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June 19, 2007 12:59 PM PDT

Best Firefox extension ever

Posted by Peter Butler

Nearly every time I meet with a representative from one of the Web browsers, the questions of "Which browser do you use?" and "Why?" inevitably come up. The answer to the first is still Mozilla Firefox, like most people I know. The short answer to the second is "extensions," which is an easier way of saying "more functionality and personal customization."

The follow-up question is invariably, "What's your favorite extension?" and that's much harder, because it's not any one particular extension that makes Firefox great--it's the ability to mix and match the add-ons that you want to use, tweak the options for each particular extension, and create a final browser that works exactly the way you want. If there's no add-on for the feature you want, you can always build your own.

Pressed for a response, however, I generally answer Tab Mix Plus. And when I think about it, it's true. I'll admit I can't imagine Firefox without AdBlock Plus, and the only toolbar I use is Web Developer, which is completely awesome. Some users swear by FoxyTunes, and it's the most popular extension on CNET Download.com, but I have no problem switching applications to control music playback.

It's true; the only extension I couldn't live without is Tab Mix Plus. It slices, it dices, it makes all of my tabbed browsing dreams come true.

What's really the best Firefox extension ever? Tell me about your favorite in the comments.

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Add a Comment (Log in or register) 38 comments
My favorite: Fotofox
by Shankland June 19, 2007 3:07 PM PDT
It's a big improvement over installing some custom upload software to your computer, plus it's cross-platform, plus it works with several photo sites. It's got flaws--for example, no mechanism to add captions to photos; the interface gets confused about whether I've selected text to copy or paste; and it doesn't seem to remember that I don't want to launch my browser with it showing by default. But I still use it regularly.

I also like FireFTP, Foxmarks and Better Flickr.
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NoScript is pretty cool
by p_ansell June 19, 2007 3:20 PM PDT
NoScript and Download Statusbar... and Tab Mix Plus make my browser a lot nicer. And safer in the case of NoScript.

For development I havn't used anything but Firebug for a long time.
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Adblock,Tab Mix Plus and overall DownThemAll
by Wiseworm June 19, 2007 3:31 PM PDT
These three extensions are the first things I install every time I format my notebook.
Adblock is great in blocking annoying stuff. When I use a different pc I am always surprised how many ads web pages are filled with.
It is common for me to browse three or four different sites at the same moment. TabMix is perfect for all my needs.
Finally my favorite is DownThemAll!
It is not only a powerful download manager, it can easily search any file type in the page and in a single move you can download several files (images,archives,pdf in my teacher's personal page,etc)
Reply to this comment
IE Tab is the best
by ksax June 19, 2007 4:21 PM PDT
Not all pages are compatible with Firefox. Instead of opening up IE, I can just right-click and select "Open in IE Tab" and it works great!
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Best Extension? Adblock Plus
by rphunter June 19, 2007 4:31 PM PDT
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Best Extension? Adblock Plus
by rphunter June 19, 2007 4:32 PM PDT
I guess that is the one I would miss most if I didn't have it, but a close second is Flashblock.
I guess you could say I hate ads, especially the 'flashy' ones.
Reply to this comment
Mail and Color
by serpentilewitch June 19, 2007 4:35 PM PDT
I have to say, the extensions I use almost all the time, would include Mailman and Colorzilla. Colorzilla for my webdesigning- it's so easy to pick colors from the layouts I'm creating to for things like borders and links, etc. You just click the color, and you can copy to your clipboard the hex code, the rgb value, or pick a color related to it from the many palettes.

Mailman checks all four of my e-mail addresses and lets me know when I have mail- I don't even have to put my password in each time if I set it that way!

IE Tab is cool to test how crappy my web designs look in IE, but that's usually just for kicks =P
Reply to this comment
AdBlock Plus
by acampbellnz June 19, 2007 4:47 PM PDT
I have just downloaded this extension and am so impressed with it that I have finally been convinced to make Firefox my browser of first choice. Web pages uncluttered by banners and other advertising junk gone for ever. My particular hate has been the GeoCities pages with that incredibly annoying sidebar advertisement that you can't close until the whole page has loaded. Definitely a 5-star extension.
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Best extension
by swarint June 19, 2007 10:15 PM PDT
If I may add and second acampbellnz, it has to be AdBlock Plus along with NoScript, simply because browsing has come much safer if I compare my previous problems with IE6, which were ever so often. Cheers
Video Downloader
by JazzyJeff502 June 19, 2007 5:32 PM PDT
It's a must have if you hang out on YouTube a lot and you want to save stuff to watch on your PC, iPod or PSP later.
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My Favorite is Foxmarks
by isailhte7cs June 19, 2007 5:49 PM PDT
I dual boot to either Linux or WindowsXP and Firefox is my browser on both. Foxmarks allows me to keep both browser's bookmarks identical. It synchronizes bookmarks.

My second favorite is IE Tab.
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IE Tab is my all time favorite
by richande June 19, 2007 6:14 PM PDT
Couldn't be without it!

Cheers,

Rich
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Great choices!/ Don't forget Session Saver.
by lepiane June 19, 2007 6:18 PM PDT
Session Saver and ColorfulTabs + FoxMarks ... simply the only way to surf! I often have 48 tabs open that I sooner or later go back to, and session saver opens them all. Also using Microfox for the theme you get more screen real estate.
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Best extension? Sage FeedReader
by RobD60 June 19, 2007 7:20 PM PDT
Best extension is Sage FeedReader, which made reading feeds easier than
anything else. For news junkies, it was a find--more convenient than opening
an e-mail-based app or going through the Bookmarks.
Reply to this comment
Hard to decide, but IE tab is the best
by tjbelliardd June 19, 2007 7:20 PM PDT
Is hard to say which extension is the best, but IE tab solves one of the greatest problems over the web that is browser compatibility, sometimes you're working on a form and after loosing half an hour with that form it says it only works in IE. But that is not an issue for some people because most of the pages that they visit works great in FF, but they are a lot of websites that only works on IE and you can afford to lose your time changing to IE.
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All-in-One Gestures would be my second choice
by Divine Comedian June 19, 2007 7:22 PM PDT
I can't imagine Firefox without Tab Mix Plus, but my second choice would be All-in-One Gestures, which save me minutes every day, hours ever week.

