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Helpful Add-ons for Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome

Posted By Paul\HellNoire In Category: Computer

Jul
1
2010

I’ve never been one that has ever turned a challenge, nor have I ever been one to enjoy taking something as stock. If you’ve never noticed, I love to tweak things until they break, learn from my mistakes, and take a step back from the breaking point next time. A prime example of all this can be looked at during my newbie days in Linux, and I removed the kernel of my Ubuntu 8.04 install… which of course, broke my entire computer system and when I rebooted, had nothing left to use. When I reinstalled 8.04 a few minutes later, I removed a lot of other packages… but never touched the kernel again.

My motto has always been ‘Shoot for the moon, even if you miss, you land among the stars‘, and if you ask me, truer words have never been said. We can aim for something solid and miss, and still manage to learn from our mistakes. It is not a failure at all unless we have failed to learn something from our mistakes. And though trial and error, I present to you a list of add-ons that have done me well over my course of the past three years: recommendations, if you will, for both Chrome and Firefox.

Keep in mind, how I’m tabulating this list is Firefox\Chrome, Firefox first, then Chrome.

AdBlock Plus\AdSweep – AdBlock Plus and AdSweep are of the same general idea: blocking ads across the board. I know there’s quite a few ‘noisy’ ads that drive me up a way every time, but this at least tames even them.

DownThemAll (Firefox only) – One of the reasons I don’t use Chrome is the lack of an alternative to DownThemAll. Yes there are other download managers out there, but when DownThemAll is the best one under Linux and you try to use the same software on both systems: you’re up a creek otherwise. DownThemAll is often one of the first add-ons I install just because I’m a power downloader of Linux ISOs. The only other reason? It’s not the default in 99.9% of Linux distros.

Greasemonkey\Built-In Support – If you’ve never used Greasemonkey before, you have been missing a lot. I’m actually planning a list of Greasemonkey scripts for the forum down the road that I’ve found insanely useful, from Facebook to Rapidshare and back again.

StumbleUpon (works for both) – Not so much an add-on as it is a way of wasting time, StumbleUpon has taken over when I’m bored. If you’ve never used it, well, you might want to start if you have the spare time… because believe me, it’s going to take all the time you can think of and then some… it’s actually the reason why this article came out late. If you’d like to follow me, my username’s hellnoire, just like it is on the forum.

MyWOT (works for both) – If you want to know the #1 thing that keeps me safe from unsafe browsing, my answer would be common sense. #2 would be MyWOT. It is seriously one of the things that I would love to see built INTO the browser, so we don’t have to worry about people falling pray to social engineering so easily. This might not stop it completely… but it certainly covers about 99% of the bases that common sense should be able to cover the rest!

Ubiquity (Firefox only) – Ubiquity is now a dead experiment Mozilla put out a while back that was simply one of the best add-ons for Firefox if you asked me. You could drop a Google map into an email or use Firefox just by using words… it was one of a kind and while discontinued at this point, I do wish it would be one that Mozilla would breath life into again.

ReadItLater (works for both) – If you like saving your tabs to read at a later date, this might just be the answer you are looking for. At least, until you’ve filled this up and need to clear it out… which believe me, I have a nasty habit of doing. Yesterday’s post was because I actually decided to go though it…

And these are just some of the add-ons I use day-to-day. Believe me when I say I use a lot more then what I’ve got listed here, and if you have any suggestions or would like to offer a better replacement to one of them, please share it in the comments below. I do have one final thing to share before I conclude this post, and that’s that Raymond would like to pass along that the graphs will only be up by tomorrow. I hope you all have a good day now and happy Canada Day to all fellow Canadians!


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    • Tarun

      Well said Paul, addons is the only thing which is keeping me away to switch to any other browser except firefox,

      Like i said in the forum i use IE for 2 things :
      1. To download FF
      2. To check a site’s compatibility with FF.

      Here is my list of addons : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/collection/d8b91067-42e2-f801-4301-263317cfd6e4

    • Madhu

      Thaknzzzzzzzz Paul

    • Paul\HellNoire

      @Tarun, I use IE for three things. To download Firefox and Iron browsers. To check to see how my site loads in IE. And if I’m on another person’s computer, to check to see if the network is up. That’s it lol.

      @Madhu, if it came in handy, no problem.

    • Swarup

      I use all of this except StumbleUpon and ReadItLater but now I install ReadItLater in chrome

    • milad

      Paul I think You missed Some Addons Here they Are:

      SkipScreen: As You See From the name It skips some screen on some sites like rapidshare hotfile 4shared…..
      Actually It automates Downloading on these sites.
      link : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/11243/

      greasefire: Works With Greasemonkey after installing you need to go to option and update the database so now for example you are on google you right click on greasemonkey icon aand choose the first item then you see alist of scripts available for google from user scripts.org that are ordered by their rank.
      link : https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8352/

      I know Many More cool addons but I don’t think they are necessary for Everyone.
      thanks for the post

    • Daniel

      Great post! I switched to Google Chrome before but went straight back to Firefox when I discovered the world of add-ons. My personal favorites are NoScript and Lastpass. I like to believe that they make my surfing a little more secure.

