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Essential Firefox extentions and add-ons

r.j.s

r.j.s

Moderator emeritus
Original poster
Mar 7, 2007
15,026
52
Texas
It's been a while since we've had a thread like this, so what are the essential add-ons, themes and extensions for Firefox 3?
 
  1. adblock+ [block ads in webpages, famous enough]
  2. firegestures [best mice gesture addon since era of 3.0]
  3. autodial [most visited history items, no previews, just tile and url, nicely displayed when new tab open, simple, and great.]
  4. FAYT [tweak find as you type to its glorious form of the past, great]
  5. ubiquity [command line tool for firefox, some of its functions will make into future firefox]
  6. password exporter [especially good for me since i have 3 copies of firefox and two profiles on my netbook]
  7. compact menu (non-OSX platform) [shrink menu into an icon, save vertical viewing space on my netbook]
these are the stuff I always install whenever i install firefox on a computer, or creating a new profile. I manually change usechrome.css for #4, but the addon does the same with less hassle.
 
NoScript - stops all those web 2.0 pop ups other blockers fail to manage like the IMDB

Flashblock - only allows the flash objects you specify to playback. Saving your CPU
 
Zotero

Get Zotero. Use it for research papers. It automatically cites MLA advanced Chicago and like a billion other formats. I use it for school
 
Another vote for Adblock Plus.

I have a couple more, but they're for windowz and don't belong in this discussion. :p
 
barkmonster said:
NoScript - stops all those web 2.0 pop ups other blockers fail to manage like the IMDB

Flashblock - only allows the flash objects you specify to playback. Saving your CPU
Click to expand...
I was going to say NoScript,.. I'll check out flash block, I'm on a capped service so...
I just installed the British English dictionary, local language is important to me...it was driving me crazy when FF3 had no English dictionary and I had to rely on the standard builds American English[no offense]
 
dizzystick said:
I was going to say NoScript,.. I'll check out flash block, I'm on a capped service so...
I just installed the British English dictionary, local language is important to me...it was driving me crazy when FF3 had no English dictionary and I had to rely on the standard builds American English[no offense]
Click to expand...

firefox has localized EN-GB edition...
 
theDUB said:
I just read this article (had never seen it before). I find firefox to be plenty fast already. But my question is this; if you can tweak settings to make it perform better, why doesn't it just come like that out of the gate?
Click to expand...

the usability of pipelining depends on some conditions, specifically, it depends on if server support it, if the server doesn't, the pipelining will actually make it slower.

I do think mozilla is a bit on the conservative side on this.

So are the settings about number of simultaneous requests. Too much is not always good. Mozilla assess the situatin from time to time. And they increased the numbers of request just before the release of 3.0.

These settings does make difference, and the addon "fasterfox" offers GUI configuration of these settings.

If you are already playing with it, here is another one (included in fasterfox setting as well)

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Nglayout.initialpaint.delay

this makes significant difference, when you set the number to minimum (e.g., 0)
 
theDUB said:
I just read this article (had never seen it before). I find firefox to be plenty fast already. But my question is this; if you can tweak settings to make it perform better, why doesn't it just come like that out of the gate?
Click to expand...

For example:
Bug 395838 - Remove HTTP pipelining pref from release builds
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=395838
---

From a Mozilla developer in the mozilla.dev.performance newsgroup:

> nglayout.initialpaint.delay=0

This is still very much a perception thing. The paint delay default is (iirc) 250 ms; so if a page takes longer than a quarter of a second to load, nothing will be painted in that first quarter second. (If a page fully loads beforehand, it gets painted right away.) Lowering this number, or setting it to 0, usually causes an overall performance loss: we spend lots of time doing layout and repainting while we're still doing incremental reflow and the like as the page is loading. However, maybe 250ms is too high of a preset these days; 100ms might be better to strike a balance between perception and reality. I have no idea how to actually test this, though.

- Vlad
---------------
This is from 11.09.2007
Likely have they already changed again the default paint delay or build it in a completely different kind of way.

Or in other words:
Don`t change it.

----

By the way,
read this as well from a Safari developer:
http://webkit.org/blog/94/amusing/

Or in other words:
These suggestions are only something for believer. They do most of the time simply nothing or the direct opposite. ;-)

Cheers
 
clevin said:
firefox has localized EN-GB edition...
Click to expand...

HA , nice one, wish I'd have known. ...wonder why I get directed to the US dl then ..hmmm

clevin said:
the usability of pipelining depends on some conditions, specifically, it depends on if server support it, if the server doesn't, the pipelining will actually make it slower.

I do think mozilla is a bit on the conservative side on this.

So are the settings about number of simultaneous requests. Too much is not always good. Mozilla assess the situatin from time to time. And they increased the numbers of request just before the release of 3.0.

These settings does make difference, and the addon "fasterfox" offers GUI configuration of these settings.

If you are already playing with it, here is another one (included in fasterfox setting as well)

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Nglayout.initialpaint.delay

this makes significant difference, when you set the number to minimum (e.g., 0)
Click to expand...

sounds good, not sure I should try fasterfox though , I've just gone from G3 iMac to an early09 Macbook.
the difference is :eek: already .
 
Here are mine
 

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Adblock Plus — best ad blocker, not using any filter, just my own tags
CustomizeGoogle — so that I can select what's on Google and how features work, such as the Image search links directly to the image and not the site
Download Statusbar — does what it says
Firebug — the best web developer tool I've ever used
Firefox PDF Plugin for Mac OS X — PDF viewer inside Fx
FireGestures — mouse gestures for some common shortcuts (even though I use the keyboard most of the time, it's still nice to have)
Fission — puts the progress bar in the address bar
Greasemonkey — customize websites with scripts, for like YouTube and many other sites. This is a perfect tool if you know how to use it, something I wonder what I did before it.
RefControl — just for the more paranoid me
Stop-or-Reload Button — one less button = cleaner UI
Web Developer — another great web dev tool, goes great hand in hand with Firebug
 
allan.nyholm said:
Try this theme: GrApple Crisp from www.takebacktheweb.org - lovely.
Click to expand...
now thats what I mean by good "tab on top design", doesn't sacrifice the functionality.
(screenshot from the website)

GrApple-Crisp-1.9.9.43.png


I have to say Im glad, and also surprised that this actually comes from a firefox theme first.

I tested 3rd party pre-alpha build of Chrome for OSX, its tab on top is about the same as this one.

Now I just need an addon to modified the tab position without changing my themes...

Great find!:D

PS. Is that Aronnax the same Aronnax here at MR? :D

Two feedbacks
1. the theme has color mismatch with 3.6pre build, did 3.6 trunk has something different in color profile?
2. is that shadow when move hover over empty space on tabbar an intentional design? Im not sure if thats necessary.
 
clevin said:
now thats what I mean by good "tab on top design", doesn't sacrifice the functionality.
(screenshot from the website)

...

I have to say Im glad, and also surprised that this actually comes from a firefox theme first.
Click to expand...

Maybe misreading this but the way the tab on top is shown above is exactly like that of Opera.
 
xUKHCx said:
Maybe misreading this but the way the tab on top is shown above is exactly like that of Opera.
Click to expand...

no, you are correct.

Funny we always forget Opera from time to time, even when I tried...

Opera actually has tab on top design for ages. Who is celebrating 15 year anniversary right now.
 
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