Since Firefox is rich with standard features, many users are content with running the browser as is after installing it. Power users, however, know that they can tailor the browser to fit their individual browsing needs. They make Firefox do things that make browsing more productive, convenient and fun.
But how do they do it, you ask?
Power users take advantage of add-ons, or extensions. Add-ons allow you to customize your Firefox browser and give it extra functionalities you never thought possible. For instance, with the right extensions and add-ons you can colour code your tabs, capture and convert web pages, get a number of quick-access toolbars and buttons and more.
With a number of different add-ons, you can even make Firefox outperform standard browsers. Below is a handy guide to 150 great Firefox add-ons to get you started. Try them out today!
If you have programming know-how or web development expertise, having these add-ons at your fingertips can make your life easier. With these nifty tools, you can create your own add-ons or extensions, change the way web pages look and act, extend the capabilities of development tools built into Firefox, or debug web pages you create or visit.
These will help you create or modify other existing add-ons, among other things.
Build packages (jar and xpi files) and install working directories as extensions for development. Includes features of the popular bash build script.
Create both Firefox and Firebug extensions in minutes by modifying other extensions.
Manage user styles. This lets you modify unappealing sites, or change the look of your browser or mail program.
Monkeygrase is a servlet filter that allows you to insert JavaScript or CSS or into web page as a server-side fix.
Insert a programming interface into the Firefox sidebar so you can alter web pages and automate browsing. Chickenfoot script uses functions specific to web tasks.
Greasemonkey Extension Scripts
Greasemonkey uses JavaScript to modify how web pages look and act in Firefox. Here are some Greasemonkey specific add-ons.
This add-on will let you automatically locate scripts on Userscripts.org, which is a database of Greasemonkey scripts. You must have Greasemonkey installed.
An add-on that permits you to alter a web page and save those changes permanently as a Greasemonkey script.
As the title says, this is a script available at userscripts.org that allows you to download YouTube content.
This feature-packed add-on allows you to do things like put Google services at the top of the browser, auto-page, and redirect and preview images.
Developer and Website Tools
The following are geared towards web developers and others seeking to optimize, debug and edit web pages and sites.
A feature-rich, advanced and free proxy management tool designed to replace Firefox's proxying capabilities.
Using this tool, you can log to your Firebug Console with a simple PHP method call.
This version is a Firefox add-on that lets you extend the functionality of Firebug in regards to HTML and CSS.
This JavaScript debugger for Mozilla browsers is otherwise known by its codename Venkman.
Validate HTML inside Firefox and Mozilla. Errors are detailed when viewing the HTML of the page you’re browsing.
View simple CSS properties with this add-on.
You can add Dreamweaver-like editing abilities to Firefox and edit while you surf.
With this tool, you can do web development tasks like editing or debugging while you browse a page. It works with CSS, HTML, and JavaScript.
Add a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various developer tools such as disabling styles, viewing CSS and adding user style sheets.
Analyze web pages and figure out why they're slow based on Yahoo's rules for high performance web sites.
Accurately and quickly save web pages into a collection that you can manage with organizing tools.
Tweak many network and rendering settings such as pipelining, simultaneous connections, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
Firefox social media add-ons can enhance how you publish or share information or content over the Internet. Whether you want to post to your favorite blogs, network at sites like Facebook or MySpace, or share or view videos on Flickr and YouTube, here are some useful Firefox add-ons that you may want to look into.
The following Firefox add-on will help you keep track of friends or colleagues who Twitter, or help you share information about blogs, web pages or other media.
With this add-on, you can keep track of your friends' newest tweets on Twitter.
If you’ve wondered what your friends thought of web pages you visited, the Glue Bar appears on your current page to show you their opinions.
If you enjoy posting replies to scraps at Orkut (www.orkut.com), this add-on could make it much easier.
Stay current with your Twitter conversations from this add-on’s browser sidebar. You can send and receive messages or share links.
See what keywords are most popular on selected web pages. Afterwards, retrieve those keywords to share with others or to create web content.
If you want to share or recommend links across bookmarking or blogging services, this add-on will make it easier.
Easily and quickly gather videos, graphics, text, songs and screen-captures from web pages and post them to blogs or Twitter.
Social Network Management
These tools will help you organize your social media information to streamline the process of getting and staying connected.
According to the developers, you can automate logging in to MySpace and remove custom styles, mp3 skins, custom album skins, ad blocker, app hider, media muter and photostream album.
Integrate your Facebook life into your Firefox browser with this free add-on.
Display a continuous stream of text and photo updates from Facebook and Twitter on the toolbar. The toolbar also lets you post updates, retweet, and direct and reply to messages.
