Firefox Plugins

Other Adaptavist staff regularly tell me I have an insane number of Firefox plugins installed, but I really can't live without them.

I'll start by listing them and will write some more about them if/when time permits...

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All-in-One Sidebar

Brief

This is by far the nicest RSS feed reader I've found for Firefox. All the others have some annoyance that results in them being uninstalled after a week or less, whereas Brief has stood the test of time.

Dictionary

It surprises me that all browsers don't come with built-in spell checking.

cmSiteNavigation Toolbar

ColorZilla

Colour Contrast Analyser

CSSViewer

Document Map

Download Statusbar

So much nicer than the inbuilt download manager IMHO.

DragNDrop Toolbars

Extended Copy Menu

Extended Status Bar

Fasterfox

I found the more aggressive performance settings made browsing less reliable, however the right-click "Clear Cache"

FAYT

Fixes some annoying usability issues with the in-page Find toolbar.

Find Toolbar Tweaks

Firebug

MUST HAVE!

FireFoxMenuButtons

Did I forget to mention that I've also completely customised the entire navigation in Firefox?

Forecastfox

I never take much note of the weather, but I find it strangely satisfying seeing a weather report in my menu toolbar.

FoxClocks

With clients in 55+ countries, this is essential.

FoxyTunes

Control WinAMP direct from my web browser.

I've also installed the "Finespun" theme for FoxyTunes.

Fullerscreen

Perfect for browser-based presentations when using a projector.

Go Up

You have a back and forward button in the browser - this plugin adds an "Up" button allowing me to quickly jump up the URL path hierarchy.

Googlebar

Most of it is hidden away, I just drag the useful bits on to other toolbars.

Greasemonkey

Allows me to kick other websites in to shape by adding my own scripts and CSS, etc.

Header Monitor

Useful for monitoring specific headers in HTTP(S) requests.

HTML Validator

IE Tab

See what the page looks like in Internet Exploder, directly within Firefox

Link Alert

I love this plugin - shows a small icon next to the cursor when you hover over a link so you know what sort of thing the link points to. For example it shows a PDF icon when hovering over a link to a .pdf file.

Live HTTP Headers

Live PageRank

Tucked away in my status bar, it shows me the Google page rank of any page I visit

Locationbar2

This is another dream plugin, it replaces the URL in your location bar with a customisable breadcrumb trail.

MeasureIt

Open Image In New Tab

This should really be a standard feature of the browser IMHO.

PDF Download

Asks you whether to download, view as HTML or PDF when you click a PDF link.

ScrapBook

Occasionally use this to grab snippets of web pages, but will probably disable it soon as I don't use it often enough.

Skype Extension for Firefox

Speed Dial

Allows you to create a grid of bookmark thumbnails to quickly find frequently visited URLs.

Sun Cult

Pointless for me, but probably useful for Pagans and anyone else who needs to know what the Sun and Moon are up to. I just have it because I like seeing the moon phase in my toolbar.

Tab Effect

DirectX rotate effect when moving between tabs. Pointless, sometimes annoying, but I like it anyway.

Tab Mix Plus

MUST HAVE!

Tab Scope

Shows page thumbnail when you hover over a tab.

Tails Export

Greate for spotting and exporting microformatted information within pages.

Talkback

Always let Mozilla Foundation know when your browser chimps so they can fix the bugs and make it better.

Toolbar Buttons

No, really, I have gone insane with customising the navigation in my browser.

Update Notifier

I don't like waiting for a restart to see when there are upgrades for my plugins - this shows a nice little icon when updates are available so I can restart Firefox there and then to get them.

UrlParams

Useful for viewing and editing the URL parameters on HTTP GET (and also POST params as well IIRC).

Web Developer

A must have for any web developer! Herds of very useful features for lots of techie things.

XML Developer Toolbar

Still unsure about this one.

XPather

Very rarely used, but when I do need it, it's a life saver. Click any element on the page to get the full XPATH to that element.

YSlow

Tells you why your web pages load too slowly (used in conjunction with Firebug).

Disabled Plugins

There are a bunch of plugins that I generally leave disabled when I'm not using them (reduces Firefox start-up time)...

ChatZilla

This is disabled most of the time as I don't use IRC much - it's a browser-based IRC client that works surprisingly well.

CLC-FireVox (and related plugins)

Adds text-to-speech features to Firefox, great for testing accessibility requirements. Gets annoying during early development cycles though.

Console2

I'll probably bin this because I have Firebug which is way better.

Facebook Toolbar

I use Facebook a fair bit, but haven't yet had the need to use the toolbar. It'll probably get deleted unless I start making regular use of it.

FireFTP

Fantastic Firefox FTP client, but unfortunately not yet able to deal with some of the security we apply to our FTP servers.

Graphing Calculator Toolbar

Installed because it's geeky and cool, but I hate maths and will never use it.

Image Counter

Sometimes useful, but the Extended Statusbar now shows this info so this will probably get uninstalled soon.