Firefox Fun

[filkertom]

Had a bit of a problem with my Firefox install yesterday. Something I installed completely screwed up my configuration, so badly that I had to do a System Restore to Friday and reinstall Firefox from scratch. Thankfully, it just so happened that I'd backed up my bookmarks Saturday, so I lost nothing.

My plugin configuration has changed slightly, of course, because I didn't use some I thought I would, and I found new ones that are pretty cool. So, those of you using Firefox -- what plugins make your browsing experience better?

Mine are:

• Answers
• FireFTP
• Download Manager Tweak
• CuteMenus 2
• Tabbrowser Preferences
• StumbleUpon
• ForecastFox
• Adblock
• TinyURL Creator

I have got a few others, but they're specialized (e.g. Chatzilla) or brand-new (e.g. Session Saver). This is for overall browsing.

Update: Okay, Session Saver just got on the list. :) Really simple -- it saves your most recent browsing session. I configured it to ask if I wanted to do so when I opened Firefox, so I can come right back to these pages if I want. Small, but extremely convenient.

Update 2: Adblock Filterset.G Updater has just about completely eliminated embedded ads in one fell swoop. I've gotta tweak it a bit, so I can (for instance) get to Salon's Day Pass, but... wow.

Comments

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

downloadthemall
Adblock
TabMix
Add Bookmark Here
Googlebar

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I only have two, but oh, how they save me!

Bookmark Backup (backs up your bookmarks automagically on closing FF)
BugMeNot

(I have yet to update this machine to 1.50 and don't know if either works with it. I'd hate it if they didn't, though.)

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

For whatever reason, Bookmark Backup has never worked properly for me. I'll have to try it again and double-check the config, because, oh, I want it to work.

1.5 is nice, but several plugins are not upgraded to it yet. In an annoying happenstance, a few new versions are available at the authors' homepages, but not yet at Firefox Central. Sigh. It's not all that much extra digging.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

I installed BB the day FireFox ate half my bookmarks (the second half, to be precise; I lost about 1/3 of the "Music" folder and all folders following it alphabetically). It works great, mostly; the only real problem I have is when I crash FF, and the extension doesn't have a chance. FWIW, this is Bookmark Backup 0.3.3, Firefox 1.07, and Windows XP SR2, dancing and playing nicely (knock on wood).

[darkwolf69.livejournal.com]

All In One Gestures. We loves the mouse gestures. :)

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to install on 1.5 yet. Grr.

[unkbar.livejournal.com]

ImageZoom -- good for presbyopic guys like me.
Open link in... -- Send links to new tabs
IE View -- Automatically open certain web pages in IE - a lifesaver at work where a lot of the corporate pages won't let you in unless you're running IE.

[gazerwolf.livejournal.com]

I like bookmarks synchronizer for backing up my bookmarks,

Lets me access them from any computer with the extension because it FTPs them to one of my websites.

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

Scrapbook. Wonderfully useful for cacheing news stories to read later, etc. There are cases where I can't get a page to save or print normally, but Scrapbook holds on to it. (Mostly, I have this with online banking, etc.)

[gan-chan.livejournal.com]

My must-have extensions are:

Adblock

Deepest Sender (0.6.8, not the latest)

BugMeNot

SwitchProxy (so I can easily hop on the private encrypted proxy server to protect my browsing privacy from nosy hax0rs while on the public wi-fi at the coffee shop, but dispense with the overhead of encryption while I'm wired/on dial-up)

User Agent Switcher (for those pesky websites that don't yet comprehend that Firefox > Netscape > IE)

Live HTTP Headers (one of my trusty sidearms, for shooting web-serving trouble, or for being nosy myself)

Web Developer (the other trusty sidearm, for shooting web-authoring trouble or being nosy)

Magpie & Flipper (for efficiently gathering media of all types from pages without the tedium of right-click,save-as)

[vixyish.livejournal.com]

Tab Mix Plus, because it *includes* session saver, as well as most of the things I like about Tabbrowser Preferences. I'm fussy with browsers; this is the one I like best that lets me have everything just how I like it.

Google Toolbar, or Googlebar (there's a version that is crashy and a version that's not, so you have to be careful to get the right one). I don't know if I could stay sane without this.

ToCyrillic, because I sometimes look things up in Russian, and it's nice to be able to just hit F3 and then type in Cyrillic. And the keys are bound to English keys to make sense phonetically, so it's easy to use (if you speak Russian).

[ludzu-alus.livejournal.com]

Mouse Gestures
CTC
ImageZoomer
GreaseMonkey

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Nada.

But I'm intrigued by FireFTP and Adblock.

Does Adblock also work with IE? I haven't been able to convert my wife yet...

-=ShoEboX=-

[wormquartet.livejournal.com]

Never mind, a 3-second search revealed the answer to be "no."

-=ShoEboX=-

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Which puts you ahead of 95% of the press corps and Republican bloggers.

[ericthemage.livejournal.com]

Have you tried this?

[gan-chan.livejournal.com]

There is a program called Privoxy (http://www.privoxy.org/) that does work with any browser, though. Takes a bit of setting up, but is well worth it.

[ericcoleman]

I saw this on the Wired RSS feed

http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,69781,00.html?tw=rss.TEK

[gclectic.livejournal.com]

One of my "must haves" is Launchy, which allows you to send link contents to the application of your choice. Definitely useful for those stray mp3s, wmv, etc. that haven't been configured properly for launching within your browser. It also gives you IE Launcher capability for free. Check it out at (https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=81&application=firefox).

[deor.livejournal.com]

Must-Haves:
Paste and Go
Add Bookmark Here
AdBlock
Launchy

Nice:
Tab X
Spoofstick
Google Toolbar
Forecast Fox
Duplicate Tab

Webpage Developer Tools:
Link Checker
Checky
Web Developer Tools

Extras:
Bloglines Toolkit
Copy Plain Text
Nuke Anything
Screen Grab

[hms42]

Tom - Have you found an extension that will allow selective exporting of bookmarks? (IE - I want to just export a FOLDER of the bookmarks, NOT the full file, so I can send them to a person. An editor for the bookmark file would be useful if you can suggest one.)

I use one extension that I did find via download.com a few weeks ago...

Foxytunes

It puts a control panel for your music player into a dead space on any toolbar and it does work in 1.5 (which I am running on XP sp2.)

Harold

[filkertom.livejournal.com]

Actually, the internal bookmark manager might do what you want. When I import a bookmark file, it appends it rather than replacing the old bookmarks. So you could edit there, export it to a different file name, and send that, I'd think....

[kayshapero]

Mostly I use Adblock and FireFTP the most. I'm not downloading any more plugins OR updates until I get a new computer, though (early next year I hope). That 65M of RAM that looked so large 5 years ago now guarantees just about any update of anything will crash the system.