This add-on enhances the Twitter Web interface by helping you with its many features such as searching, displaying status histories, photo uploading and link sharing, to name a few.
Download this feature-packed add-on to make it easy to get to MySpace from anywhere on the web. A few of its features include a persistent login connection to MySpace.com, the ability to receive notifications with updating messages, and easy cleanup of messy profile pages.
The following add-ons make it easier to exchange text instantly with anyone across the globe with a single click.
Included in this tool are IRC client features like multiple servers, a list of standard networks, logging, DCC chat, file transfers, and easy channel searching and sorting. Also, you can customize with JavaScript plug-ins and CSS styling.
This tool lets you IM across all major IM networks from your Firefox browser.
If you don’t have access to Gmail or Gtalk, installing this add-on lets you use Gtalk from your Firefox sidebar.
Chat with people visiting the same sites as you browse or post comments on those pages.
A live chat add-on that’s a Java chat server and Flash client. It supports multiple languages and multimedia, and lets you create custom skins and links to external database.
This free add-on gives you features such as instant peer2peer meeting, file sharing and blogging between you and other visitors to the same web site.
If you need a free chat client that includes VoIP speech capabilities, download this add-on.
Steademy gives you the ability to bookmark and chat from the Steademy Toolbar. This toolbar lets you chat with all your Steademy or Gtalk contacts.
Entertainment, video, music, media
If you enjoy downloading, sharing and posting your favorite songs, pictures or videos, these add-ons were designed for you. There are a number of ways of turning Firefox into the ultimate media platform out there.
Easily save, download and convert videos from your favorite web sites with this free Firefox add-on.
This is an add-on created to let you download videos from sites like YouTube, Google, Metacafe, iFilm, and Dailymotion.
This video player lets you add or drag a video link into a playlist where you can either watch it or download it.
Create screencasts such as tutorials or other types of AVI files by capturing screens and recording your voice into the movie files.
Create photo albums that can be uploaded to one of many online photo service sites such as Flickr or Kodak EasyShare Gallery.
View links and images in a separate preview window with a simple mouseover, without navigating from your current page or tab.
Make reading music blogs a breeze with this add-on that skips unnecessary pages on sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload, zShare, Mediafire, and more.
Bloggers and blog readers out there always need to be updated and involved. Whether it’s posting a blog entry or enhancing your reader experience, these Firefox tools can be timesavers for any blogging activity.
Tell this add-on which blogs you like, and it fetches post summaries that you can expand and read without leaving the page you’re on.
This full-featured blog editor works with your Firefox browser and makes posting to your blog easier.
Post comments anywhere on a web page without the permission of that site and share your comments via email, Facebook or Twitter.
This add-on enhances Lifehacker and other Gawker blogs like Gizmodo, io9 Jezebel, Valleywag, Kotaku, Jalopnik, and Defamer with useful Greasemonkey scripts.
Post to blogs from your Firefox browser. This LiveJournal client also supports Blogger and WordPress.
An add-on designed for those who read a lot of online blogs, articles, and news stories. Highlight any paragraph and move to next one with a single keystroke.
If you need a Peer-to-Peer bookmarking system similar to del.icio.us, this add-on allows you to have conversations around posts.
These Firefox add-ons will help you work more efficiently, whether you’re manipulating web pages, creating or editing PDFs, managing email, or managing data. Read on to find out how.
Tools to manage ToDo lists, tabs, and thumbnails are just some of the useful items in this section.
This add-on works with both Firefox and Thunderbird. It lets you view and manage lists of important dates and ToDo's.
This add-on will remind you get back to work when you’re browsing your favorite sites.
Make your Google searches more productive by adding information you want, such as links to Yahoo, Ask.com, or MSN, and removing information you don’t want, like ads and spam. You can customize this add-on’s features by choosing the features you need.
Display Firefox tabs and windows as thumbnails in a single window, tab or sidebar. You can filter and select thumbnails with a “find bar.�?
This feature-rich add-on lets you execute common commands using mouse gestures, rocker navigation, scroll wheel navigation and page scrolling.
Don’t worry about losing data while browsing. This add-on saves and restores browser windows after crashes. You can also reopen closed windows and tabs.
Use this add-on to add colors to tabs to make them stand out or to create a more attractive interface.
Sometimes retrieving information from the web can be result in information overload. These productivity tools help you to get only the information you need and want.
A context menu in the browser allows you to query a search service according to parameters in the page your browsing, such as specific text, the URL or the site’s host. There is a URL manipulation tool for advanced users.
