A bare copy of Firefox is a wonderful thing, but when you start stuffing it with add-ons it gets even better.So what are the best add-ons for power users? Here's our top 35:
25 essential Firefox add-ons for power users
1. All-in-one Sidebar
All-in-one Sidebar makes Firefox's Sidebar more useful by displaying pretty much anything you might want: source code, downloads, add-ons, page info, entire web pages…
2. Stealther
Jealous of Safari's Porn Mode – ahem, Private Browsing? Now you can have it too, with Stealther.
3. Web Developer Toolbar
The name's a clue: the Web Developer Toolbar adds a toolbar containing useful tools for web developers.
4. Instapaper
Install Instapaper's bookmarklet and you can store interesting things to read later. You can view pages without ads or other distractions, and it works on phones as well as PCs.
5. FireFTP
FireFTP is an excellent bit of charityware – it's free, but donations are encouraged. It puts a fully featured FTP program right inside your browser.
6. Greasemonkey
The Swiss Army Knife of the Internet, Greasemonkey enables you to bend sites to your will through the power of JavaScript.
7. Tab Mix Plus
Get complete control over Firefox's tab handling, from the way tabs look to the way they work, with Tab Mix Plus.
8. User Agent Switcher
Browser sniffers stopping you from seeing sites? Pretend you're using a rubbish browser by changing the user agent string with User Agent Switcher.
9. IE View
Sometimes you need to view or test a page in IE. IE View is a Windows-only extension that makes it a one-click job.
10. IE Tab
Does much the same as IE View, but opens IE within a Firefox tab. Once again IE Tab is Windows-only.
11. Sage
Firefox's RSS support is pretty basic. Sage gives you a fully-featured RSS and Atom feed reader that's a joy to use.
12. HideBad
Pretend you're busy working with this excellent boss key. Not only does HideBad replace the current tabs with safe ones, but it zaps your browsing history, too.
13. Download Statusbar
Keep track of and control your file downloads without leaving the main browser window with Download Statusbar.
14. DownThemAll
Download every link or linked image from a web page in one fell swoop, filtering out unwanted file types automatically with DownThemAll.
15. FoxyTunes
FoxyTunes lets you control your music player, or take advantage of Yahoo!'s online MP3 player, while you wander around the Web.
16. Gmail Space
So unofficial that Google will probably kill you if it catches you using it, Gmail Space turns Gmail into an online hard disk.
17. StumbleUpon
StumbleUpon is the easy way to discover sites that other people liked.
18. NoScript
Eliminate annoyances and security risks by blocking scripts and other executable content from sites you don't trust with NoScript.
19. BugMeNot
Don't want to register to read an article? BugMeNot gives you other people's logins.
20. Mouse Gestures
A massive time saver, Mouse Gestures enables you to navigate with a quick flick of the mouse.
21. Fast Video Download
Download embedded video clips with Fast Video Download so you can watch them at your leisure.
22. ScribeFire
ScribeFire is a superb in-browser blog editor that works with everything from LiveJournal to WordPress.com and WordPress.org.
23. BetterSearch
BetterSearch adds previews to search results so you don't end up on irrelevant, malicious or obscene websites. Unless that's what you're looking for...
24. FlashBlock
Flash is often used for in-page annoyances, so FlashBlock gets rid of all of it unless you specifically click on a bit of Flash content.
25. Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus eliminates invasive ads and makes some sites look very weird as a result.
Now read 8 hacks to make Firefox ridiculously fast and 7 Firefox add-ons that will save you a fortune
10 Firefox add-ons that porn fiends love
Yes, it's true, porn addicts may have somewhat 'specialist' tastes. But when it comes to Firefox, they want much the same as the rest of us: great search tools, professional security, faster and easier downloads, and improved browsing privacy. They really just need these 10 top Firefox extensions, in fact - and so do you.
1. Protect your PC from malware
You don't have to visit the seedy side of the web to pick up a virus - even the best social networking sites regularly host all kinds of malware. But you can reduce the chance of infection by installing NoScript. This handy add-on blocks Javascript, Java, Flash and other executable content from running unless you explicitly allow it, and is a great way to keep yourself safe online.
2. Speedily search for images
Browse Google images and your results are split into blocks of 21. But use CoolIris and you'll get all your results displayed on a 3D photo wall, a much faster and easier way to find the images you need. It only works with some sites, unfortunately, but as these include Google, Flickr, Picasa, Yahoo!, Photobucket, Facebook and MySpace then you'll still have plenty to browse. Especially as it searches and displays YouTube videos, too. Give it a try.
3. Easily open multiple links
Sometimes your image searches will lead you to forums or websites with large thumbnail galleries. You could do the right-click "open link in new tab" thing for every thumbnail, but it's much easier to use Linky. Just select the thumbnails you want to view, right-click an empty part of the page, and click Linky > Open All Image Links In Tabs to open them automatically. A real time-saver.
4. Watch videos in your sidebar
Organising your images is easy. Videos? That's more of a challenge, but YouPlayer can help, at least with the big sites (YouTube, Google Video, MySpace and Metacafe). Drag and drop video links into the playlist and you can play them in your sidebar, without having to revisit the original site each time. It can download videos, too, but if that's your main interest then we'd recommend a more specialist tool like Video DownloadHelper.
5. Keep your bookmarks online
If others make use of your PC occasionally then you might not want them to see your more, hmm, specialist bookmarks. Use StartAid and you can save your favourite sites online, instead. The service imports your existing bookmarks so it's easy to get started, and you can then access them from any convenient PC.
6. Block annoying ads
Porn sites used to be renowned for bombarding you with popups and banner ads, but now it's common practice just about everywhere. Fortunately Adblock Plus will block just about everything, saving you time and ensuring you only download the content you need. It can take a little while to set this extension up to suit your requirements, though, so it pays to spend a few minutes reading the documentation at adblockplus.org before you start.
7. At-a-glance download monitoring
When you're downloading several large files then it can be annoying to keep switching to the download window to see how they're progressing. But there is another way. Install the Download Status Bar and every download generates a new button on the status bar, so it's visible whatever tab you happen to be using. Each button includes a progress bar for easy download monitoring, and you can right-click the button for options to pause or cancel the download.
8. Free up valuable screen space
If you're spending all this time viewing images and videos then you'll want to display them at the highest possible screen resolution. And that's where Tiny Menu comes in. It replaces the menu bar with a tiny pop-up menu that appears just before the navigation buttons, saving a surprising amount of real estate and letting you squeeze more images onto the screen.
9. Download everything. Now
If you just want to quickly download all the links, movies or audio clips on a page, and at the maximum possible speed, then give FlashGot a try. It's also able to grab video clips while they're playing, and integrates with all the most popular download accelerators (and plenty of obscure ones, too).
10. Maintain your browsing privacy
It's always the same. No sooner are you checking out a website you really shouldn't, when your boss/ partner/ some other random annoying person turns up and shows great interest in exactly what you're doing. The solution? Install hideBad. Press the customisable hotkey and it'll close your current tabs, then optionally delete your history, cookies and more. But don't worry - once they've gone the previous tabs may be recovered and you can carry on where you left off.
.
