Doing the upgrade to Firefox 1.5 the other day reminded me it’s been a while since I did a list of my current extensions. I’ve been trying to pare the list down, only including the ones that I actually use. Here are my current recommendations, all of which work in 1.5 (in no particular order except how they show up in the Extensions dialog):
MUST HAVES
- AI Roboform: An excellent password manager, form filler, etc. Works interchangeably between FF and IE, which is a plus. FF requires an added extension to have it show up in the tool bar. This thing makes my life so much easier, I cannot begin to tell you. The basic version is free, but has limits on the number of passcards (10, I think) it supports; the pay version is $30, with added versions for Palm, WinCE, USB flash drive, etc.
- Adblock: Automatically block image files (and iFrames) that you identify, including by wildcard. Great for viewing much cleaner and less-ad-ridden pages.
- Flashblock: Flash is the new Animated GIF as far as ads go. This extension prevents Flash images from displaying until you click on them. Again, much cleaner pages.
- Tab Mix Plus: Takes the already-spiffy tabbed browsing that FF has and makes it even more flexible and powerful. I first got into tabbed browsing with SlimBrowser, and this lets me model things like it if I choose. Has some nice extra features, too, like remembering the tabs open in your last session (which, for a tab-a-holic like me, is critical).
- Resizeable Textarea: Allows you to drag open a web form textarea (e.g., the comments area on my blog, compose windows in Gmail, bulletin board entry areas) to whatever size will fit the screen. Awesomely useful, as confirmed if you Google it. Alas, this extension has not been updated for 1.5 as of yet. I keep watching.
- IE View: Lets you open a link or the current page in IE (for those annoying pages that require it, or for testing pages in both FF and IE). Can also be set, now, to automatically load a particular page or domain in IE.
- Text size toolbar: Adds text size (bigger, smaller, original) buttons to the toolbar. Probably the least necessary of extensions I use (esp. for those who have a wheel mouse), but I like having it.
- SpellBound: Spell-checker for form fields. Very nice. Probably ought to be standard browser functionality.
- Print It! – Adds a Print and Print Preview to the (right-click) context menu. This should really be standard in FF, in my opinion. Unfortunately, the souce site seems to have gone bye-bye. I may still have a copy on disk, if anyone’s dying for it …
- Print Image: Right-click and image and send it directly to the printer. Again, an essential, found also in IE, that should be standard.
NICE TO HAVES
- Forecastfox: Puts a highly configurable Accuweather forecast in the status bar. Handy to glance ahead at the weather. Provides popup alerts, too.
- BugMeNot: A database (continuously updated) of dummy userid/passwords for annoying and pointless registration pages at sites (e.g., news sites).
- ChromEdit: Easy way to update and view the “chrome” config files behind Firefox. Not yet updated for 1.5.
- Add Bookmark Here: Adds the option to bookmark a page while in the bookmarks menu. Convenient.
- ImgTag: Right-click an image in your browser and generate in the clipboard an XHTML IMG tag for it. While it’s not alway kosher to crosslink to images hosted elsewhere, there are still plenty of legit uses for this.
- FireFTP: A web-based FTP client. Seriously unfancy, but better than nothing.
- Google Pagerank: I like the standardsearch functionality in FF, so I don’t have a strong need for the Google Toolbar. That said, it’s kind of fun to see what a Pagerank is for a given page is. This displays it in the status bar.
- DownTHEMall!: Easy downloading of images (or other types of files) from a site with a single click. Convenient.
- Resize Search Bar: The default search bar in FF is of a fixed width — and too narrow. This lets you expand it. Nice.
- Bookmarks Synchronizer: Automatically upload changes to bookmarks up to your own FTP site.
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