Firefox Extensions
January 4th, 2008 by Michael Gray in ToolsIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Read my top posts or learn more about Michael Gray. Want more frequent updates follow me on Twitter. Thanks for visiting!
Here’s a list of Firefox extensions I have installed, if you know of anything cool I’m not using drop it in the comments below:
- Lets you debug HTML really quickly and easily
About This Site - a wealth of quick links to get more data
AI Roboform Toolbar for Firefox cause who has the time to remember passwords
All-in-One Sidebar - give me links and access to the sidebar
Better GCal - makes it pretty and more useable
Better Gmail 2 - makes it more useable
coComment - keeps track of comments you made elsewhere
ColorZilla - a color picker
Copy Plain Text - removes formatting when you copy text from a web page
CustomizeGoogle - gives you nice little links on other search engines
del.icio.us Complete - only the best bookmarking tool ever
Download Statusbar - helps you keep track of download stuff without the annoying pop up window
Email This! Bookmarklet Extension - lets me email pages to places like twitter quickly and easily
Favicon Picker 2 - gets rid of lame favicons
Gmail Manager - multiple gmail accounts
Google Notebook - makes working with the google notebook easier
GooglePreview - puts ASK style previews on SERP pages
Greasemonkey - makes it possible to do way cool stuff with firefox
Java Console - i hate this one and wish sites would never program with java applets
ListZilla - lets me export lists like this
Live HTTP Headers - lets you catch all the background redirects
MeasureIt - measures stuff on the page in pixels
PDF Download - because we all hate PDF’s so now you have a choice
Pearl Crescent Page Saver Basic - saves visible or full page screen shots
PrefBar - lets you turn off things on the page, play with your user agent and so on
Searchbar Autosizer - makes it possible to keep lots of stuff on your toolbar w/o taking up much real estate
SearchStatus - lots and lots of quick links to lots and lots of info about the website you are on
SEO For Firefox - give you lots of really quick and useful SEO info
ShowIP - because sometimes you need know
Skype extension for Firefox - makes phone numbers on web pages skypified for easy calling
StumbleUpon - hey give this post a thumbs up why don’t cha
Tab Mix Plus - makes tabs even better
Web Developer - lots of cool HTML and display functions
Sphere It
January 4th, 2008 at 5:35 am
Have you tried Firebug?
Inspect & edit your HTML & CSS. Javascript debugger. DOM explorer. Javascript logging.
I use it in three main ways.
1. Debugging. When my page does not display the way I expected I use Firebug to examine the various properties of the relevant page part.
2. Designing. It’s an easy way to tinker with the display of a page.
3 (and possibly less common). Making other people’s pages readable. You know what it’s like: you’ve got people who think green text on a blue background looks cool. You’ve got people who don’t realise that it is only in IE that that large ad does not cover the first three paragraphs of content. Edit their styles or html to make the page usable.
January 4th, 2008 at 5:44 am
And you forgot the ultimate one, after downloading all those great add-ons, the FEBE that allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2109
January 4th, 2008 at 6:24 am
Firefox Extension is useful to communication
January 4th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Firebug is a ‘must have’. I use it to test Cookies an Sessions. You can see all http-headers.
Another good one is ‘User Agent Switcher’. You can test mobile sites pretending you are a mobile Browser like an Nokia 6680 pp.
January 4th, 2008 at 8:00 am
Michael;
it was good to meet you at PubCon. Here is one that Joost de Valk just put out that is pretty cool. Allows you to go int o Yahoo site explorer and Google Webmaster Tools and pickup solid info quickly. I have added it to my tool kit.
http://www.joostdevalk.nl/seo-link-analysis-firefox-extension/
Best
Eric
January 4th, 2008 at 9:42 am
Ah, forgot about NoScript earlier.
Whitelist which domains are allowed to run scripts.
January 4th, 2008 at 10:19 am
What about SEOQuake, SEOpen, ScreenGrab, Fireshot, and Trailfire? Anyone using them? I used to have the Pearl Crescent extension, but Fireshot and ScreenGrab are better IMO.
Ever since I installed the new version of Firefox, my Web Developer toolbar stopped showing up. Has anyone found a solution to that?
January 4th, 2008 at 10:21 am
Ohh I forgot. I use Spiderzilla quite a bit too.
January 4th, 2008 at 11:17 am
don’t forget Tamper Data
January 4th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
I’m not really into themes but I love the Classic Compact theme. It’s basically the vanilla Firefox theme without much of the white space, leaving more room for web pages. It’s perfect if you have lots of other extensions gobbling up space.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3699
January 4th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
Yer missing Tamper Data. Lets you modify headers and POST GET vars
January 4th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Much better list than the usual suspects. I didnt know Aardvark existed, thanks for that. Colorzilla doesnt work in Linux, which sucks.
January 5th, 2008 at 12:15 am
I use SEOQuake and I’m in love with it. I turned it off once a couple of days ago and decided I couldn’t do without it. I’m going to download and try Firebug now. Great post.
January 5th, 2008 at 6:14 pm
Here’s some Great Time Savers for Flickr Users*
http://lifehacker.com/photogallery/Better-Flickr-Firefox-extension/
Another Excellent one for Viewing Flickr Photos Real-Time in yer Sidebar*
http://philmccluskey.com/projects/flickrfox/
All of these show U how Firefox is Leaps + Bounds better than stoopid MicroPOOP IE Crap!!
MicroPOOP has never Cared + Never even bothered to Listen to their Users! ie The people who had to Pay to use their Crap Software whether they wanted to or not due to the Monopolistic policies of Microsoft*
January 6th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
The GUtil toolbar plugin is really handy …a dropdown list of all the available google products.
January 7th, 2008 at 2:40 pm
Copy All URL’s is handy for when you need to make a list of links.
http://www.plasser.net/code/xul/copyallurls/
“CopyAllUrls is a Firefox extension that copies and pastes all urls of open tabs inclusive history in structured and well defined form to and from the clipboard.”
January 8th, 2008 at 5:37 pm
Read it later is incredibly useful for keeping on top of social news and friends submits:
http://www.ideashower.com/ideas/launched/read-it-later/
January 10th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Here are a couple more to consider;
YSlow - Yahoo plugin to improve your webpages. Uses Firebug
Fission - puts progress bar in address bar instead of at the bottom (like Safari)
HTML Validator or Total Validator- like it says
Joost has another script that will show you what Analytics/statistics program is running on a page. Very cool. Uses Grease Monkey. http://www.joostdevalk.nl/code/greasemonkey/statistics-detector/
Session Manager - A must when 30 tabs and 40 plugins is normal. Remembers all open tabs after a crash.
Update Notifier - Tells you of updates for your extensions and themes.
Another tip, if you have memory leaks or other issues, check here for a work around or good alternative - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions
January 10th, 2008 at 1:07 pm
Have a look at SeoQuake, Social Media for Firefox, Rankquest Seo toolbar and Search Status
January 13th, 2008 at 4:33 pm
Great list. Thanks for showing me copy plain text.
Grab and Drag is my darkhorse extension - turns the cursor into an Acrobat-style “hand”. It has hotkeys and clever turning off functions. Maybe not for everyone but I love it.
January 18th, 2008 at 6:42 am
The main reason I saw this blog is because I use the extension called “Sage”. - So simple and yet so handy