Once you've spent a few minutes using gestures you'll pity anybody who doesn't. Start off with a few simple gestures (left for back, up for new tab, down for close tab etc), and gradually build up more gestures as those ones become second nature.

I use StrokeIt for gestures in applications other than Firefox, but All-in-One gestures is so much simpler to configure.
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I have two I never leave home without...
by Iendicis June 19, 2007 8:37 PM PDT
And they are...

-Download Statusbar, for all of those downloads that I didn't want in a separate window, and possibly the most used megabyte on my computer ever.

-FireFTP, an FTP client that is free and works the best, as far as I have tested.

My other encounters with add-ons didn't go so well. Eventually I had too many and just uninstalled all but three: the above two and Spamavert, which I use to post fake e-mail addresses sometimes. I tried Foxytunes but it slowed Firefox down so badly I couldn't use it for five minutes. The Adblock thing blocked half of my dialog boxes from sites I trusted (with no way to shut it off momentarily). Tab Mix...well, I never gave it a try, because I always thought it was a little useless...:P

I want to see a post about everyone's favorite Firefox theme. I use Phoenity Modern, which is simple but cool.
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extension, smention
by george_elliott2002 June 19, 2007 10:06 PM PDT
Like, who has the time to find out about extensions? I don't have time for learning curves; I barely have time to get my work done as it is. You may say that if I learned to use Firefox extensions, I would get my work done sooner. No, it would be just like happened in the case of Opera. I learned about a few of its nice options, and then they did away with them or moved them on the menues, or whatever; but I can't find them anymore. So now it sits on the shelf. I hardly ever use it anymore because I don't have time to relearn it again, and then maybe yet again. Same with IrfanView 4.00. I went back to 3.99 because 4.00 was too steep of a learning curve. By "too steep" I mean that if I spend two minutes on a program and I still can't get it to do what I want, then it's history. I move on until I find some other program that will immediately do what I want it to do the way I want it done. That's why I don't use Linux. The people who write open-source programs, including all flavors of Linux, seem to not understand the meaning of "user-friendly". Instead, they seem to believe in "no pain, no gain". Away with them and the pain they inflict on people. They seem to not realize that Linux is five or six times as difficult to use as Windows is. And that's just to install the OS. You can forget about ever getting an application to run on Linux in less than a month. Do I exaggerate? I think not. Furthermore, I think that the reason that the Linux people don't know why that Linux is barely at 1% is that nobody bothers to tell them why they don't like Linux. They just move on to something else that is user-friendly. That is, they go back to Windows and won't ever approach Linux again, not ever.
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Best Firefox extension ever
by george_elliott2002 June 19, 2007 10:06 PM PDT
Like, who has the time to find out about extensions? I don't have time for learning curves; I barely have time to get my work done as it is. You may say that if I learned to use Firefox extensions, I would get my work done sooner. No, it would be just like happened in the case of Opera. I learned about a few of its nice options, and then they did away with them or moved them on the menues, or whatever; but I can't find them anymore. So now it sits on the shelf. I hardly ever use it anymore because I don't have time to relearn it again, and then maybe yet again. Same with IrfanView 4.00. I went back to 3.99 because 4.00 was too steep of a learning curve. By "too steep" I mean that if I spend two minutes on a program and I still can't get it to do what I want, then it's history. I move on until I find some other program that will immediately do what I want it to do the way I want it done. That's why I don't use Linux. The people who write open-source programs, including all flavors of Linux, seem to not understand the meaning of "user-friendly". Instead, they seem to believe in "no pain, no gain". Away with them and the pain they inflict on people. They seem to not realize that Linux is five or six times as difficult to use as Windows is. And that's just to install the OS. You can forget about ever getting an application to run on Linux in less than a month. Do I exaggerate? I think not. Furthermore, I think that the reason that the Linux people don't know why that Linux is barely at 1% is that nobody bothers to tell them why they don't like Linux. They just move on to something else that is user-friendly. That is, they go back to Windows and won't ever approach Linux again, not ever.
Reply to this comment
Talks about average
by kairosnow June 20, 2007 11:18 AM PDT
Seems this is the point of view of the average user, which doesn't like to learn, or take time to open their minds to see what's next.

Somehow this comment talk more about the people than the programs. Of course is necesary to think about this, but it's also a risk to make a black & white world. I love diversity, and it's not matter of time.
Waaaahhhhh!
by John E Wahd June 23, 2007 8:41 AM PDT
Jeez, cry a little why don't you.
Yes to Foxmarks and Answers
by cfoxrun June 20, 2007 1:09 AM PDT
I love Foxmarks. I live by bookmarks. As a natural pack-rat, I like that I can switch browser or computer and all my stuff is there. Also, Answers saves me a lot of time quick referencing
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Extension problems with Vista ultimate
by Cyclops! June 20, 2007 5:26 AM PDT
As a Vista ultimate user, I have found many incompatibilities with extensions for Firefox 2.0.0.4. The worst of these was Tab Mix Plus, it did a nasty job on my computer and browser. However it did give me two things, a nasty virus that my Norton software found, a nasty little rework on my registry, which had to be fixed manually, and took about an hour. As I have had problems with other Firefox extensions, it may be that these are not fully compatible with Vista Ultimate.
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