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My Firefox add-ons and what they say about me

I think the add-ons you use say a lot about you. So I’ve dumped my list of add-ons, categorized them, and called out some preferences you may want to set if you decide to install them. More after the break.

 

I don’t like advertising (or anything else that distracts)

Adblock Plus

  • “Ads were yesterday!”
  • I’d rather pay for content than be bombarded with advertising. Since I’m in the minority, I have to go rogue and block ads.
  • Adblock does away with more than ads though. Check out the Antisocial (removes tweet, RT, like, and +1 buttons) and Malware Domains subscriptions at the bottom of this page. Then consider using Firefox Share (alpha) instead.

Flashblock

  • “Replaces Flash objects with a button you can click to view them.”
  • I’ve had audio/video auto-play in Flash too many times.

 

I like to be as secure as possible

1Password

  • “Password and identity manager for Mac, Windows, iOS and Android.”
  • Securely stores your passwords, account info, CC info, etc. To make this extension useful, you’ll need to purchase the Mac/Windows client (which is a bit pricey). Also check out the iOS/Android clients.
  • 1Password can be easily used with an encrypted data store on DropBox (a la Firefox Sync).

HTTPS-Everywhere

  • “Encrypt the Web! Automatically use HTTPS security on many sites.”
  • For supported sites (Google, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), this add-on passes all requests securely even if an insecure request was originally made (say, from the search bar).
  • HTTPS-Everywhere isn’t currently possible on Safari/Chrome/IE due to the inability to rewrite HTTP requests as HTTPS requests prior to sending. Firefox ftw.

 

I work at Mozilla

BugzillaJS

  • “Add features to Bugzilla.”
  • Makes Bugzilla more readable and usable.

 

I consider myself a power user

Download Statusbar

  • “View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar”
  • Keeps you from dealing with window management when trying to check download status.
  • This is basically a stop-gap until the panel based download window feature lands.

Tree Style Tab

  • “Show tabs like a tree.”
  • Places tabs in a sidebar, thus making better use of these 16:9 screens we all have now.
  • Tree style tabs also make a lot of sense when used in conjunction with middle-clicking to open a page in a new tab. To open new tabs without giving them focus immediately, go into the Firefox settings, select “Tabs”, and then uncheck “When I open a link in a new tab, switch to it immediately”.
  • If you’re on a Macbook of some sort and don’t have a good middle click (cmd+click kind of stinks), try out Middleclick which turns a three finger tap into a middle click.

Tab Mix Plus

  • “Tab browsing with an added boost.”
  • Allows you to customize a number of tab features. If you decide to take me up on using Middleclick, you should consider making middle clicks on tabs do nothing (to prevent errant closing).
  • Also try messing with the highlighting of unread tabs under “Tab Mix Plus Options > Display > Tab”.

User Agent Switcher

  • “Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of a browser.”
  • Sometimes you come across a site that unnecessarily marks itself as only compatible with IE. Or you may prefer the iPad version of a site due to its cleaner layout.

 

I’m dabbling with writing add-ons

Copy Better Link

  • Uses the (cmd/windows)-shift-c key combo to copy both the window title and URL as HTML into the pasteboard.
  • I have a sneaking suspicion this can already be accomplished by default or with another extension, but I couldn’t find any reference.

followalong

  • For use with the followalong webpage.
  • I’ll have a post coming up with details about followalong, but it’s basically an extension that enables collaborative browsing (think bug triaging, remote presentations, etc.)

 

I’m sometimes clumsy

URL Fixer

  • “Fixes common typos in URLs entered in the address bar.”

Categories: Firefox, Mozilla.