I'm an avid Firefox user and I have a lot of people that ask what I use to enhance my copy. I thought that someone out there may not know that Firefox is eminently more usable than Internet Explorer and can be easily upgraded with extensions that allow you to do just about anything you want.To the right is a list of all the extensions that I use both at home and on my portable version of Firefox. What? Don't know what Portable Firefox is? Its an install of Firefox that you can load on a portable hard drive or USB Thumb drive and run just about anywhere you can plug in the drive and get an open command. It is self contained and requires no installing of files on the local machine.
Here's the rundown of some of my favorite extensions and instead of linking to each, most can be found easily with a search on Google or by going to Mozilla Update.
Greasemonkey - With scripts gathered from UserScripts.org allows you to change the look and feel of sites.
Adblock & Filterset.G Updater - Adds Ad Blocking to most sites to complement Firefox's built-in pop-up blocker.
CuteMenus - Adds nice icons to the menus in Firefox.
DownThemAll - Have multiple items you want to download from a page. This will let you get them all quickly and in one just a couple of clicks.
FireFTP -Adds a really good FTP client to Firefox that runs in its own tab!
Foxmarks Boomark Synchronizer - Want to keep your bookmarks on two different copies of Firefox? This will do it. Sign up for an account, install the extension on all copies you want to keep in sync and it will do the rest. It will even allow you to get your links on a computer you can't (or don't want to) install it on via the website (This even works in IE!)
IE View - Have a link or page that only seems to work in Internet Explorer, this extension will let you send a single link or a whole page to IE.
MR Tech Local Install - This one really cut down the number of extensions I had installed, taking the place of about 6 or 7 of them. A great addition to any Firefox environment.
Performancing - Have a blog? Hate having to login to the website to update or add a new entry. This extension allow you to blog right from your browser whenever you want. It works with Blogger, TypePad and most others. Also try out their Metrics site and Performancing.com.
Reveal - Shows a mini preview window of where you've been (both forward and back) when you hover over the back and forward buttons.
Tab Mix Plus - I used to use the Tabbrowser Extension, but I think this one is better! Allows you to modify how the tabs look and work in Firefox.
Target Alert - This one changes the cursor when you hover over a link to let you know what that link is going to do. It will show you zip, word, excel, pdf and other link types.
Google Toolbar - An indespensible toolbar and the only one I install!
GMail and Yahoo Mail Notifiers - These will notify you when you get new mail and then allow you login and check the messages with a single/double click. They also allow you to set a sound alert when new mail arrives!
Enjoy the extensions and let me know if you have any other favorites!
Technorati Tags: Firefox, extensions, Foxmarks, Google Toolbar
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