Many people are making the switch to Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/) the free browser that adds security and many other features to your daily web browsing. Although Firefox is great by itself, many people don’t know that there are hundreds of extension (plugins / addons / plug-ins) available that will install in seconds and work flawlessly with your Firefox browser.
I have compiled a list of what I believe are the best Firefox extensions currently available:
(Order does determine their importance.)
1) Gmail Manager – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1320/
The Gmail Manager allows you to mouse over and see the total number of new messages, how many spam messages you have, new message counts for all your labels and how much space your mail is taking up. It also shows the 10 newest messages, allows you to compose a new message and best of all it supports multiple Gmail accounts.
2) Yahoo Mail Notifier – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1264/
This is a great extension for yahoo mail users. It will alert you of new messages and will show how many new messages you have.
3) Firefox Showcase – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1810/
Firefox showcase is one of my favorite addons. It shows thumbnails of all open tabs/windows on one page. This is great for people that have tons of pages open at once. It allows for fast, easy navigation.
4) Cooliris Previews – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2207/
This extension is great to have. It allows you to view a screen shot of a page before you visit it. When you hover over any link it will pop up a icon that you can click to see what exactly that linked page is.
5) ChromaTabs – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3810/
ChromaTabs adds color to your tabs. Not only are they a pretty color but they are colored based on the category of the web page. For example all technology website tabs will be red and all music website tabs will be blue. It helps brighten up Firefox while improving navigation.
6) Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2410/
Do you have multiple computers and hate not being able to find a website because you have it bookmarked on your other computer? Well Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer will help you out greatly. It will sync your bookmarks on all your computers. How nice is that? The best part is its automatic.
7) All-in-One Gestures – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/12/
This addon allows you to assign certain mouse movements/clicks to certain functions. It really is a big time saver if you have time to set it up and remember what does what. It also has a few other features that will help speed up navigation.
8) IE Tab – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1419/
I get a lot of use out of this addon. It allows you to open an IE browser tab within your Firefox browser. This is great when you reach a site that requires IE to work (yes there still are thousands and thousands out there).
9) ColorZilla – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/271
This is great for all you web developers that are looking for color ideas. Just click the ColorZilla icon in your status bar then you can mouse over the web page and it will give you all the color details including the hex value.
10) Download Statusbar – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/26/
This plug-in is for those of you who hate that pesky pop-up download status window that comes up every time you download something. Instead of having a pop-up window this plug-in provides all the same information in the status bar and stops that pesky pop-up.
11) Firebug – http://www.getfirebug.com/
Firebug is a great tool for developers. It has too many features to explain here, but basically it allows you to change HTML, CSS and Javascript on a web page in seconds.
12) FireFTP – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/684/
FireFTP allows you to have an excellent FTP program in a Firefox tab. Not much more I can say about this one besides that it is a must have for people with websites that want an easy to use FTP program.
13) Download Sort – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/25/
This is a big time saver for those of you who do a lot of downloading. It allows you to setup filters that will automatically determine where certain files are saved. For example all .jpg files are saved in the image folder while all .exe files are stored in the download folder.
14) Forecastfox – https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/398/
Everyone needs to know the weather. This extension makes sure you know it at all times by placing all the weather details in the Firefox status bar.