Comments on: I'm switching from IE to Firefox. What extensions can't I live without?

Question: I'm switching from IE to Firefox. What extensions can't I live without?

darainwa — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:09:36 -0800

Ok, I'm making the big switch from IE to Firefox (now that it has gone 1.0). What extensions can't I live without?

By: ALongDecember

ALongDecember — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:14:11 -0800

Obvious here: Adblock and Mouse Gestures.

Mozilla Update seems r e a l l y slow right now, maybe people are overloading it after 1.0.

By: Galvatron

Galvatron — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:17:39 -0800

Flashblock. Looks like it hasn't been updated for 1.0 yet; check back in a week.

By: mookieproof

mookieproof — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:21:50 -0800

Can't live without: Adblock.

I also like Flat Bookmark Editing, GMail Compose, BugMeNot, and DictionarySearch. (These don't seem to have been updated yet.)

By: kickerofelves

kickerofelves — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:22:09 -0800

BugMeNot is one I use several times a day.

By: TuxHeDoh

TuxHeDoh — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:26:11 -0800

My favorite extensions are DownThemAll, WeatherFox, Del.Icio.Us, All-In-One Gestures, FoxyTunes.

I watch http://del.icio.us/tag/firefox+extension - to see what people are checking out, see if I'm missing something.

By: rafter

rafter — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:28:13 -0800

Flashblock and Bugmenot as mentioned.

With Bugmenot, you'll need an allow-right click extension or bookmarklet. Lots of news organizations prevent right-clicking on the login page (presumably to undermine the convenience of BugMeNot appearing on your context menu).

Definitely IEView (lets you launch IE windows of the current page from the context menu, which saves a lot of trouble when you want to watch a Windows Media video on MSN or something).

Oh, oh, oh, and most important of all, WebDeveloper. If you do any HTML/CSS, can't live without it.

By: rafter

rafter — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:32:51 -0800

Webpages for the above: IEView. WebDeveloper.

Oh, and I like CuteMenus, too, but that's just me.

By: cedar

cedar — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 18:46:25 -0800

Here (self link) are a few that I decided I couldn't live without.

Incidentally, when I upgraded to 1.0 I was informed by the installer that my extensions were not compatible -- oddly enough, they worked anyway.

By: LeiaS

LeiaS — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:43:55 -0800

FoxyTunes! Control your media player from your browser.

Also, from the same folks, ColorZilla is a neat eye dropper tool for identifying RGB and Hex values of colors in the browser.

By: smackfu

smackfu — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 19:46:56 -0800

If you use LiveJournal, Deepest Sender is a really good integrated client.

I also use Target Alert, which puts a little icon next to non-html links like PDFs and Word docs.

By: John Shaft

John Shaft — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:24:56 -0800

Sage is an RSS/Atom feedreader which lives in the sidebar.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:29:11 -0800

Foxytunes, BugMeNot, Tabbrowser Extensions, Autofill, Gmail notifier, Translate, Copy to plain text.

Newly updated extentions (compatible with the new Firefox) here.

By: gramcracker

gramcracker — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 20:41:46 -0800

Googlebar.

By: calistasm

calistasm — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 21:44:53 -0800

Tab X. Great for people like me who are too lazy to mouse over that extra three inches. I did have to install it a couple times before it would show up, however.

By: azazello

azazello — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 22:09:40 -0800

Tabbrowser extensions. Think your tabs are nice? Wait till you get this. (I'd like to see an actual MDI browser in addition to what TBE offers, but I realize that's not outrageously useful, as opposed to the ton of useful features in TBE.)

By: majick

majick — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 23:02:03 -0800

My numero uno, Single Window Mode is now built in, although you have to poke around about:config to get to it.

Other than that, the only thing I can't live without is LiveHTTPHeaders, but that's because I deal with a certain shoddily-made non-JRun Java application server all day, debugging application code written by people who don't know how HTTP works.

Some of these also look useful, although I use software outside the browser to accomplish the same thing.

By: jammer

jammer — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 23:19:05 -0800

If you do any web server support at all, check out LiveHTTPHeaders, as majick said, and ClearHTTPAuth. I couldn't live without both of 'em.

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 11:40:06 -0800

I've heard (unconfirmed) that GoogleBar "phones home" and tells Google your surfing habits. Really, what's the point of the GoogleBar when you have a built-in Google search engine and built-in pop-up blocking?

If you're looking for some general-purpose browser enhancements (i.e., not blogging stuff), here's my recommendations:

Gmail Notifier : Puts a small email icon at the bottom right of your Firefox statusbar that lets you know when you have new gmail, and how many new messages. Can automatically log-in and do scheduled checks.
Linky : Adds a context menu option to download all images on a webpage, or open them into a new window.
Download Statusbar : My absolute favorite extension! Do you hate the default "download" window? Me too! This moves your downloads to a small progress bar at the bottom of your browser. It allows you to pause/resume downloads, shows you an estimated download time... just take a look a the link and see how seamless it looks. Much better than the standard interface. Firefox should have done this by default. (Warning: the mozdev website link is a little innundated with traffic these past couple of days)
User Agent Switcher : Ever go to a website that's IE-only? Even though you know it'll work just fine in Firefox? Well those days are over! This little baby lets you stealth your browser to any page you visit -- you can be an IE 6, Netscape 4.8 or Opera 7.x imposter

By: Mo Nickels

Mo Nickels — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 12:08:08 -0800

Tabbrowser Extensions is not updated for 1.0. On OS X, it prevents new tabs from being created either by the menu or by the keyboard command.

I want to like Firefox, but why all this version and platform incompatibility crap? One browser, run anywhere. Very simple idea. When will we get it?

By: darainwa

darainwa — Thu, 11 Nov 2004 13:11:12 -0800

I can't believe I've been missing out on all this. Thanks for all the suggestions. Several of these have been extremely helpful/useful already.