If you’re using the Mozilla Firefox web browser without any additional add-ons, you’re only using 20% of your web browser’s capabilities. Add-ons offer the perfect way to personalize your web browsing experience. If you’ve never installed a Firefox add-on before, they’re pretty easy to install. Simply follow the instructions on the add-on’s homepage and then restart Firefox. Firefox will even keep tabs on your installed add-ons and let you know when you have any updates for your add-ons. However, because add-ons are company-generated AND user-generated, you may have to look through a lot of ad-ons before you find the ones that meet your needs. Here’s a list of great add-ons to get you started.
1. AdBlockPlus
This is the one add-on that everyone should have, no exceptions. AdBlock works to block all the ads on the websites you visit so you don’t see anything but actual content. Don’t worry about AdBlock censoring out your website’s content or pictures, either; the add-on has a fine-tuned filter process.
2- VLC Addon- VLC is a highly portable media player that is capable of reading most audio and video files. The VLC add-on allows you to directly play your media files in your Firefox.
3- FireFTP- It is a very handy FTP file transfer add-on for firefox that works more or less like filezilla. FireFTP allows you to get easy and intuitive access to FTP/SFTP servers.
4- Ares toolbar- As such you cannot get Ares in the form of an add-on, but you can install Ares toolbar in firefox to get quick access to your Ares peer to peer file sharing network.
5- TV-Fox addon- This add-on lets you watch web stream in firefox. The add-on allows you to watch 2780 live TV channels in your firefox browser. But you might need video codecs like Xvid to support a number of video formats and web streams.
6- OpenOffice.org Menu- If you use Open Office extensively then this menu add-on might be helpful to browse through the OpenOffice.org site infrastructure with the most important entry points.
7. Echofon
Search around for whatever Twitter add-on you like, but this one is a pretty good one to start with. Formerly Twitterfox, the add-on sits in the bottom right corner of your web browser and collects your tweets. You can set it to have each tweet momentarily appear in a box in your window or simply display the number of unread tweets. You can see your direct messages and @ mentions, too. You can even tweet directly from your Echofon window.
8. Greasemonkey
Greasemonkey allows you to write your own scripts to enhance your web browsing experience. You can use it to make your favorite sites even more usable or readable. Intimidated at the thought of writing your own scripts? You can also use previously made user scripts to improve existing webpages or groups of websites. Greasemonkey has a massive library of user scripts that you can peruse and install at your leisure.
