Firefox is my preferred web browser and one of its great features is the ability to add plugins, which are small pieces of free software that customise your Firefox and extend its abilities in order to make browsing easier and faster for you. There are thousands of plugins available, so you’re not spoilt for choice. Here’s ten of my favourites…
1-> Down Them All
Down Them All is a download manager and accelerator. One of my favourite features is the ability to go to a web page that has a list of downloadable MP3 files and download them all with a few mouse clicks (it works with any file type).
If you regularly download files to a particular location (e.g. Desktop) the One Click feature makes this very fast.
2-> Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks)
(Xmarks is also available for Internet Explorer and Safari)
I have 3,000 bookmarks and if I lost them it would be effectively impossible to replace them, so I use Xmarks which gives me an automatic off site backup of my bookmarks.
You can view your bookmarks on any computer that has an internet connection, so if you’re visiting a friend you can give her the address of the website that you’re discussing right away, rather than trying to remember to email it when you get home. You can add and edit bookmarks when you’re away from home; again, this is much faster and easier than emailing links to yourself.
Xmarks has mobile access (for cellphones), which is also good if you’ve got a slow internet connection at home.
If you use more than one computer Xmarks will synchronise your bookmarks across them, and if you want only some of your bookmarks to go to your work computer the Profiles feature covers that.
The Share feature could be useful for couples who have more than one computer. This is from the Xmarks site:
Sharing [bookmarks] folders allows your friends to view their contents. You may choose whether to include subfolders, or just immediate contents. When you share a folder, we provide you with:
• a link to a web page that displays its contents,
• an RSS feed
• and a widget that you can put on your blog or website.
Changes to shared folders contents will show up within 30 minutes. You may stop sharing a folder at any time.
If you use the Firefox Saved Passwords feature (which automatically fills in the log in details, address details, etc. when you go to a website) Xmarks will also back up those passwords and encrypt them. For security reasons Xmarks requires you to turn on this feature manually.
When I go to the Xmarks site and view my bookmarks and I can do much more with them than I can when using the Firefox bookmarks library.
3-> Net Notes
Net Notes lets you write a note or memo about a website (e.g. your thoughts about an article) and this is stored in the Description field of your bookmarks. Doing it this way is much, much faster than doing the same via the Firefox bookmarks library.
If you also use Xmarks (see above) your notes will be backed up off site and when you view your bookmarks on the Xmarks site you can search the notes that you’ve written. E.g., if you want to find a website and can only remember writing a note that said “This author is a plonker” you can go to Xmarks and search for “plonker”. This is not possible in the Firefox bookmarks library unless you can find or write an appropriate plugin.
4-> Update Scanner
Update Scanner lets you monitor websites that don’t have Atom or RSS feeds. Scanning web sites for updates can be done automatically or manually. When a web page is updated you’ll get a notification (with clickable link) and the new text will be highlighted in yellow: brilliant.
5-> Plain Text To Link
With Plain Text To Link you can open links written in plain text (i.e. they’re not clickable) by highlighting the link and doing a right click to open it.
You can also select a portion of text on a web page and save it as a text (.txt) file.
6-> IE Tab
When you use Firefox you’ll occasionally find a web site that won’t work properly, because the person who designed the web page forgot that Firefox has a 22% market share and made a site that only works with Internet Explorer. IE Tab lets you use those websites without actually opening Internet Explorer.
To switch a tab to IE mode use the right click menu or the Firefox icon at the bottom of Firefox. Right click on a link to open a new tab in IE mode.
7-> Classic Compact
Classic Compact is a theme, a type of plugin that alters the appearance of Firefox. I like Classic Compact because it maximises the area available for viewing web pages whilst also giving a clear interface that’s easy on the eye (the interface is the clickable buttons, scroll bars, etc.).
8-> Clippings
Clippings saves frequently-entered text for pasting later, reducing repetitive typing. There are import/export and hot key options, as well as a Thunderbird version.
9-> Video DownloadHelper
DownloadHelper is a tool for web content extraction. Its purpose is to capture video and image files from many sites.
Just surf the Web as you are used to, when DownloadHelper detects it can do something for you, the icon gets animated and a menu allows you to download files by simply clicking an item.
I’ve used this to download You Tube videos for people who have a slow internet connection, and it’s good for viewing the same on a second computer that isn’t connected to the internet. Click here to read more about Video DownloadHelper.
10-> Split Browser
Split Browser lets you, well, split your browser. This lets you have two or more Firefox panes all visible at the same time – much like having two or more tabs visible at the same time – so you can compare, copy, multitask, etc.. This plugin has numerous features including horizontal and vertical scroll lock.
The basic operation of Split Browser is simple but you’ll be rewarded if you have a play around and see what it can do. E.g., you can drag a link to any edge of the screen to open that link in a new pane. In that new pane you can drag a link to the title bar to open it in a new tab.
Split Browser won’t work if you have the Zotero plugin enabled, and vice versa.
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Nearly all plugins have options: to access these click Tools>Add-ons, then the relevant plugin. You can learn a lot about a plugin by looking at its options.
Finally, if you don’t like the way that the bookmarks work in Firefox 3.x, check out this, this, and this.
What are your favourite Firefox plugins?
