My Firefox Add-Ons

I’ve always loved Firefox. It’s been the spear-head to the browser revolution giving rich features to the end-user. With its market share growing above 20%, it’s putting the Internet Explorer leviathan in its place. But the thing that I love the most about Firefox is the multitude of add-ons you can get for it.

Here are the extensions that I have currently installed in Firefox. Most of them tend to be very techie. I have them somewhat ordered from most frequently used to least frequently used.

1. Firebug
   This is a web developer’s dream come true. It tells you anything you would want to know about how a web page works in a way that’s most convenient. I don’t know of anyone in my line of work who hasn’t used it.
2. Web Developer
   This is a toolbar that simply makes my job easier. Together with Firebug, they form a dynamic duo that really kick some butt! Sure, Batman (Firebug) can do the job on his own, but Robin makes things easier.
3. CacheViewer
   Firefox doesn’t have the windows explorer integration for the browser cache like Internet Explorer has. Although you can enter “about:cache” in the address bar in Firefox to view the cache, this can get cumbersome when looking for certain items. This add-on makes things more intuitive.
4. MeasureIt
   Although Firebug gives you the dimensions of any one element in the page, sometimes you want to know the approximate measurement across multiple elements. I often use this in conjunction with the built-in Windows magnifier.
5. ColorZilla
   ColorZilla makes it easy to find the color of an element, just point and click. It saves you from having to dig through the style sheets to find the associated color. I actually use this add-on most to find a color within an image created by one of our designers. If you open the image with Firefox, you can use ColorZilla with it.
6. FiddlerHook
   This add-on comes with Fiddler2 (a robust web traffic interception utility). By default, Fiddler2 intercepts Internet Explorer traffic, but you have to have this extension to intercept Firefox requests. Yet, not intercepting Firefox traffic help if you’re debugging web services.
7. Tamper Data
   This is another extension that intercepts Firefox web requests. It’s not as full-featured as Fiddler2. I use this one when I don’t feel like starting up Fiddler2.
8. FireShot
   This add-on is the most recent addition to my collection. If you use the [Alt]+[PrtScn] key combination in Windows, it’ll put the screen shot of the current window in the clipboard. This works for most cases, but there are some cases when you want to grab a screen shot of an entire scrolling page. The built-in windows screen shot functionality makes things hard in this case because you have to past the individual screen shot images together. FireShot makes this a one-click operation, and it has a bunch more features I still have to explore.
9. FireFTP
   Firefox doesn’t come with an FTP client out-of-the-box which makes ftp links unnavigable. FireFTP fixes that.
10. YSlow
    This is an add-on to Firebug that diagnoses client-side performance problems. It tells you “whY your page is SLOW”. It’s another tool in Batman’s utility belt.
11. Resizeable Textarea
    A feature available in Safari that I’ve always envied is the ability to resize text areas. This add-on promises to give me that. I’m still trying it out.
12. Greasemonkey
    This allows users to install customizing scripts to change around pages. The first time I saw this I said, “Oh cool!” I installed the extension, tried it out, and ever since I’ve been trying to figure out how to make use of it. I might have been able to use it once. It stays turned off most of the time.
13. IE Tab Plus
    This allows loading pages with the IE rending engine within Firefox. This is handy when I find some legacy pages that only load right in Internet Explorer, and I don’t feel like opening IE. Most web pages anymore are built to be cross-browser compatible.
14. Chickenfoot
    This is like Greasemonkey on steroids. Once again, I downloaded it because of the wow-factor, and I don’t know what to do with it.

If anyone knows of a useful Firefox add-on, please let me know.

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