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switching to Opera and back again: the essential Firefox extensions and add-ons
after test driving Opera for a few weeks (i got a free license for Opera 8 during Opera Software’s 10th anniversary party), i switched back to Mozilla Firefox. the available extensions and add-ons are simply unparalleled in any other web browser today. to put it simply, i missed them.
this is a list of the extensions and add-ons that i’m currently using in Firefox: the version for OS X that’s optimized for G4 processors (possibly nsfw link) and the Linux on PowerPC port. it isn’t intended to be an exhaustive list of so-called "must have" extensions (i’ll write about that another time). this one started as a simple list for my own use, but i’m presenting it here in case it may be helpful to others. if you have problems with Firefox after installing any of these extensions, backup your profile and try a standard diagnostic instead of of contacting me. that said, please feel welcome to throw in your two cents if you use an extension not listed here.
Add Bookmark Here adds an eponymously titled menu item to every submenu in the Bookmarks menu (like in Opera), enabling easy bookmarking in any folder.
Backgroundimage Saver enables copying of images at sites such as Flickr, Google and the IMDb, who "mask" certain images by hiding them behing a tranparent image.
BugMeNot pseudonymously bypasses the "mandatory" login screens at websites such as Salon, The New York Times and IBM DeveloperWorks.
Clipboard-Save-As is similar in concept to Opera’s useful "Download" toolbar item, and it acts on the link that’s been copied to the clipboard the same way that the “Save Link As...” command does. i use the Menu Editor extension to move the new "Save File from Clipboard" menu item from the Tools menu to the File menu.
ColorZilla adds a color picker (like the dropper tool in Photoshop) to the status bar and brings Page Zoom magnification to Firefox (the Opera feature i miss the most!). The Web Developer extension (see below) also has a Zoom function, among other things.
Context Highlight will highlight every instance of a selected word found in the current web page, making visual scanning of a page much, much easier.
Context Search adds a submenu to Firefox’s "Search Web for..." contextual popup menu that contains all of the search engines (not just Google) in Firefox’s search box.
Copy Link Name adds a similarly-titled item to the context menu, which appears when clicking on links.
Copy URL+ copies the current document’s address to the clipboard along with other useful information such as the page title. an additional extension, ChromEdit, can be used to easily extend Copy URL+ in some useful ways (including copying the current URL in HTML, Wiki or BBCode formats).
CustomizeGoogle is one of the first extensions i install. it modifies Google’s services and search results in dozens of ways, including the removing of advertisements and adding of links to other search engines, and privacy enhancements like the anonymizing the Google cookie UID and blocking Google Analytics and its link tracking.
Dictionary Tooltip displays definitions of selected words in an inline viewer right on the page (similar to Safari and other Cocoa applications in Mac OS X, and can use the same Control-Shift-D keyboard shortcut). Inline Google Definitions is a similar extension, and seems to be much faster (and a draggable window!), but Dictionary Tooltip features more than a dozen dictionaries as well as several different ways to invoke its inline window.
Fission superimposes the progress bar onto the address bar, making it much more visible.
FlashBlock prevents Flash animations from playing automatically, thereby reducing a lot of advertisements. FlashBlock displays a clickable "play" button as a placeholder, in case it’s an animation you do want to see.
FormFox gives every form’s submit button a tooltip showing the address of the server that the form will be sent to.
GreyModern isn’t an extension, but it is my Firefox theme of choice. it’s styled after Mozilla’s "Modern" theme, which is the theme i’ve been using off and on for more than five years. i’ve also taken a liking to the iFOX theme, which is a minimalist design copied from the Safari bromser.
GreaseMonkey uses userscripts to modify web pages so that they function or appear differently than originally intended. i could devote an entire page to Greasemonkey (indeed, there’s even a book about it), but some of the userscripts i use are:
- Apple Buttons Fix turns the buttons on Apple’s video sites that look like buttons (but are really QuickTime movies) into real buttons.
- ArsTechica Multipage Viewer combines the pages of ArsTechnica articles into one page.
- ALT Tooltips creates tooltips for images that have ALT tags but don’t have title tags. perfect!
- Boston Public Library adds ISBN, Author and Title search links to the book pages on Amazon (there are plenty of userscripts that work with other libraries, too, such as the University of Colorado, the Seatle Public Library and the NIST)
- eBay Auction Enhancer adds a live countdown timer to auction pages, mimicking the live counters on Yahoo! Auctions but without using a Java applet. an additional extension, Live HTTP Headers, helps makes eBay Auction Enhancer’s countdown much more accurate.
- Exchequer converts almost any price into your currency of choice by displaying tooltips containing the current exchange rate. clicking the price rotates through different currencies, which is a nice touch.
- Google Video Getter and iFilm Video Link each make it easier to download movies rather than viewing them in the browser.
