Mozilla Firefox is a powerful browser out of the box, but its extensions system is what makes it the most versatile browser available.
Aside from its versatility, it is also faster, more secure and more stable than Internet Explorer 7, and the upcoming release of version 3 is going to add even more improvements and features.
Thousands of extensions are available, allowing you to add a huge amount of extra features, from enhancing security to adding features for web development and email. This tutorial will show you how to turbocharge Firefox with the best extensions available.
AdBlock Plus
This extension adds a powerful advert/banner filter to Firefox, automatically stripping adverts out of web pages. This is especially useful on advert heavy websites which take ages to load, or where adverts get in the way of content. An essential addon.
Example of a page before and after AdBlock Plus is activated:
Firebug integrates a suite of web developers tools into Firefox. It is invaluable for any web developer due to the features it adds, including the ability to update HTML/CSS and see the changes live. You can see advanced statistics for Javascript and quickly locate and fix errors which would have been hard to find beforehand.
This powerful addon prevents Javascript, Java and Flash being executed at untrusted domains. By specifying what domains you trust and which ones you don't, you virtually eliminate the possibility of the browser being exploited by security vulnerabilities. Takes a while to get used to, but well worth it.
Greasemonkey allows you to customise a web page using small segments of Javascript. A good example of this is the Greased Lightbox greasemonkey script, which uses the same technology the gallery in this article uses to popup images in Google Images/Deviantart/Flickr in a preview box. Very powerful and versatile.
This adds a full featured FTP client to Firefox, so you don't have to download a separate program. It contains all the normal features that most other FTP clients have, and can significantly speed up updating a website due to it being integrated with Firefox. It opens in a tab just like a normal browser window.
FoxyTunes allows you to interact with most major music players directly through Firefox, allowing you to control song selection, volume, lyrics display, album art etc. Very useful if you are easily annoyed by having to switch between your music player and your browser constantly.
This clever addon allows you to use your Gmail account as online file storage. Great if you've been wondering what to use with your 6gb email account. Its very simple to use because its interface is designed to be like that of an FTP client.
This changes the Download Manager in Firefox; instead of having a window open seperately, it puts all your downloads in the bar at the bottom of the screen, showing you the progress your transfers while keeping them neat and tidy.
This extension lets you tweak various options of nearly all the services that Google offers, such as web search, Gmail, news etc. It is very configurable and can add options, remove ads, improve your privacy by enabling secure connections and altering cookie settings, and other various alterations. An example of a few tweaks for the main Google search is shown below:
This addon implements a versatile screenshot capture program into Firefox, allowing you to take a screenshot of the entire page or visible section, export it in a number of formats, and annotate it. Very useful for general screenshot taking or for tutorials (I used this extension for this article) Here is an example of a screenshot and annotation you can add:
