The Best FireFox Extensions

I have always been back and forth between FireFox and IE. At first I really liked the changes in IE7, but after a couple of weeks the new UI was not sitting right with me. Once FireFox 2.0 came out I was hooked and have not looked back.

To me, the most compelling argument for FireFox are the extensions. I use so many of them daily I feel lost anytime I have to do something in IE without them. IE can add new features, but without this kind of flexibility, I do not see myself ever going back.

I have never written any extensions for FireFox, but with the sheer number of them and the number of things you can change/enhance it looks like it is not too hard. I know there are some extensions to IE, but no where near the same as FireFox. I wonder if it is harder, less flexible, or something else?

 Anyway, on to the reason for the post, my favorite FireFox extensions FireFox Extensions

  • Adsense Notifier - There isn't a lot of money displayed in it, but for some reason, I love watching this thing update every 20 minutes
  • Blog This - While IE7 may not be my cup of tea, I love Windows Live Writer and this extensions makes it super easy to share links/etc.
  • Download Statusbar - a great way to manage downloads without popping up another window
  • Firebug - an unbelievably powerful extension for web developers. Wow!
  • FireFTP - A great FTP client directly from within the browser.
  • Greasemonkey - I have never really gotten into writing my own user-scripts, but it is great to use ones written by other people.
  • IE Tab - for those times you need it to render in IE.
  • Password Scrambler - for obvious reasons, this is the first extnention I install after any rebuild or new machine.
  • StumbleUpon - a great way to find new stuff
  • Tiny Menu - the menu still exists, but now only takes up a tiny bit of space
  • SearchStatus - displays google rank and alexa stats
  • Web Developer - of course. :)

I think I have another 10 or so installed, but the ones above are the most important.

I probably found more than half of the extensions I use via LifeHacker.

Posted on February 16, 2007 and tagged as ,