This add-on has an accessibility toolbar that allows you to manipulate web pages to increase font sizes, change colors, increase line spacing, as well as whether or not to display images and Flash animation. There is also a text-to-speech option.
If browsing certain sites steals your attention and keeps you from being productive at work, you can block them. This tool lets you choose which sites to block as well as the times they should be blocked.
Search for and find contextually related content from search services. This add-on finds cross-links to the page you are currently browsing.
Give your Firefox browser a work-safe mode. This add-on lets you sanitize websites not appropriate for work, but lets you keep the ability to easily post comments to those sites with shortcuts.
This add-on inserts smart tag clouds into the Google, Yahoo or Twitter interface to make searching more efficient and help you find the information you need faster.
This add-on inserts smart tag clouds into the Google, Yahoo or Twitter interface to increase search speeds and help you find the information you need faster.
If you need tools to help you work with PDF files more efficiently, read on to find just the right add-on.
Handle, create and view Web-based PDF files from Firefox. You can turn any web page into a PDF file as well as quickly display PDFs.
Open and edit PDF files & forms online with this add-on. You can open and edit files with PDFescape.
Like Mac users, Windows and Linux users can print web pages to PDF with this tool.
Use this add-on’s toolbar to upload, convert and combine files to PDF, without interfering with Web browsing.
Convert a web page to an image file or PDF. This tool also includes some useful image filters that work during the conversion process.
Combat spam, manage email accounts or forward links with these convenient add-ons.
Install this add-on to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive notifications when new email arrives.
WebMail Notifier checks your email accounts and lets you know how many unread emails you have.
This add-on notifies you when you new email messages arrive to your Yahoo account.
This is another client for checking multiple email accounts with Firefox. It’s compatible with POP3/IMAP/SMTP protocols.
Email anyone the web page you’re viewing -- free of pop ups and dynamic ads.
Get spam under control by controlling the use of email addresses. This tool uses temporary email addresses and auto forwarders to keep spam out of your inbox. It works with services like spamgourmet and Temporary Inbox.
Handle online forms, research, passwords, logins and more with the items in this section.
This tool has many features to help you collect, manage, and cite research sources such as PDFs, images and web pages.
This tool has many features to help you collect, manage, and cite research sources such as PDFs, images and web pages.
Manage password and personal information for various accounts securely from a central database.
This Single Sign-On (SSO) add-on works with Firefox 2.0/3.0 and Seamonkey, and lets you securely store logins and passwords for Web applications.
Securely, easily and intuitively Access FTP servers with this cross-platform FTP client.
Optimize your browsing experience with Firefox add-ons that make searching more effective, browsing more secure, downloading more efficient, and bookmarking more organized.
Some of the useful tools in this section include add-ons that let you modify PDF links, perform spreadsheet tasks, and open files without the associated software.
Use mouse gestures to perform common keyboard or toolbar commands such as page forward/backward, close tab or new tab.
PdfMeNot.com is a service that lets you easily view PDF files without opening the PDF reader application. This add-on lets you use the service in a Firefox browser window.
View EXIF data contained in JPEG images from within Firefox.
You can quickly sum up table cell data on web pages, like online bank statements for example, much the same way you can in spreadsheet programs like Microsoft Excel.
Enhance Firefox’s History menu with this tool that places an entire day's entire browsing history in a submenu for each day.
Save entire web pages or just sections as images, either as a file or in your clipboard.
Browse the web with your keyboard instead of your mouse.
Open documents and images in a browser window without needing to install any software. Supported document apps include Google Docs, Google Apps, Zoho, ThinkFree, and Vuzit. Snipshot, Bilder Editieren, Picnik, Pixlr are the supported image apps.
Easily access the sites you use most frequently by selecting from thumbnails of favorite sites.
Here are a few add-ons that were designed to enhance the functionality of search engines and help you find online information more efficiently.
Get AnswerTips from the web site Answers.com in the form of pop ups that instantly deliver the desired information onto your screen.
Change the selected search engine in your search bar with a scroll of your mouse. Also woks with keyboard shortcuts ctrl+k and ctrl+shift+k instead of a mouse.
Find search terms entered in the search box easily with jump-to-word buttons and highlighting. Terms and words entered are converted into search buttons that locate the same words or terms on the current page.
Automatically updates search box terms in your search bar. Also, this add-on lets you add custom synchronization rules for preferred search engines.
Displays relevant Wikipedia articles with your search results. If you click on links in the article, you trigger new Google searches.
Speed up searches. When you type in your search bar, related websites are displayed instantly along with suggestions to help you fine-tune your search.
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