Tuesday, November 24, 2009

Useful Firefox Plugins

Heres a list of 10 basic Firefox plugins I can't live without.

#1 Rotate Image. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/7113

What I like about this is that on the rare occasion where something is printed sideways, I can still read it. If you're reading comics on the web or something.

#2 Image Zoom. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/139

I hate loading external programs just to zoom in on something to read it better or find out who is hiding in the grassy knoll.

#3 Xmarks. Formerly Foxmarks. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410

The best way to sync bookmarks and passwords between different computers. Laptop, Desktop, Netbook.. If you're not using this, you're missing out.

#4 Abduction. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3408

What this does is takes screenshots of your web browser or a select area. Easier than downloading images, sometimes.

#5 Add Bookmark Here². Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3880

Places a little "Add Bookmark Here" option in every subfolder, making the adding of bookmarks much easier than by default.

#6 Tab Mix Plus. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1122

Increases the power and flexibility of what you can do with your tabs.

#7 Fast Youtube Downloader. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/15002

There are some other plugins that do the same thing, but I use this one. Not very often, but its handy sometimes.

#8 BugMeNot. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6349

Automatically log in to sites that you don't want to sign up and create a username for. LIKE COLLEGE HUMOR OR NEW YORK TIMES etc. And if there aren't any, you can always create a fake login name for any site at http://www.bugmenot.com/.

#9 AdBlock Plus. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865

AdBlock Plus. It blocks ads. Its rather odd that Firefox seems to have difficulty finding this add on when you search for it. I suspect shenanigans, but its probably the most popular add on there is.

#10 Automatic Save Folder . Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4781

Automatically saves file types to specific directories, so you don't have to select them every time. Eg. .Gif goes to images, .html goes to html.. .avi goes to movies.. whatever.

Also, if you're using Linux, and want to scroll with your trackpoint mouse like you can in Windows, you have to do the following:

1: type about:config to go to the configuration screen.

2: set general.autoscroll to true

3: set general.smoothscroll to true (my preference, anyways)

and I think that did it. I can't remember anymore.

I really wish there was a netbook with a trackpoint mouse. The Sony Vaio P doesn't count.

Bonus Firefox plugin: Fetch Text URL. Available at https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/518

Now you can simply highlight URL's published on the net by the html incompetent. In new tabs or windows even. Just right click on a highlighted URL and voila. tremendously useful.

Really though, most of these things should be default in Firefox.

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