As promised in an earlier post here are my Firefox extensions I can’t live without. Be carefull when installing extensions, because there are thousands of firefox extensions out there and not all of them are of good quality and some are even dangerous to your computer. As a general rule: download the scripts from a trusted source. The Official Add-ons site from Mozilla is a good source, and thanks to the comments from other users you can save a lot of time.

Before I post my list, I would like to say that this isn’t the definitive “Extensions you can’t live without”-thing where there are already tousands of it. It’s called “FireFox extensions I couldn’t live without”. These are for me the best, but maybe you have other or more specific needs.

• Mouse Gestures: Allows you to execute common commands (like page forward/backward, close tab, new tab) by mouse gestures drawn over the current webpage, without reaching for the toolbar or the keyboard.
• Linkification: Converts text links into genuine, clickable links 
• IETAB: IE Tab features: Embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox. This is a great tool for everyone, since you can easily see how your web page displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox. As long as there are some sites that only work nice with IE, this extension is a time saver.
• Google Toolbar: I use it for the nice gmail and google callendar button integration, and the spellchecker that works everywhere. I also like the way it handles the mailto: links to use Gmail as default application.
• Google Browsersync: Google Browser Sync for Firefox is an extension that continuously synchronizes your browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers. It also allows you to restore open tabs and windows across different machines and browser sessions.
• Firefox Showcase: Showcase provides a new way to manage your Firefox tabs and windows by showing them as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. Includes a find bar that will filter the thumbnails, and the capability to select the thumbnails in the same way you would select files in your system.
• CoolIris Preview: Cooliris Previews gives you the power to browse and share Web links and rich media faster. Just mouse over any link, and the Cooliris preview window immediately appears to show you the content. To email it, just click.
• CopyPlainText: Have you ever copied something to Thunderbird or Office and been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with it? Don’t you wish you could just copy the text itself, without having to copy it, paste it into notepad, then copy it again? This extension gives you an option to copy text without the formatting. You can even set it to trim extra space in and around the copied text!
• Greasemonkey : Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. There are thousandsof scripts (5612 at the time of writing) available at userscripts.org . Tomorrow I will write about the Greasemonkey scripts I use. But you could already have a look at this fantastic extensions.
• Stylish: Stylish allows easy management of user styles. User styles empower your browsing experience by letting you fix ugly sites, customize the look of your browser or mail client, or just have fun. With an online repository at userstyles.org, you don’t even need to know how to write styles yourself. Tomorrow I will also write about the styles I use.

Extra extensions, maybe not fitted for everyone but without these my firefox wouldn’t be complete.

• Web Developer: Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools. As a web developer I use this one all the time, although there are many uses possible for everyone.
• Broadband Speed Test and Diagnostics: This extension adds an item called ‘Broadband Speed Test and Diagnostics’ to the Tools Menu in FireFox.  It performs the following tasks:
  - Display your public IP address and your public domain name
  - Perform download and upload speed testsIf you have troubles with your broadband connection, it can:

  - Troubleshoot and isolate problems by performing a couple of diagnostic tests (NIC card, local gateway, DHCP server, DNS server, web site)
  - Display local IP configurations (private IP address, MAC address, default gateway, DNS server, DHCP server, routing table, ARP table, active connections)
  The diagnostic and configuration display features only work on Windows

Tags: firefox, extensions