    • Vasanth C

      Hi Paul,
      Nice post (this and all)
      I am using Ubuntu since its 10.04 release and prefer firefox due to its addons/greasemonkey.. however, in ubuntu firefox, scrolling is jerky.. i had to use an addon “yet another smooth scrolling”.. but not fully satisfied with it.. is there some tweak tips i can solve this jerky scrolling???

    • http://jobberies.com/jobs/banking Nagobonar

      Firefox 4 is out now. Much better

    • Vasanth C

      addons which i use :

      adblock plus — blocks ads
      auto copy — copies automatically when i select any content
      DownthenAll! – multithreaded download manager
      Greasemonkey — customizing webpages
      Sxipper — so i dont need to remember any username/pwd
      Omnibar — address/search in single bar
      mousegestures — switch between/close tabs quickly/easily

    • http://tridentcore.com tridentcore

      Some of them is my favorite…

      IE is just a tool for users to download Firefox or other browser.. reason? you can find a lot of reason for that…

    • http://www.bloggerposter.com Balaji

      Well Listed also add
      Configuration mania
      Inform enter
      ScreenGrab
      EasyComment
      FFBE
      FireBug
      FlashGot
      Clear Cookies for this Sit
      Clear Cache
      GMail Notifier

      Sorry i dont know more about the Chrome
      Thanks

    • auscompgeek

      I like NoScript, mainly because I don’t need JavaScript on most sites.

    • markedmanner

      How about noscript for firefox? It definitely makes firefox even more secure.

      http://noscript.net/

    • someone

      Hey Paul, is it just me or has the site traffic dropped a lot?

    • S. Steele

      Thank you Paul for the explanation of Unix / Linux …
      Can you write an article on the use Greasemonkey? It’s not easy to find and use the “scripts” for a beginner …. How to act with “Rapidshare” for example?
      Thank you very much Paul. Hope to read you.

      S.

    • deden

      it’s better if you share the list of grease monkey script too.
      he.h.e..
      thanks

    • vicky

      ReadItLater..thats what I’ve been wanting for ages! Never occured to me to look in the addons page till now. Thanks paul! :)

    • alrizal

      yaeh me too.. i prefer firefox because has DownThemAll, chrome sucks never have download manager like DownThemAll

    • Sparky

      Key scrambler is an add-on I use as well as Easy Youtube Video Downloader that puts other formats on screen the videos are available in.

    • Ahmad AL-Zoubi

      Till this moment, I didn’t think that Add-ons are tools that help to make your life easier, from my expereince I tried to use some of them in addition to the toolbars included if you want to install an application (flash player as an example), I got a lot of problems with my browser I don’t know why but once I uninsall them or disable them, return back to be happy.

      If anyone has a good experience it will be very useful info.

    • Dan

      Paul – I used to use IE until version 8. IE version 8 keeps graying out along with the message “not responding”. After trying everything to fix it, I decided to go with Firefox and I am glad I did. Love all the add-on’s for firefox. Won’t go back to IE except for the rare web page that still requires IE to view. Thanks for the info about the above add-on’s. One I find very useful is NoScript, which protects users from harmful hidden scripts on web pages.

    • http://ficforlife.blogspot.com Hok

      Gracemonkey haven’t work on FF 4 beta :(.
      Ads block, Noscript, Firefox Syn, Flashgot, all work.
      Firegesture don’t :(

    • http://www.cncmaps.com thomasalan

      After the Deadline is a good one as well, it’s a spellcheck and grammar checker for chrome.

    • Phil

      My 3.6.6 has the following addons.
      Adblock Plus 1.2
      Add Bookmark Here 2(squared?) 3.6.20100625
      BugMeNot 2.2
      Flagfox 4.0.6 – I love it what can I say….
      FoxyProxy Basic 1.7.2
      Ghostery 2.2
      HistoryBlock 2.2
      Linkification 1.3.8 – I have my reasons
      Whoops … hahahaha
      MICROSOFT .NET Framework Assistant 0.0.0 wtf! hahaha told you LOOK at your stuff! hahahaha I ain’t even going to tell you “how-to” get rid of it but LOL haha … It’s installed hahaa
      NoScript 1.9.9.97 – 2.0 imminent wtf..haha?
      QuickJava 1.7.2 _ Yeah I use SuNJava
      Scrapbook 1.3.7
      Unofficial Google Translate Firefox extension 1.4 – To grok foreign points of view.
      User Agent Switcher 0.7.2 – I like iPhone 4.0 – lol Timbeeeeeerrr?

