One of the great aspects of Firefox is the ability to add extensions. And there are plenty to choose from. Although some are made to do little more than entertain or alter the aesthetics, there are many more that really improve your browsing experience. No matter what your purpose in browsing, there is a likely an extension for you. Let’s take a look at 6 extensions we recommend.
This extension allows you to set a group of Web sites that will open (each in its own tab) with the click of a button. This will save you from having to roam through your bookmarks (while drinking that first cup of wake-me-up in the morning) to view your favorite sites. You can even set sites up to open only on certain days (or every day).
This is one of the best tools for making sure your browsing experience is secure. With NoScript, you can disable active content from any site you don’t trust. Unless you configure it to allow JaveaScript, Java, and other executable scripting to run from a site, NoScript will completely block the script, keeping you browser safe from known and unknown exploits. Use this extension regardless of platform.
If you’re like me, you generally have a LOT of tabs open in Firefox. Sometimes this isn’t a problem. But there are times when the tabs can get a bit overwhelming and need a bit of organization. To help with this, ColorfulTabs gives each open tab a different color, making it easier to distinguish between them. With this simple extension, you can color-code tabs either randomly or according to URL. You can also set tabs to fade. Another fun feature is that you can set a background image for tabs.
Okay, this is not really a tool that will aid or better your browsing experience. In fact, this little extension will remind you how much time you spend browsing. I have found this little gem useful in a number of circumstances. Whether you are in need of a quick five-minute break from number crunching or you just need to know how much time you spend on a specific Web site, TimeTracker will keep track of how long you browse. What is nice about this is that the tool times across sessions. So when you close the browser, the timer stops, and when you open the browser back up, the timer starts again. You can reset the timer by right-clicking the status bar timer and selecting Reset.
This extension does one thing: It makes Firefox load pages faster. Speed of page loading can be increased by allowing simultaneous connections and prefetching. To install it, you have to log into a Firefox account to download. The extension is worth the hassle. The speed increase is noticeable.
We all read blogs. . And this takes time. Instead of wasting time going to the blogs, let this handy extension fetch them for you. You do have to sign up for an account using this extension (they promise they won’t spam you.) and you will be asked to install another sidebar (Stickies), which is not necessary. Once you have this installed, you just enter the blog URL, and BlogRovR will begin fetching the information for you. Warning: If you have NoScript installed, you have to allow the BlogRovR page to run scripts or it won’t be able to fetch pages for you.
So that’s my list of 6 extensions, from various categories, that will make your Firefox experience better. Some of these extensions are for power users and some are for everyone. What extensions have you found that make your daily browsing better?
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