What Firefox add-ons are you using?

Partially for my own purposes (in case of re-install) but also out of curiosity, I thought I’d jot down the different Firefox add-ons that I’ve got installed, and which ones I actively use vs. those that are just sitting on my machine.

I’m a big fan of Firefox – I much prefer it to Interet Explorer or Safari – and I like it better than Google’s Chrome, perhaps because I’ve just gotten used to Firefox.

By far the most appreciated add-on that I use is Tab Mix Plus.  This manages the tab behavior on Firefox, providing some much-needed improvements to the default actions.  For instance, I can have each link from the toolbar or from bookmarks open in a new tab.

PDF Download is probably my next favorite add-on.  This simple plugin gives you the option to open a PDF in a browser window or download it.  Simple but effective.  I hate waiting for PDFs to render in the browser and I hate reading them there too.

Next is Delicious Bookmarks.  I switched to Delicious as a way to keep all of my bookmarks a couple of years ago and there’s no looking back – my bookmarks are synchrnized between all of my browsers/computers and they’re available when I’m away from home too.  I also use an iPhone app so I can see my bookmarks there too.

I recently downloaded 1Password for the iPhone and I went ahead and purchased the (mac only I believe) application, which has its own Firefox add-on.  1Password stores all of my passswords for internet sites, and as a bonus I can sync those with my iPhone too for when I’m traveling.

Those are the most important add-ons to me.  I couldn’t imagine what managing my internet sessions without them would be like any more.

In addition to these key add-ons, there are a few additional that I also have installed, and used to varying degrees.

I recently tried out Twitter, and so added TwitterFox and Power Twitter to my list.  Power Twitter makes changes to the default twitter experience including un-masking those tiny URLs (that I hate) and adding a much-needed search right to the main page of twitter (really twitter, you’re not going to add that yourselves?) .  TwitterFox adds an icon to the status bar, which provides quick access to read any of the ‘tweets’ that you’re following as well as a quick access to writing an update.

ForecastFox is another add-on that I’ve got down there on the status bar – it provides a quick snapshot of the weather for the next couple of days.  It’s a good bit of information and well done in that it’s highly configurable.

The final addition to my status bar is Greasemonkey.  This provides a mechanism for using little scripts to overwrite the default behavior on many sites – just little changes here and there- I’ve only downloaded a few scripts but I like the idea of being able to change some of the pesky little behaviors that you see sites getting wrong from time to time.

Up on te toolbar, I’ve got a few additional buttons.. there’s Cooliris which provides a pretty nifty slideshow application to lots of online sites (like FaceBook for instance).  You click a photo in the album and cooliris provides a unique slideshow that makes looking at the photo album a pretty slick experience.

Also in the toolbar I’ve recently added Video Download Helper which provides a mechanism for downloading videos and other files (like, from YouTube for instance).  I don’t really use this all that much.

The last add-on that I’ve got running is SQL Lite manager – this is a pretty cool add-on that allows you to attach to a database and run SQL commands.  I really don’t use this either, but when I wanted to make some bulk updates to my LightRoom catalog, this really came in handy.

And that’s what I’ve got for now.  Do you think I’m missing anything?  I’d love to hear what you’re using and feel to be a worthy add-on.

10 Replies to “What Firefox add-ons are you using?”

  1. I love Firefox too.

    Better GReader – Greasemonkey package that adds some cool features for Google Reader

    ColorZilla – Grabs color codes from anything in firefox. Useful for web stuff.

    DownThemAll – Mass downloader, used for one specific thing, haven’t used much since.

    Email This! Bookmarklet Extension – Highlight Text, then send it and the URL to email.

    Firebug – Web testing tool

    FireFTP – FTP

    Fireshot – Web page capture tool, works cool for capturing long pages that wouldn’t all show in a regular screen shot.

    Foxmarks Bookmarks – Sync bookmarks, been thinking about moving to Delicious or Google Bookmarks.

    Greasemonkey –

    IE Tab – Useful for the occasional site that doesn’t work well in Firefox, especially on my Linux machine.

    Integrated Gmail – One fo my Favs. Puts Calendar into my Gmail PAge, in a box below my main gmail box.

    Power Twitter – You mentioned

    Read it Later – Adds a quick check mark to the url bar. like bookmarks for things you want to read later, but might not want to store for a long time.

    Tab Mix Plus – Adds some options for your firefox tabs, my favorite is that it groups your new tabs with their “Parent” page, instead of putting it at the end.

