Tue

Nov 29
2005

Marc Hedlund

Marc Hedlund

Yay, A Chance to Reinstall

I installed the new del.icio.us Firefox extenstion on my Mac (Firefox 1.0.7) and Firefox promptly quit working and stayed that way until I blew away my extensions directory. Bloody alpha geeks. Ah, well, seems like a great time to take a survey of everyone's favorite Firefox extensions. Here's what I was able to excavate from the smoldering remains of the old extensions set:

  • Adblock
  • NYTimes Single-Page Format
  • Bloglines Toolkit
  • BugMeNot
  • CookieCuller
  • Tabbrowser Preferences
  • SpellBound
  • DictionarySearch
  • About This Site
  • Tweak Network Settings

Any suggestions? The AdBlock, Bloglines, BugMeNot, and CookieCuller extensions are the only ones I notice using on a regular basis. Additions, subtractions?


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Comments: 29

  Greg Linden [11.29.05 01:53 PM]

I like FlashBlock. Easy to use, stops long loading Flash content unless you want it, quiets all that obnoxious Flash advertising. No effort to set up, it just works.

  BillyG [11.29.05 02:03 PM]

oops, updating from 1.5RC3 to the official 1.5 as of NOW! but here's what I got runnin my rig:

Last updated: Tue, 29 Nov 2005 22:00:17 GMT
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8) Gecko/20051111 Firefox/1.5
Extensions (enabled: 44, disabled: 0):

* Aardvark 1.0
* Adblock 0.5.2.039
* Amazing Media Browser 0.12
* Anonymouser 0.2
* Bloglines Toolkit 1.6.0
* Bookmark Backup 0.3.3
* ChromEdit 0.1.1.1
* CookieCuller 1.2.0
* Create Shortcut 0.3.1
* CustomizeGoogle 0.39
* Delicious Delicacies 0.5
* Digg This! 0.3
* Disable Targets For Downloads 1.0
* Fasterfox 0.7.9
* FirefoxView 0.31.3
* Go Up 0.9.1
* IE Tab 1.0.6.4
* IE View 1.2.7
* InfoLister 0.9c
* Launchy 4.1.0
* Linkification 1.1.6
* Mozilla SpellCheck Libraries 1.0.1.0
* Nightly Tester Tools 0.7.9.7
* NoScript 1.1.3.4
* Objection 0.2
* PlainOldFavorites 0.5.6.1
* RankQuest Toolbar 0.2
* Resize Search Box 0.0.7
* Resizeable Textarea 0.1a
* SafeHistory 0.1
* Save Image in Folder 0.6.4
* Save Link in Folder 0.8.4
* Scrollbar Anywhere 0.8
* Sort Bookmarks 0.5.0.1
* SpellBound 0.7.3
* Tab Mix Plus 0.2.5.2
* TabFX 1.5.0
* Tabbrowser Preferences 1.2.8.7
* Tiny Menu 1.1
* TinyUrl Creator 1.0
* Viamatic foXpose 0.1
* Yahoo! Photos Easy Upload Tool 2005.10.12
* del.icio.us 1.0.1
* del.icio.us post 0.4

Themes (2):

* Firefox (default) 2.0
* Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) 2.991 [selected]

Plugins (10):

* Adobe Acrobat
* Java(TM) 2 Platform Standard Edition 5.0 Update 5
* Microsoft® DRM
* Mozilla Default Plug-in
* PCMan's IE Tab Plug-in for Mozilla/Firefox
* QuickTime Plug-in 7.0.3
* Shockwave Flash
* Shockwave for Director
* Windows Genuine Advantage validation plug-in
* Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library

  FJ [11.29.05 02:04 PM]

The Firefox Adblock Style Sheet is a simple suite of CSS declarations that takes care of most ads and lessens the need for programmatic add-ons. Maybe it would be a worthwhile addition to your repertoire!

  Curt Hibbs [11.29.05 02:34 PM]

I just reinstalled Firefox (with 1.5 RC 3) a few days ago, and took advantage of the opportunity to cut back on the number of extensions, including only the ones I really used.



I have four extensions that I consider esential, and then a number of nice-to-haves.



