Got an IM from Amanda last evening asking about an updated Extensions list for my FF installation. It has been a while. Here’s the list — the must haves are in bold.
- Adblock Plus 0.7.5.1: Faboo tool for blocking banner ads and other ad images and spaces on web pages. I get wildly spoiled by this, and it’s often a shock when I go onto the web on IE and see how many ads there are on pages I visit all the time.
- Add Bookmark Here 0.5.5: Makes it easy to add bookmarks within the bookmark menu.
- AI Roboform Toolbar for Firefox 6.9.2: Roboform stores passwords and form info (e.g. on credit card or shipping forms online). Saves me hours every week. Works with IE by default, with FF with a plug-in.
- Bookmarks Synchronizer 1.03: Backs up my bookmarks online, on the off chance my machine crashes. Not sure if I’m going to keep this — what I really need to do is take a couple of days and clean out my oversized bookmark file.
- BugMeNot 1.3: Public helper application to fill in dummy login/passwords for “free registration required” sites.
- ChromEdit Plus 2.6.2: Makes it easier to update FF config files.
- Clippings 2.6: Create a library of cut-and-paste blocks for use in Web forms. A handy way to help if you blog just through the online blog client.
- DownThemAll! 0.9.9.8: A nice tool for doing mass download of files (esp. by type — graphics vs videos vs music, etc.)
- Extended Copy Menu 1.3: Nice tool that will let you, in context, copy a block of text from a web page with or without HTML formatting.
- FireFTP 0.96.4: Free FTP client that works through FF. Not the most spectacular FTP client out there, but it works pretty well.
- Flashblock 1.5.3: Any Flash that gets opened from a web page needs a click on it before it can play. Great way to avoid Flash ads. You can also whitelist regularly visited sites that use Flash for menus (bleah).
- Forecastfox 0.9.5.2: Put an Accuweather forecast at the bottom of the window.
- Google Pagerank Status 0.9.7: Put a little PR bar at the bottom of the window for each page you visit.
- IE View Lite 1.3: Want to see how a site looks in IE? Got sites that you need to automatically open in IE only? Here’s the tool to do it.
- ListZilla 0.8: Export a list of all your FF add-ons/extensions to a text or HTML file. Made preparing this list a lot easier, I’ll tell you.
- Print Preview Toolbar Button 0.1: Not the greatest toolbar button, but it fills in an annoying FF gap.
- Resizeable Form Fields 0.2.1: Stretch a form field larger (or smaller) for easier entry. Faboo!
- SnagIt Firefox Extension 1.0.1: I use SnagIt for image captures (actual image files, or screen caps).
- Tab Mix Plus 0.3.5.2: Extends FF’s tab controls and behaviors. Excellent tool.
- Talkback 2.0.0.3: Comes with FF; lets you feedback to Mozilla when things break.
And there you have it. Anyone have any FF extensions they find invaluable?
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I use Reminder Fox, a great little pop up scheduler.
That’s pretty cool.
I use more calendars/schedulers than are good for me — Outlook (per the office), my Treo/Palm (which syncs to Outlook), Google Calendar (for home calendar stuff, plus reminder messages it sends to my Treo, plus stuff it gets from Outlook and sends back to it), and xReminderPro, a standalone “remember these zero-duration things” birthday / anniversary / to-do-tonight alarm system. I’ve used the latter for a decade or so now, and find it very useful.
That said, Reminder Fox looks like it serves a very nice niche in the ecosystem.
* del.icio.us tagger – mini plugin, very helpful
* FLST – when you close a tab, focuses back to the most reently visited one, not just the next in line. very useful for keeping a train of though.
* PDF download – let’s me (instead of the site) choose if I want to view a PDF in the browser, or download it for later.
* smart-cursor – changes the default cursor when you hover over a link. lets you know if what you are about to click is a popup link, javascript, email, or something else.
I don’t make use of del.icio.us, and my tab setup (perhaps through Tab Mix Plus) behaves as you describe FLST. I don’t seem to have the PDF problem you describe, either (if I want to download for later, I right-click).
The smart-cursor one sounds interesting, though I usually glance at the status bar to see what’s being linked to.
But don’t beat around the bush, Tara — tell us about PassPack …
(Yes, that might well be considered an “unsolicted commercial link” — but I’m going to leave it for the moment since Tara actually contributed to the conversation. I’ll note that I use Roboform and SplashID for similar functionality — they’re not an online service), but that hasn’t been an issue for me, plus they sync to my PDA as desired.)
@Dave
Yes, I do always sign myself from PassPack. When I haven’t in the past, then password management comes up… then I feel sort of creepy. So by default, I’m “Tara (PassPack)”. And yes, I found your blog because of the Roboform link you posted – I track that sort of thing. 🙂
Yes, I think Tab Mix Plus takes care of your tabs. Does it do session saving as well? I love that feature.
I actually had a few more plugins I wanted to add to my list, but the dinner bell rang so I hit send and closed up fast. So here’s round two…
* Download status bar – instead of the download window, a non-invasive status bar for downloads runs along the bottom the the window.
* MeasureIt – Small ruler to measure pixels in the browser window, handy when doing design work.
* ColorZilla – a color picker (again, good for design work).
* Googlepedia – puts Wikipedia results alongside your Google results. Alas, sometimes it goes wonky and visibly overlaps the advertisements.
And the number one *must have* is Firebug. Anyone involved in web development simply can’t do without this tool.
Cheers to you,
Tara
TMP does extend the FF session saver (it had that feature even before FF did formally).
The other extensions you mention sound good, for those who need that sort of thing. I don’t do enough web design (for better or worse) to make them necessary — but if I do, I now have them recorded here. 🙂
WHAT!!! No fasterfox. Man that plugin is the first one I get when I install FF.
I also prefer 1-clickweather over forcastfox cause it comes from Weather Channel, and it looks more professional and not as thrown together at the last minute.
Web Developer gives me more stuff than I will likely ever use, but can be handy for… well… web developers.
Download statusbar, PDF download, and IE Lite all rock as well.
But whom can forget Google Notebook. Allows you to take clippings from the web and store them directly into Google Notebook. Not for the “Big Brother” worrying type though.
Oops, I almost forgot. GMail Manager.
I’ve seen FasterFox, but not felt convinced it would actually do much for me.
I’ll look at 1-clickweather — I’m happy enough with ForecastFox (and would rather find something that ties into WUnderground than another “big box” weather service).
Don’t usually end up needing to store web clippings. And for GMail … um, I only have one account I track, so it’s not clear that GMail Manager would do anything for me.
You guys all seem to do some much more with your browser than I do. I just read stuff on websites and occasionally download a file. I wonder if something’s wrong with me. 🙂
Nothing that a little indoctrination into our cult wouldn’t take care of … What flavor Kool-aid can we serve you?
The Google Notebook plugin sounds great. I usually use my backpackit.com pages to store this sort of stuff, but having something integrated into the browser would be enormously more helpful. Faster too.
I think I need to catch up on my plugins. It’s been a while since I’ve toured through the list.
That was one of the points of this exercise for me — it also enabled me to uninstall at least one that I wasn’t using.
Newly discovered must have plugin!!!!! It allows you to preview tabs, but also to scroll through the preview and have forward, back, and stop functions. Very cool.
Interesting. I’m not sure a mini-browser-within-the-browser is what I’m looking for, but I can see why some folks would get excited about it.