 2.0
- Google Browser Sync - The only bookmarks sync tool I’ve found that works seamlessly between PCs. Much better than Foxmarks in my view. If you’re outside of the US just use a proxy site to get the plugin
- ColorZilla - With ColorZilla you can get a colour reading from any point in your browser, quickly adjust this color and paste it into another program. It’s great for when you see a colour on another website which you want to use, or for tweaking your own template
- Autohide - This one isn’t promoted heavily, but if you like browsing full-screen it gives some useful control over what elements Firefox displays
- VideoDownloader - Download videos from Youtube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, Dailymotion, Pornotube… and other 60+ video sites!
I’m sure there are many others that people can’t live without, but these are always the first ones I install on a new PC. If you have any other Firefox extensions you want to share, then please leave them in a comment below.
Update For Digg Readers: Thank you for reading this article. If you found any of the extensions useful then you can use the Digg button below.
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[...] To check out the full list then click here. Tags: addons, extensions, Firefox, modding, Using The Internet [...]
I have absolutely no idea how you can possibly say Google Browser Sync is better than Foxmarks.
Foxmarks will sync your bookmarks regardless of the OS and even while the browser is still open. Google Browser Sync will not automatically sync while another browser is open.
Thanks for the list. I grabbed the Google Reader Notifier and will find it immensely useful. Thanks much.
*xxdesmus
You’ve described two scenarios that I will never encounter and neither will most users. I prefer Google sync as it syncs my history and my passwords as well, whereas Foxmarks didn’t when I used it. Also, Foxmarks kept messing up my bookmarks - in some cases losing them all together. That was criminal in my view.
keyconfig and functions for keyconfig, just to remove the annoying firefox behavior of going back to the previous page whenever the backspace is pressed.
I use itsdex.com’s toolbar everyday. It’s not mainstream, but basically gives me live alexa information on any site, I see what other people are buying and trading the sites I land on, and get instant traffic charts on any domain. If you play the game you get leaderboard information and can trade any website on the fly.
If you are just interested in getting fast convenient alexa and other marketing information it’s a great resource.
I’m sure you never heard of userChrome.js
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=397735
Thank you! Some of them are really useful and where unknown for me.
Groowe is the most useful Firefox extension I’ve used. Groowe is a toolbar which combines the funtionality of many other toolbars such as Google and Yahoo. There are over 30 builtin toolbars including dogpile, altavista, a9, amazon, ebay, etc. Most importantly, you can roll your own toolbar. For example, I made one for the Blue Letter Bible website. The Groowe home page is http://www.groowe.com
I use iMacros daily:https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3863/