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Episode #2: Our Favorite 30+ Firefox Extensions
By Appsolute Tech Show Admin | November 24, 2007
This week we tackle our favorite extensions for Firefox, the venerable cross-platform open-source web browser. Part of what makes Firefox so great, besides the fact that it’s free and works on multiple operating systems, is the ability to customize it anyway you want.
Sorry for the delay in getting this episode out. First our Internet connection dropped out on Thursday and then yesterday I realized that I forgot to actually record the segment on Firefox extensions, so we had to re-record the whole episode.
All the links below are for the extension creator’s website, you can also find all these extensions at addons.mozilla.org. If you decide to install these extensions from the creator’s website you must go to Tools > Options > Security > Exceptions and add the url of the site and click allow to be able to install the add-on.
List of the Firefox extensions we talk about:
Adblock Plus – MUST HAVE! Block unwanted ads, banners, etc…
CLEO – Compact Library Extension Organizer. Make one installable extension file comprised of multiple extensions. Great way to install a given set of extensions on multiple computers.
Colorful Tabs – Show your true colors, makes each tab have a unique color to visually differentiate multiple tabs.
CustomizeGoogle – MUST HAVE! Customize your Google experience, including anonymizing your Google cookie, and making sure you view Google Calendar, Docs and other Google services over an encrypted (SSL) connection.
DownThemAll! – A nice download manager with resume and multithreaded downloads.
ErrorZilla Mod – Replaces basic “Page Not Found” error page in Firefox with a more useful error page which includes links to WhoIs, Google Cache, and the WayBack Machine.
Fasterfox – A Firefox tweaking utility to speed up Firefox and your overall browsing experience.
FEBE – MUST HAVE! Firefox Extension Backup Extension allows you to backup your whole Firefox profile (including Extensions) or selective elements of your profile. Includes restore capability.
Firefox Showcase – Shows a page of clickable thumbnails of all your open tabs.
FirefoxView – Adds right-click menu option to Internet Explorer that allows you to open the page your viewing in Firefox.
Firekeeper – Increase your browsing security by block cross site scripting (XSS), includes whilelist/blacklist capability.
Flagfox – Adds a little flag icon in the bottom right hand corner of Firefox to show the country the site your viewing is based in (according to IP address).
GooglePreview – Adds a thumbnail image to the left side of your Google search results so you quickly see what the page that your going to visit look like.
IE Tab – Open pages/sites in Firefox using the Internet Explorer rendering engine instead of loading up Internet Explorer to view pages that just don’t seem to work in Firefox.
IE View Lite – Adds a right-click menu item in Firefox to launch Internet Explorer with the page your viewing.
Infolister – A quick way to automatically create a listing of all your Firefox extensions, themes, and plugins.
Link Alert – MUST HAVE! Shows a tiny icon which represents the destination of a link when you hover your mouse over a link. Shows nifty icons for exes, zips, pdfs, external sites, etc…
Meetimer – Easily and automatically track which sites you visit safely. Find out how much time you spend procrastinating, working, emails, searching, etc… Does not transmit your browsing habits to anyone/anywhere.
MR Tech Local Install – MUST HAVE! Swiss army knife of Firefox extensions.
My Portal – Install and type myportal:// into your browser address bar to see a list of your bookmarks weighted by frequency visited. Try it and see for yourself.
NoScript – MUST HAVE! Truly browse safer! Selectively enable Javascript on a per site (or even per subdomain) basis. Oh and block cross-site scripting (XSS) even on trusted sites. Stop reading and get it now.
OPIE – Ordered Preference Import/Export utility. A new extension from the creator of FEBE and CLEO. It backs up the actual configuration of your extensions, not the actual extensions like FEBE.
Print/Print Preview – MUST HAVE! Adds Print/Print Preview functionality and a corresponding button to Firefox.
QuickJava – MUST HAVE! Enable/Disable Java globally with one click. Use in conjunction with NoScript to prevent even sites you trust from loading Java applets.
SafeCache – MUST HAVE! Prevents third party sites from raiding your cache to track your activities by segmenting your cache according to the domain of the originating page.
SafeHistory – MUST HAVE! “Protects your privacy by silently defending against visited-link-based tracking techniques. It allows offsite visited links to be marked only if the browser’s history database contains a record of the link being followed from the current site.”
Save Image in Folder – A nice, easy way to save and organize pictures/graphics you find online. Create unlimited categories and save images to specific folders in two-clicks.
Session Manager – The best session management utilty for Firefox. Also saves your current browsing session every X milliseconds in case Firefox crashes, you can start it back up with your last session.
Tab Mix Plus – MUST HAVE! The ultimate tab configuration extension for Firefox. Don’t leave home without it. Way too many features to list here.
Tab Scope – Creates a thumbnail preview of an underlying tab, viewable by hover over the tab you want to see a preview of.
TabCounter – Simple extension that shows a numeric count of how many tabs you have open.
Update Notifier – MUST HAVE! Automatically notifies you of updates to your extensions/themes. You can also set it to automatically install the newest updates or you can do it manually.
Zotero – For the student, professor or even amateur web researcher. Organize your topics and save snippets of pages and add tags for more flexibility.
Please let us know what you think of the episode by leaving commends, or emailing us. The next episode will be released on Wednesday, December 6th.
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Thank you for mentioning three of my extensions (FEBE, CLEO, and OPIE) on your “Episode #2: Our Favorite 30+ Firefox Extensions” podcast dated November 24, 2007. I would, however, like to clarify something you said about installing “cleopacks”. While it is true that FEBE must be installed for CLEO to create a package, it is not necessary for installing a cleopack. In fact, neither FEBE nor CLEO need be installed. A cleopack can be installed the same way as any other Firefox extension (.xpi). Perhaps the easiest way to do this is by clicking File > Open File… and navigating to the downloaded cleopack.
Regards,
Chuck Baker
FEBE, CLEO, OPIE author
Response from Dr. Apps: Chuck, thank you for clarifying this, I made a mistake. Thanks for all of your hard work on FEBE, CLEO & OPIE! -Dr. Apps