Firefox Extensions: Jumping On The YSMYISYM Bandwagon With Glee

I'm up to 31 at the moment, but, as always, they include some that are purely personal and some that are just for fun; although there are no extensions that could seriously be considered indispensable, I'll start with the - frankly - indispensable and work my way down: Tab Mix Plus This is the one you'll want if you want to bypass a lot of the others - sessionsaver, tabx, undoclosetab, and a multitude of others, all are rendered obsolete, being dealt with in this cracking extension. As is usually the case when it comes to tinkering with tab functionality, it is not particularly straightforward, but with some trial and error you'll get the hang of it and eventually get those tabs just how you want them. Sessionsaving is a breeze, and extremely well-mannered with it, not embarking on anything without asking you first. If that's the way you want it. DownTHEMall Ignoring the fact that it looks like Down The Mall, this is a brilliant extension for utilising the on board download manager. You might have your favourite little gizmo, and you curse the 'fox for not having a decent resume function, well, curse ye no longer, for it was here all along. I think many are frightened off by the fact that this guy does boast about capturing every downloadable link on a webpage - not a requirement of many a web surfer. Ignore that boast because you can configure this simply to download what you want and it is happy to do just that. It quietly integrates itself for your needs, something you'll be grateful for, believe me, and you'll soon be forgetting you even have another download manager somewhere else on your system. del.icio.us For seamless del.icio.us tagging and bagging, searching and coming and going. Restart Firefox I have no idea why I have put this fourth on the list when it is quite obviously the first extension to be installed. Yup, it restarts Firefox. Why click twice - thrice, maybe - when you need only click once? Adblock Plus seems to be a given; I'm sure I could make better use of it, but at the moment I simply surf with a smidgen more happiness knowing that I have it installed. For best effect use it in conjunction with Adblock Filterset G. Updater. Apparently. Statusbar Clock Some might consider this to come under the category of "Personal", but I'm reckoning it's indispensable. Thpbbt. Oh, of course, it puts the day, date, year and time in - you guessed it - the statusbar. Google Toolbar This frees up the seemingly extraneous search box for some kickbutt plugins. 'Nuff said. Oh, and by the way, for those who seethe at the inability to right-click and save the Google Toolbar .xpi, you can find it here. ForecastFox Who cares about the weather? Hey, I care about the weather. It's indispensable. Yes, both. Foxylicious To turn your del.icio.us entries into an enormous dropdown menu. Who wouldn't want to do that? Maybe not indispensable, but still Very Good Add Bookmark Here Adds a little menu entry to every folder allowing you to find the folder first and click this button to do the necessary. Helpful, I think. All-In-One Sidebar It...It...It...You are gathering that I'm finding it difficult to pour forth the myriad benefits of this slim bar that sits relatively unobtrusively at the side of your browser offering a handful of options that can, admittedly, be found elsewhere. I just like having the Extensions list available right there, or the History list. You might, too. Mouse Gestures Another one that I would struggle to sell. It offers the ability to configure...Ah, heck, I don't know. Read it for yourself. The mouse gesture I am mostly be using is the holding down of the right button and the clicking of the left to go back a page, and for that alone I Salute You! ReminderFox This, for me, was a find and a half. I want to remember things, I really do. I use EssentialPIM and I have a crazy impulse for 30 Boxes, but I fail to be disciplined enough to get the most benefit out of programs like that. Firefox I use every day, sometimes several times a day, and there's the pop-up to remind me what to do, or what's coming up, or whatever. Why is this not in the indispensable section? Margaret! ScrapBook From whole websites to one single quote, they can all be Captured and saved here in your scrapbook. They can be filed and foldered, managed and searched through with nary a moments worry. Some say better than bookmarking. Hmm, you be the judge of that. My only (very small) fear is that if you also go for EverNote (see below) you could have yourself a sticky little conflict: Do I want to save this to my Scrapbook, or EverNote? Nasty. ViewMyCurrency If you visit web shops abroad this does all