    URLBarExt – adds some nice options to the URL bar, including TIny URL, Search site, Copy URl Tag pages, etc. etc.

    Web developer – Absolutely essential for anyone designing. Adds all kinds of amazing options to see the information that forms the website.

  2. I love Firefox too.

    Better GReader – Greasemonkey package that adds some cool features for Google Reader

    ColorZilla – Grabs color codes from anything in firefox. Useful for web stuff.

    DownThemAll – Mass downloader, used for one specific thing, haven’t used much since.

    Email This! Bookmarklet Extension – Highlight Text, then send it and the URL to email.

    Firebug – Web testing tool

    FireFTP – FTP

    Fireshot – Web page capture tool, works cool for capturing long pages that wouldn’t all show in a regular screen shot.

    Foxmarks Bookmarks – Sync bookmarks, been thinking about moving to Delicious or Google Bookmarks.

    Greasemonkey –

    IE Tab – Useful for the occasional site that doesn’t work well in Firefox, especially on my Linux machine.

    Integrated Gmail – One fo my Favs. Puts Calendar into my Gmail PAge, in a box below my main gmail box.

    Power Twitter – You mentioned

    Read it Later – Adds a quick check mark to the url bar. like bookmarks for things you want to read later, but might not want to store for a long time.

    Tab Mix Plus – Adds some options for your firefox tabs, my favorite is that it groups your new tabs with their “Parent” page, instead of putting it at the end.

    URLBarExt – adds some nice options to the URL bar, including TIny URL, Search site, Copy URl Tag pages, etc. etc.

    Web developer – Absolutely essential for anyone designing. Adds all kinds of amazing options to see the information that forms the website.

  3. Also, not really add-ons in the strict sense, but I have TwitIt and Post_FB bookmarklets in my bookmark bar. Makes it super easy to post stories I’m reading to Twitter or Facebook. There is also a Greasemonkey extension that let’s you twitter easily from Google reader.

    And related, I use PingFM. It allows me to post updates to FB, Twitter, or both, from my Gmail IM box. Which I manage through Digsby. Can you tell I’m a bit of a geek?

  4. Also, not really add-ons in the strict sense, but I have TwitIt and Post_FB bookmarklets in my bookmark bar. Makes it super easy to post stories I’m reading to Twitter or Facebook. There is also a Greasemonkey extension that let’s you twitter easily from Google reader.

    And related, I use PingFM. It allows me to post updates to FB, Twitter, or both, from my Gmail IM box. Which I manage through Digsby. Can you tell I’m a bit of a geek?

  5. AdBlock Plus and Foxmarks are the two that keep me on Firefox.

    DownThemAll is great for grabbing files off of a page.

    Download status bar gets rid of the annoying downloads window.

    Uppity for getting back to root level of a site.

    Tabs Open Relative – self explanatory

  6. AdBlock Plus and Foxmarks are the two that keep me on Firefox.

    DownThemAll is great for grabbing files off of a page.

    Download status bar gets rid of the annoying downloads window.

    Uppity for getting back to root level of a site.

    Tabs Open Relative – self explanatory

  7. Colorzilla, Firebug .. have used those in the past as well and somehow lost those in a reinstall somewhere along the way.

    I’ve tried AdBlock Plus but it just never seemed to recognize the ad servers and so the ads just kept showing. I’m so accustomed to ignoring the ads at this point..

    I’ll have to give some of the others a try for sure. Thanks for the tips!

  8. Colorzilla, Firebug .. have used those in the past as well and somehow lost those in a reinstall somewhere along the way.

    I’ve tried AdBlock Plus but it just never seemed to recognize the ad servers and so the ads just kept showing. I’m so accustomed to ignoring the ads at this point..

    I’ll have to give some of the others a try for sure. Thanks for the tips!

  9. A few more that I forgot about that are on my work computer..

    Meebo – a web-based alternative to installing IM applications on the computer. I used this for a while but eventually just installed the chat applications as I never kept the Meebo tab open (they should figure out a way around this)

    YSlow – monitors your site and gives performance recommendations. Ultimately I never found the recommendations very helpful

    FlashGot – another ‘download them all’ function that I haven’t used all that much

  10. A few more that I forgot about that are on my work computer..

    Meebo – a web-based alternative to installing IM applications on the computer. I used this for a while but eventually just installed the chat applications as I never kept the Meebo tab open (they should figure out a way around this)

    YSlow – monitors your site and gives performance recommendations. Ultimately I never found the recommendations very helpful

    FlashGot – another ‘download them all’ function that I haven’t used all that much

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