My four essential extensions are:



* Adblock Plus 0.5.10

* ScrapBook 0.18.0

* SessionSaver .2 d1 * nightly 30

* Tab Mix Plus 0.2.5.2



This version of SessionSaver (which works with FireFox 1.5) is a little hard to find. I got it here:



http://adblock.ethereal.net/alchemy.cgi/SessionSaver



The other extensions I have installed are:



* Adblock Filterset.GUpdater 0.2.6

* All-In-One Sidebar 0.5.10

* del.icio.us 1.0.2

* IE View 1.2.7

* Open link in... 1.4

* Redirect Remover 1.0



Curt

  walter [11.29.05 02:36 PM]

I use Scribe, from http://prismicspiral.com/scribe/
It let's you save stuff you wrote in a form, like an entry in your blog.

  Justin Mason [11.29.05 03:19 PM]

Funny, this just came up on HubLog, too.


The indispensible ones:
Session Saver, undoclosetab, mozex, Greasemonkey.


Some others that I use just frequently enough to make them useful:
downTHEMall!,
Download Manager Tweak,
Live HTTP Headers.


FWIW, I'm going through a phase of using Slogger to record everything I surf, and render it searchable, but let's see how that goes first ;)

  Felipe [11.29.05 04:05 PM]

I use Aardvark too before printing.

Webdesign: WebDeveloper Toolbar, Edit CSS, DOM Inspector
Moderation and posting: Copy URL +
Surfing offline and keeping archives of client pages: Scrapbook
Viewing PDF as I wish: PDF Download

  Pierce Presley [11.29.05 05:30 PM]

I gotta give a plug to Platypus. It doesn't always work exactly like I want it to, but if you like having full control over Web pages via Greasemonkey (or just as a one-off thing, if you don't want to save the script), it does wonders.
Now if you'll excuse me, I gotta download 1.5 and see what all breaks.

  scott [11.29.05 06:58 PM]

** Target Alert -- provides tiny icons to indicate the destination format type of hyperlinks, i.e. pdf/doc/etc

** NextPlease -- allows navigation of next/previous with a keyboard shortcut

** undoclosetab

  Steve Andersen [11.29.05 08:55 PM]

A lot of people list Tabbrowser Preferences as a favorite extension. I switched to Tab Mix Plus, which has tons more functionality, when I saw Tabbrowser listed as a "problematic" extension on Firefox site.

I don't miss it--Tab Mix Plus is much better.

  Geert [11.29.05 11:25 PM]

I use the SwitchProxy extension all the time. Allows you to switch between the proxy of your laptop between home, work, customers, ...

  Rich [11.29.05 11:47 PM]

Greasemonkey and Web Developer are miracles of extension engineering.

I think Tab Mix (stable replacement for the awesome, but buggy Tabbrowser Extensions) and CustomizeGoogle (click on a link in Google Images and actually go to the image, among other things) deserve mention too.

  Howard Dickins [11.30.05 05:58 AM]

You've missed one of my favourites.
Next Please

Which adds useful next/previous page buttons onto the toolbar -simple but effective.

Also, there's ConQuery - one of several useful additions to the context menu.

  Brian Sawyer [11.30.05 06:15 AM]

Relied upon daily:


* Greasemonkey (well, not after installing Firefox 1.5, but I guess I'll use the beta over at Greaseblog)


* Sage


* Gmail Notifier


* Forecastfox


* Book Burro (previously a GM script, now a standalone extension)

  caio cesar [11.30.05 06:18 AM]

"pdf download", "disable targets for downloads" and "tinyurl creator" are a must-have, IMHO.

"web developer" and "popup alt attribute" should be there too.

"ieview", "bookmarks synchronizer" and "quicktabpreftoogle" are kind of interesting.

and, since you´ll have a lot of extensions, try "slim extension list".

  Tom Clancy [11.30.05 06:19 AM]

I've tried a couple of del.icio.us extensions, but each had its drawbacks (especially the one that locked up Firefox until it could submit). Just added the new official extension and even that's not as usable as this bookmarklet. Assign it to a keyword, follow the instructions and you can just type [keyword] tag tag tag in the location bar to tag something. Plus you can use other tabs while it works.

  Adrian Holovaty [11.30.05 06:46 AM]

I couldn't live without mouse gestures (All-in-One Gestures).

  Eric [11.30.05 07:36 AM]

I'm a big fan of the library book search (i.e. Open WorldCat) extensions from OCLC http://www.oclc.org/worldcat/open/searchtools/ You can search millions of titles and quickly find out whether the item's at your local library.

  william [11.30.05 07:40 AM]

I love Clone Window, because right-click and Open In New Window doesn't preserve history. Clone Window's a lifesaver.

Also, Scribe, as already mentioned.

  Lars [11.30.05 08:30 AM]

I must be the odd one out in this crowd: I'm not using any extension at all. I learned that by the time I downloaded the more promising extensions, installed them, and played with them to see if they are worth keeping, the extensions have cost me more time already than using them will save from then on.

