Firefox extensions

Since I was just talking about Firefox, thought I would take a moment to talk about the extensions I use, in case people find them interesting.

Adblock - Probably the quintessential Firefox extension, Adblock does just what its name implies, blocks ads. You know, banner ads, flash ads, all those annoying things that take up screen real estate in your browser window - like that stupid iPod ad at OpenDiary.

Tabbrowser Preferences - Not as feature-full as Tab Browser Extension, but not nearly as buggy, either. Gives you more control over what can be done with the tabbed browsing of Firefox. Wish it supported Undo Close Tab, though.

StumbleUpon - This one is just fun. It randomly throws you to a page based on preferences you've set. You can vote whether you like the page or not, and it updates your preferences based on your "likes" and "dislikes". Its coolest feature, however, is the ability to easily send a page to another Stumbler, or even just email it to someone. It is for Awesome. It has reinvigorated my desire to surf, which I thought I had died some time ago.

Mouse Gestures - I learned to love both tabbed browsing and mouse gestures when I was using the Opera browser, and one of the first things I did when switching to Firefox was find a mouse gestures extension. Basically, this allows you to use mouse-shortcuts to activate certain features of the browser, like back, forward, open new tab, close tab, open new window, open link(s) in new tab... all sorts of stuff. You can map new gestures, also, and even have a gesture do something as simple as, say, open a single bookmark.

I've also started using a few new ones recently on my PortableFirefox usb key...

Bookmarks Synchronizer - I use this to keep my bookmarks consistent between my PortableFox and my regular Windows- and Linux-based Firefoxes. Set an upload site, and set to auto-update or not, and you're good to go.

WebMail Compose - allows you to compose emails in a webmail window by clicking on a mailto: link. Normally, you'd need to use an external client, like Outlook Express, or Mozilla Thunderbird. This, for a portable browser, is a great solution, as I don't have to configure a mail client for my return addresses everytime I want to mail someone from a webpage.

FireFTP - This one is not hosted at update.mozilla.org, so Firefox will not, by default, allow you to install it. It will pop up a small yellow bar at the top of the screen; click the button on the far right of it, and follow the instructions. It's an FTP client that sits in a Firefox tab - works pretty well, too, has a good bevy of features.

That's pretty much all the ones I use, actively. Let me know what you're using.