    • Paul\HellNoire

      @milad, I don’t download from sites like that often, hence why SkipScreen isn’t on there. I manually download my user scripts direct from site… but to each their own.

      @thomasalan, I can agree with you 100%

      @Hok, I’m using 3.6.6 Stable, so I would suggest you download the Nightly Tester Tools… a godsend for people like you that are early adopters. I wait for betas myself LOL.

      @Dan, you might want to look for IE-Tab add-on for those pages that do need IE. NoScript is good too.

      @Sparky I refuse to download from Youtube… most times it won’t have my albums lol. But KeyScrabler’s a good one.

      @deden, I might post it on the blog then… I’m not sure.

      @someone, I haven’t noticed a drop myself… I’ve noticed an increase personally. I dunno..

      @S. Steele, I would if I knew Javascript… I don’t know any. All I know is C# and how to write Batch files for Windows and Linux.

      @Vasanth C, try to go to Edit>Preferences>Advanced and see if AutoScrolling and Smooth Scrolling is on. If so, turn it off. Should work the way you expect after that.

      To everyone else that shared their add-ons.. thanks for the lists, I’ll be sure to think about them next time. NoScript is a great option on top of everything else, I admit… very foolish for me to leave it out.

    • dag

      I have been a Firefox user for a long time. Recently I tried uninstalling a few add ons and they keep reinstalling themselves. Any solutions ?

    • Paul\HellNoire

      @dag, make sure to uninstall them 100% and reboot Firefox when it asks you to. Then tell Firefox to prompt you for reinstall.

    • Dag

      Thanks for your attention. Yes I have uninstalled them and followed all the instructions as I have in the past for other addons I have tried and removed. I have even rebooted and still the addons are back.

    • Paul\HellNoire

      Hmm… which addons are these then, Dag?

    • http://www.raymond.cc/forum/members/grr.html Grr

      Thanks Paul.

      ReadItLater is of great interest to me.

      Thanks, Grr

    • JK III

      Read It Later: Procrastinator’s ultimate tool :D

      Jokes aside, it’s a great addon.

    • savering

      Thanks for your attention.

    • Abhijeet Singh

      Paul nice article. Thanks for ReadItLater, I’m loving it. Before it I was using SessionManager on Chrome.

      I would add some more addons which works on both

      LastPass: Good for synchronizing passwords between browsers and systems and is safe and reliable. Best part can share a password without tell the password ;)

      XMarks: Helpful in synchronizing Bookmarks and Opened Tabs. Can be helpful between browsers also.

    • messi

      anybody knows a good addon to use with chrome to download youtube like videos?

    • Sata

      @messi a quick search on https://chrome.google.com/extensions revealed several options, search for “youtube downloader” or “video downloader”

      @Paul you might have missed a few gems

      addons i can’t live without:

      BetterPrivacy: deletes flash LSO’s “super-cookies”
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/

      CipherFox: displays current cipher and keysize in statusbar
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8919/

      Conspiracy: shows flag & country of involved Certification Authorities (CAs) https pages
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/107867/

      Spanish (Spain) dictionary: este se explica solo :p
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3554/

      Flagfox: country flag + information about server location and domain of the current site
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5791/

      NoScript: control what active content (java, javascript, flash, silverlight) is allowed to run + XSS and Clickjacking protection
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/722/

      Organize Status Bar: self explanatory
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1759/

      Extended Status Bar: statusbar with speed, percentage, time and loaded size (similar to Opera)
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1433/

      WorldIP: similar to flagfox but uses diferent geolocation databases(data from core routers) + the usual IP and domain tools
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8661/

      Xmarks Bookmark and Password Sync: sync bookmarks 9and optionally passwords) across Firefox installs on different computers (remember to remove the spammy “discovery” options)
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410/

      Text Link: convert text urls to clickable links (useful for compulsive downloaders)
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1939/

      Lazarus Form Recovery: saves all form data in case of a browser crash or just for convenience
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6984/

      Classic Compact: the best compact theme, reclaim your browser space!
      https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3699/

    • http://www.ittech.cz.cc sunkumarspace

      my fav is opera for the last 4 yrs , of late bedning towards chrome but in due course of time never inclined to firefox, especially after ie 8 which gives some sites like blogger or disqus a good treat of experience .one thing i dislike about chrome is its interface it seems nothing just a lean browser should have been a good gui just like opera or so

    • Charles
    • http://ronoethicalhacker.blogspot.com rono_ceh
    • benjok

      Today i got a very good chrome extension that blocks AD’s that you want! its really pro and works great + no lag added! It’s called “Adblock Plus”

      download link: https://chrome.google.com/extensions/detail/cfhdojbkjhnklbpkdaibdccddilifddb

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