  Neil Katin [11.30.05 08:38 AM]

I use a few not on your list:

Ext2ABC: alphabatize the extensions list

AutoLogin: remember passwords for sites that try to prevent it

Disable Targets for Downloads: stops blank PDF pages

IEView: for those pages that rely on IE

Image Zoom: enlarge or shrink images

xMirror: easy link to alternate extension sites

Tabbrowser Extensions: easily the most important - the swiss army knife of tab controls

  John Vilsack [11.30.05 09:28 AM]

Because I end up on many computers throughout the day, I try and minimize the amount of extensions I install. I attempt to emulate the default Firefox as much as possible. That being said, here are the ones I install on every machine in our network:

* adblock
* adblock.filterset.g
* noscript - It kills all javascript unless the user tells it otherwise...this is great in situations where spyware and popups are an issue
* flashblock - another great extension useful for the same reasons as above.
* Google Suggest - The more places suggest works, the happier I am


Now for my own personal machine, I always make sure to have the following:
* Greasemonkey
* Web Developer Toolbar
* Live HTTP Headers - Only available from livehttpheaders.mozdev.org, this gives me real time information on the header information during a session. This is invaluable to a web developer trying to ascertain what may be slowing a site down.
* Foxylicious - For a del.icio.us user this one is tremendous. I use it to dump my del.icio.us links directly into my bookmarks toolbar automatically. The links are all categorized and my Bookmarks stay synchronized across three seperate machines. I had problems with the Bookmarks Synchronizer, but this one is darn near flawless.

Hope this helps.

  Paul B [11.30.05 11:37 AM]

Install InfoLister, and you will always have an up-to-date list of installed extensions, and themes.


Eased my pain, a time or two, when Firefox went belly-up (likely due to a buggy version of SessionSaver), and I needed to reinstall from scratch.

As for learning of and getting extensions, I've found


http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/


quite useful, although I still tend to click through to the developer's own page.

  scott [11.30.05 01:30 PM]

with all this talk of extensions, does anyone know of a way to transfer a whole slew of extensions from one machine to another in one go? When I help people download/start using firefox, there are 4-5 extensions that i always download for them, and i wish there was a way to bunch them up so i could just download/install one file.

  Brock [12.01.05 12:55 AM]

Everyone has their favorite way of getting their RSS feeds. Mine is:

Sage + All-in-One Toolbar

For me, it's perfection. They realy complement each other in a way that either one alone feels incomplete.

  Paul B [12.01.05 09:02 AM]

Picking up on Scott's comment about transferring extensions between machines, I wish there was an option to store a copy of an extension's .xpi file somewhere known/accessible, when using the built-in update feature.



As it is, when I update extensions, I find myself navigating to the relevant web site to download the update, so that I have a copy for: The second PC; in case I need to reinstall; to pass on to someone who trusts me (the fool... ;-).

  Charles [12.02.05 03:16 PM]

My all time favorites are:

*SpellBound-great for checking spelling before posting to forums/forms.
*Adblock Plus
*Forecastfox
*PDF Download
*Dictionary Search
*Smooth Wheel
*Tab x
*MapIt (latest version didn't work with FF1.5, but searching the Mozilla Forums http://forums.mozillazine.org/ I found a hack to the current version of MapIt to get it to work!

BTW, you didn't have to blow away your extensions directory. You could have opened Firefox in Safemode to disable your extensions, as well as making a copy of your extensions directory.

  Richard [12.03.05 02:02 AM]

I like AdBlock and Sage a lot. However, I no longer use FlashBlock as it caused a lot of crashes on Firefox 1.0.x - de-installing it has completely stopped Firefox from crashing. Shame, as it's a useful extension.

Allow Right Click is also useful, as is the one for right-click printing.

The one extension I really want is the reverse of NoScript - let me enable JavaScript by default but disable it for some sites/URL patterns.

  Douglas Clifton [12.03.05 05:37 PM]

For Web developers:



* Web developer toolbar (of course!)

* Greasemonkey

* Platypus

* UrlParams

* Urlid

* DevBoi

* Venkman Javascript debugger (distributed w/ FF)

* chromEdit

* Piggy Bank

* LiveHTTPHeaders

* Tamper Data

* View Cookies

* Aardvark

* Document Map

* Feedview

* XPather

* mozCC



And many more. I maintain a list of extensions for developers:


http://loadaveragezero.com/drx/extensions

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