Discussion on:

Give your surfing a boost with these 10 Firefox extensions

http://techrepublic.com.com/5138-10877-5843496.html

What is your favorite Firefox extension and why? Be sure to include a link (perhaps even tag it) so we can try it our for ourselves.

Adblock
Permanently block images, ads, etc. My most used extension.
http://tinyurl.com/867gf

Image Zoom
Zoom in on images
http://tinyurl.com/blxkx

Linkification
Turn non-linked URLs into linked URLs on any page. Saves a ton of typing, or copying and pasting.
http://tinyurl.com/dgmuj

Open Long URL
Some URLs wrap, so copy it and paste the whole thing into this window and open it.
http://tinyurl.com/8878b

TinyURL Creator
Create a TinyURL for the webpage you are on.
http://tinyurl.com/duqnc

Tweak Network
Increase the speed and download efficiency of firefox.
http://tinyurl.com/7mwev

Tabbrowser Preferences
Tweak the settings for tabbed browsing (how they open, other behaviors).
http://tinyurl.com/aw2oe

FLST (Focus Last Selected Tab)
If a tab is closed, automatically opens the last used tab. Now if we could only move the tabs around...
http://tinyurl.com/ajczt

Mnenhy
This is an odd one, but adds encoder/decoder capabilities like ROT13, Base64, UUencode, Morse, Unicode, and others for whatever page you are viewing. Has other features I don't use.
http://tinyurl.com/4qcc8 (This is a different Mozilla page than the other extensions)

Menu editor
Edit your context menus (right-click). I have been really frustrated at wanting to merely save a link, and end up clicking Send Link, which spawns an email. This editor allowed me to remove Send Link, which I never use.
http://tinyurl.com/blcak

Sage (RSS reader)
Works for me. May not have bells and whistles, but gets the job done.
http://tinyurl.com/dlxqe

FlashGot (along with LeechGet [a 3rd party app])
Download manager, splits downloads into multiple threads and so goes faster. Some sites don't like that, so be careful. I was booted off one for bringing down their server this way. Never found another site that couldn't handle it.
http://tinyurl.com/b9d9x
and http://www.leechget.net/en/

IE View - Ironically this allows you to open a page in IE from the context menu.

http://tinyurl.com/cdwo3


Chipmark - Allows bookmarks to be stored on the web. Caution: When the Chipmark servers are available it works great and I wouldn't be without it. When the servers are busy or offline, expect 99% CPU utilisation (for the Windows version) until timeout is reached and it finally gives up.

http://tinyurl.com/dc3vf


Deskcut - Again ironically, creates a desktop shortcut to the current page, just like IE.

http://tinyurl.com/9j6kk

http://chrispederick.com/work/firefox/webdeveloper/

various web developer tools, just great...

Couldn't agree with you more! Web Developer is indispensible for me these days. I can disable parts of a page, check what's happening in forms, show all sorts of information about page elements, outline elements, resize my browser screen to see the effect it has and validate code.

It's especially valuable to me when working with DIVs and tables, seeing where they sit without having to change the CSS to make the borders visible. Heaven sent!

flashblock is a must for my machines (see it at http://flashblock.mozdev.org/). It prevents all Flash animation from automatically playing when you browse a page, displaying only a Play button so you can decide if you think you really want to watch it. If only it could also prevent the Flash movie from downloading in the first place...

Of those in the "Top 10" article, I only care for FoxyTunes. None of the other nine really do anything for me and the way I surf. However, the other extensions I keep on all machines are: User Agent Switcher, ProxyButton, and IE View.

Adblock is my favorite.

I do a lot of tracing of fake banking websites that still usernames and passwords so using FF and ShowIP are essential. I don't even have to let the page finishing loading once ShowIP grabs the IP address. Once I have that then it's easy to trace the site using tools like Neotrace Pro. Once I have the server info for that site I forward the info to the bank that the site is spoofing.

IEView
FireFoxView
TinyURL Creator
PDF Download, for those links that want to open Adobe reader in a webpage and all I want to do is save the pdf to my hard drive.

Gmail Space, allows saving files to you Gmail account webspace, still playing with it.

You missed the most useful extension of them all: Adblock. Adblock is a content filtering plug-in for the Mozilla and Firebird browsers. It is both more robust and more precise than the built-in image blocker. Adblock allows the user to specify filters, which remove unwanted content based on the source-address. It's powerful and very easy to use.

All right. Smorty and a few others here at TR have said that Sage is a good RSS reader. I've installed it in Firefox. Thanks to the article author for providing the link. I tried to find Sage at the Mozilla site yesterday and I couldn't find it. Now I've installed it. My first impression: I like the way it looks and the way that it integrates into the Firefox window. Time will tell if it turns out to be useful.

What makes Firefox awesome to use are the following 2 extensions: Adblock and NoScript. It takes a little work at first, but they allow you to prevent those obnoxious advertisements from even appearing as you surf! AniDisable and FlashBlock also are worth looking into.

I've recently created my own extension that will probably won't be on your top ten list unless you are a shortwave radio buff or a ham radio operator. It's called Propfire and it monitors radio propagation indices and displays them in your status bar. It's located at: http://www.n0hr.com/

Where the heck is the mention of GoogleBar? I can't function without it. Plus, google's version for firefox uses predictive typing, spell checking for forms, etc. I could type all day on the virtues of this plugin. I can't believe its not mentioned.

http://toolbar.google.com/firefox/index.html

A must-have is NoScript.

It stops cross-browser scripting. Everything else it does is a bonus.

My frivolous favorite is Colorful Tabs. I think the random coloring of the tabs makes a more enjoyable viewing experience.

Interested Amateur