the currency conversion for you, right there without any clicks of the mouse necessary. Configure it initially, say with US dollars, and every dollars price tag will have the British pounds equivalent displayed as well. Nice little feature. I almost gave up on it when it was first installed - it didn't feel particularly user-friendly, none of the prices were showing - then I clicked on the button in the statusbar and, ch-ching, there they were, and, I must say, it was a misty-eyed, magical moment. IE Tab For the occasional website that will only function with Bill's Browser, fool it into thinking this is it. Priceless. There's also one for Opera - OperaView - but, Why? NoScript It has a scary snake as a logo. With a big "Stop" sign slashed through it. One of the choices reads "Allow scripts Globally (dangerous)". JavaScript must be bad, and I'm going to monitor its presence from now on! Then, nothing works on a page...oh, oh, allow script for this site temporarily. Curiously, I do feel safer. EverNote Web Clipper I like EverNote, so it's going to follow that I like this extension that sends pages straight to this natty, slick and crystal-clear note-taker. Bloglines Toolkit Speaks for itself if you're a Bloglines user - addictive substance pun probably intentional. I also Enjoy The Company Of: ReloadEvery Great for those websites you leave open and want to...blah-de-blah blah... Snake Who needs a game extension? But, hey, it's Snake! gTranslate For the occasional word...very...occasional... PDF Download I once thought this was pretty good, but it kept losing in the battle against Adobe Acrobat Reader, so I did the only decent thing and uninstalled Adobe - who needs that bloated bully beast elbowing everyone out of the way and yet taking forever to open and never to close when cute'n'light, unassuming, humble (sometimes so humble it dances around on tippy-toes saying, "Should I open it, should I?") Foxit PDF Reader exists? (No Install required, extra bonus points) Anywaaaaaay, concerning PDF Download? Once I installed DownTHEMall it took care of everything because it asks how I want the .pdf handled. No problemo. Still, PDF Download lingers because I feel like I want to give it a chance. It declares that it can open .pdf as a straightforward web-page, and I want to see that work. I Once Enjoyed The Company Of: Find in Statusbar Mighty convenient having this little box in the statusbar, but I'm thinking I might prefer the whole look and feel of the onboard Find facility, so it may be worth waiting for this one. If you want to check it out, best use this link as the Mozilla Update entry is not compatible with 1.5. D'you know what? I've just deleted it. It is buggy. ListZilla Were it not for this extension, I would not have been able to publish this column with such ease. Possibly a candidate for "use-once-and-discard". Nuke Anything Enhanced If there is anything you do not like on a page - a picture, a box, umm (begins to sweat a little and giggle) - then right click and remove. Hurrah! I don't think I've used it yet. This and Image-Show-Hide are really dinosaurs from the dial-up age. They were a great help then, not so much now. For my web building aspirations I have installed: Aardvark This thing is fun (y'know) even without the web-building aspirations. Drop down the Tools menu and click Start Aardvark and everything your mouse hovers over highlights the elements for the page with a little yellow tag declaring what it is. How do these guys do it? Great for ideas, or, apparently, cleaning up a page before printing - so maybe elements can be altered depending on your viewing preference? So much still to find out... Web Developer So I have one or two extensions which seem to be light years ahead of my puny web-surfing/building intellect? Where's the harm? This one is essentially a toolbar with a whole host of buttons which offer dropdowns with more options than you can wave a stick at. I look, I click, I get a headache. This one's for later. HTML Validator This one I like, even if it's only to have the statusbar icon tell you that some great looking website actually has a handful of warnings. Not so good when it's your own website. But remember, Warnings - Good, Errors - Bad, Neither (Green with a Joyous Tick) - Best. That's the goal, the peak, the pinnacle, the, let's face it, unattainable, when it declares "&" a misdemeanor in the title Law & Order. Yah Boo. And, so far, that's it. I could probably add two or three to a Soon To Be Installed list: ColorZilla has got to be a candidate for any web-builder worth his groats; and is AllPeers not the most eagerly awaited Firefox extension? Can the big build-up and hanging expectation deliver? zzzzzzzzz