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Pimp My Firefox: 25 Must-Have Firefox Add-Ons

Firefox is fast, plays nicely with the web, and is decent with your computer resources. The new version (Firefox 3) is even better, offering a ton of stuff like an address bar that knows what you’re thinking (or so it seems like it sometimes). But that’s not why Firefox is probably the best browser ever: the perks are in the add-ons.

Anyone who has made the switch from any browser (Safari, IE, Opera) to the freedom that is Firefox might realize, real quickly, that the browsers strength is in the add-ons. If you need it and can think of it chances are someone has already come up with a way for you to do it in firefox. “I really wish that there was a way to get all my emails right in firefox plus notifications…” Someone’s thought of it. “I really wish I could use mouse gestures like in Opera.” Someone’s thought of it.

So here’s a list of add-ons that I personally find indispensable on both my Mac and My Pc (except 1):

  1. Gmail Manager: I direct all of my email to my Gmail accounts and have them all in a little plugin on the lower right hand side of my browser. Easy to check new mail and login to them with a simple selection.
    Install it
  2. Better Gmail: Gmail looks sort of bland so I added this nifty plugin that adds folder views a fair amount of labels and some skinning to make Gmail have that desktop Email program love.
    Install it
  3. Session Manager: Nothing sucks more than crashing mid-surf and being unable to find those pages again. Especially when you surf with about 20 tabs. Session manager not only remembers the crashed session, it remembers the previous sessions up to the amount you want saved.
    Install it
  4. GSpace: 7 Gigs of online storage is really darned helpful if you have a big file you want to access at work. Why not upload to it? Hawt.
    Install it
  5. Fast Video Download: You know that video on Youtube is gonna’ get pulled down and there’s no real way to bookmark it in that case. So, why not just download it?
    Install it
  6. BugMeNot: Stupid newspaper sites constantly asking you to register for free—just send that away with Bug Me Not and read the article your buddy linked to.
    Install it
  7. Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer: It’s gotten to the point that you don’t want to save bookmarks because you don’t have them at work or if you do you have to keep emailing them to yourself or saving them on some google doc. ::Sigh:: With Bookmark Synchronizer if you add a bookmark There you can update it at Home and have them match. Awesome.
    Install it.
  8. FEBE: Nothing stinks as bad as cleaning out your system with an upgrade only to discover you’ve lost all your bookmarks and firefox extensions. The Beauty of FEBE is that it backs up your firefox data (including itself) for easy reinstall.
    Install it
  9. Mouse Gestures: I really love that Opera lets you surf with a flick of the wrist—going back a page by simply moving your mouse left quickly, etc. Add that functionality to Firefox and surf intuitively.
    Install it
  10. IE Tab: Every now and then you stumble across a page that needs to be viewed in IE. Bump that, open IE in Firefox.
    Install it (pc only)
  11. Download Them All: This nifty plugin lets you go to any page and download all the content—or the specific content you want to a specific folder. Very helpful when you’re downloading linked to mp3’s and such.
    Install it
  12. Flashgot: Just like Download Them All. I don’t know why I have both.
    Install it.
  13. Download Statusbar: I can’t stand that huge pop up that says stuff is downloading. So why not relegate that to the dead space of the lower left hand part of your browser with percentage of download? Excellent.
    Install it
  14. Password Exporter: it saves the passwords you tell it to save and then allows you to export them to a csv sheet . That is a nice way to store all that info safely.
    Install it
  15. Bookmark Previews: Extremely helpful to have a coverflow view of all your bookmarks instead of going painstakingly through all of your folders.
    Install it
  16. Customize Google: Every now and then you have to search Yahoo. I know—you try to ignore it but sometimes (rarely) it happens. So this handy tool sets up google to have quick links to yahoo, ask, technoratii, wiki and so forth. It’s an MCF must.
    Install it
  17. NoScript: auto Script blocking but does it smart and without an annoying pop up. Easy to enable with a simple click.
    Install it.
  18. Cooliris: A nifty way to see photos in certain sites.
    Search Field (since there’s one for mac and one for PC)
  19. Resurrect Pages: You’re searching for a page, click the google link and boom–it’s gone–no connection. Well, this tool adds links to the page in yahoo’s cache, internet archive, google cache and so forth.
    Install it.
  20. United States English Dictionary: ’nuff said.Install it.

The following tools are specific to what I do with design, web development and Bible:

  1. Bible Toolbar: I’m often posting Bible notes and need a quick reference. Bible Toolbar allows me to search the Bible and have multiple versions side by side. Rocks.
    Install it
  2. Colorzilla: this is the equivalent of Photoshop’s eyedropper info tool but for the web. This way you can hover over anything and get the HEX value so you can match the color in photoshop.
    Install it
  3. Measureit: This handy tool creates a precise crosshair so you can measure the width of any web object to get pixel precision in space duplication.
    Install it
  4. Firebug: This sweet tool lets you strip a website to its core coding to let you examine What Does What. View the CSS style sheets. See where Javascripting becomes involved. It’s excellent for testing your own sites and watching the wonders of others’.
    Install it
  5. Pencil: I’m such a classicist with design that I often hit my pad before coming up with logos or websites. This handy tool isn’t so much an online pencil but it’s a scratchpad for web thinking: easily let you drop boxes, shapes, icons, images, text and so forth to create a quick page  and then export that template as a page.
    Install it
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