- Wikipedia Inline Article Viewer adds a button on Wikipedia pages wherever links to internal articles are found. Clicking on the button displays the article in an inline viewer (similar to what the Dictionary Tooltip and Inline Google Definitions extensions do).
History Menu helps me avoid a trip to the sidebar by displaying the last 10 visited pages as well as submenus for each day’s browsing history ("Today," "Yesterday," "2 days ago," etc.). it’s actually a drop-in replacement for the original "Go" menu, and i’m trying to figure out how to modify my copy so that the menu is called "History" instead. any ideas?
JavaScript Options restores advanced JavaScript handling options found in previous versions of Mozilla, returning user control over how pages move and resize windows, open popups, use the status bar and so on.
Mycroft can add any of dozens of new search engines to the Search bar (like OneLook, Wikipedia, MacUpdate, Firefox Extensions and the IMDb), and Search Engine Ordering makes it easy to organize or remove them.
Mr Tech Local Install enables dozens of new features, including a new "Restart Firefox" menu item and the ability to install incompatible extensions.
Options Menu adds an "Extension Options" submenu to the Tools menu, providing quick access to all the extensions with configurable settings.
PDF Download offers the choice of viewing PDF documents inside Firefox as PDF or HTML in addition to downloading them.
ReloadEvery enables automatic reloading of selected websites (at intervals you determine) by adding a submenu to the Reload button.
Reveal features an attractive, interactive slideshow of all the open tabs with live previews of each page. it also displays miniature previews of the pages in the "back" and "forward" buttons’ browsing history. this is my favorite of all the tab preview-type extensions ~ and i’ve tried most of them, starting with Tab Preview, whose arrival on the Firefox extensions scene motivated me to start using Firefox 1.5 even when it was still in beta.
SearchBar AutoResizer saves a little space by shrinking the searchbar and dynamically resizing it as search terms are typed in.
SessionSaver is the extension i’d choose if i could only use one extension in this list. it’s an "install and forget" kind of extension that provides crash recovery for all open tabs when Firefox crashes (or quits) and automatically reopens them when Firefox itself is reopened. unlike the more basic Crash Recovery extension (a fine extension in its own right), SessionSaver also has a "SnapBack" feature which can reopen the 10 most recently closed tabs, and a "TextSaver" function that can capture everything you type to a TextSaver session.
Small Screen Renderer adds a new "Small Screen Rendering" item to the View menu, which can display the currently viewed page as it would appear on a cellphone screen.
SmoothScroll adds several configuration options that Firefox’s built-in smooth scrolling doesn’t have. this extension is great when used with input devices that have a scroll wheel or scrollable touchpad.
Stop-or-Reload Button mimics Safari and saves a little space in the navigation bar by combining the Stop and Reload buttons into one (the button appears as a Stop button while a page is loading and switches to a Reload button after the page has loaded).
SwitchProxy Tool comes in handy for me because i use Tor as a proxy and occasionally want to quickly disable it. although i’ve set up Firefox to get the most out of Tor, i may still open a direct connection before starting a large download, for example, or when a website like Google rejects Tor’s exit nodes (because they’ve been used by unscrupulous netizens in the past).
Tabs Menu adds, appropriately enough, a Tabs menu to Firefox’s main menu bar. This simple feature makes navigating the current window’s open tabs a lot easier, and is somewhat similar to Opera’s tab-switching function.
TabSwitcher allows you to switch between tabs with customized shortcuts.
text/plain makes it easier to open plain-text links and email addresses (as opposed to links and addresses wrapped in <a href=""> tags) by adding "Open Selection" commands to the context menu.
Uppity adds an "Up" toolbar item that can be added to the navigation toolbar (and optionally the status bar, too), and makes navigating up a website’s directory structure as easy as clicking a button or pressing Alt-Up (Option-Up on Macs).
User Agent Switcher lets Firefox masquerade as another browser and helps me identify (and remove) my own browser hits from parahuman.org webstats. it’s also useful when poorly designed websites perform browser checking and reject Firefox out of hand simply because it isn’t "mainstream.".
View Cookies adds a cookies tab to the Page Info window, showing stored cookies associated with the currently viewed page.
View Rendered Source offers a tool called HTML Charting, which interprets the source code of a web page and displays a visual representation of it. it really needs to be seen to be believed.
Web Developer does too many things to write a short paragraph about, so i’ll simply list some of the things i use it for: (1.) zoom in and out on a page using the keyboard (2.) remove the maximum length in text boxes (3.) disable referrer logging, Java, etc. and re-enable it with a mouseclick (4.) quickly delete all saved cookies or just the ones from the currently viewed website.
~ Christefano, 20 September 2005
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Anonymous wrote...
stumble, mouse gestures, roboform
Anonymous wrote...
Great List. A lot of these extensions I didn't even know of.