Selected Firefox extensions
I’ve listed below all the Firefox extensions that I find useful along with a description of each one, so that you know why I use them and why you may want to do the same. I am using Firefox 2 in Windows 2000.
Bug fixes
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Save Complete
The only browser for Microsoft Windows that appears to be able to save a portable, editable copy of a complete page is Internet Explorer. Opera renames all the constitutent files with stupid names and writes out incorrect
url()
paths, and Firefox drops anything referenced byurl()
entirely. The Save Complete extension implements a working version of Save Complete for Firefox that saves pages properly at last. It reportedly has various flaws (most notably, it can’t deal with cached HTTPS items, but I am glad to see that it doesn’t even mangle the HTML the way Firefox does.
Additional functionality and usability
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Enhanced History Manager
Firefox’s history sidebar is diabolical, and I’ve always wished for a proper history window such as the one found in iCab. I just forgot to check if someone had made one as an extension and lo, they have. Note that you’ll likely want to change the settings to have it default to opening in a window or tab (e.g. under about:config, hcpm.Open.Where="window,...")
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miniT (tabscroll)
Switch tab by rolling the mousewheel over the tab bar. One of those features you just can’t believe isn’t standard and soon notice when it’s not around.
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Download Statusbar
Download Statusbar wraps up the existing download window into, depending on your preferences, a toolbar or a panel of the main status bar. It makes downloads much easier to review and manage and saves a whole taskbar button. It also takes care of the fact that Firefox runs all file saves via the download system (a uniquely stupid idea) by automatically clearing items by extension, such as image file types.
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DownThemAll!
A proper, queuing download manager: finally, I can deal with sites that provide a whole series of download links at once. Just be sure to switch off all the download acceleration features, which are evil and exploitative. Restrict yourself to one download at once, and one socket per download. For sites where the first user gets all the available bandwidth automatically, opening five connections at once gives you 5⁄6ths of their connection against an existing user, and can even choke and kill some people’s home servers, such as the one on my Mac. Please use this extension responsibly: it’s not a permit to be greedy and grasping over bandwidth, but simply a convienient way to queue transfers in a way that Firefox fails to provide at all.
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FLST (Focus Last Selected Tab)
A simple extension that allows you to return to the previous active tab if you close, or click on, the current tab. Another basic essential navigation feature.
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lget
Provides a way to download a file directly to disc given its address, bypassing any plugins in the browser. Automatically reads the clipboard, so that it already knows what you were going to ask it to save.
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Toolbar Extras
Adds a variety of extra buttons to the toolbar, including the desperately needed View Source button.
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Undo Close Tab Button
Need I say more? Provides a toolbar button to undo the last tab close and, via a drop-down menu, the last ten tabs you closed. The latter feature is faster than ctrl-shift-T.
Wrestling back control over the Web
The modern Web is designed to give the surfer control over their surfing experience, but many sites don’t want to give us that privilege! Take it back.
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Stylish
An extension to allow you to rapidly and easily redesign the appearance of all the sites that you visit. When there is no chance of a site’s poor design being fixed, you can wield your mighty styling power and forcibly override the design. This is the most intelligent implmentation of user stylesheets yet. Thanks silvestrij.
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AdBlock Plus
AdBlock has uses beyond being the tool of Ad Nazis. For example, I’ve blocked a DHTML subsystem of SourceForge that was causing Firefox to hang and give script timeout errors. I block the MySpace player system such that if I ever do stray into that desperate land, I won’t get my own music drowned out (the same goes for Flash adverts that do make irritating noises, as I don’t want to pause good music until I am done with the page!)
AdBlock is about reclaiming some control of the Web: I can remove parts of sites that are intrusive (e.g. movies embedded on front pages!) or cause Firefox to grind to a halt.
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Controle de Scripts
Controle de Scripts provides all the missing JavaScript filter controls that you’ve always needed. Now, restricting script behaviour no longer needs to cause contradictions. For example, in addition to preventing a script from resizing windows (which is annoying in tabbed browsing), you can now also prevent it from blocking window resize, in cases where the window was opened too small in the first place. It also offers finer control over how pop-up blocking functions.
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Smart Middle Click
This extension forces those extremely irritating JavaScript addresses that open items in a pop-up window, to open the into a new tab instead when you middle-click. At long last, you can view more than one image side by side and within the same window you were trying to use in the first place.
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URL Link
URL Link is a relatively simple extension that lets you select an address within the text that is not a hyperlink, and open it in tne current window or tab, or in a new tab. Useful for the many instances of unlinked addresses across the Web. Note that you can usually achieve the same effect by dragging the text to the tab bar or address bar (which also defeats referrer blocking even with hyperlinks). URL Link will also add missing address parts such as
www.
and.co.uk
on request.