Twenty extensions need to be on FireFox

These extension components provide enhanced features, better look and feel, and also categorize the development workflow for you. One of them is quite simple but really great.

FireFox is the most popular open source browser software package, which is on par with Microsoft's Internet Explorer. What makes this browser special is its ability to customize with various extensions and themes, making it possible for users to build their own browser according to their needs. But also because there are so many extensions, it makes us headache, not knowing which extension to install and ignoring any extensions to make it reasonable.

That problem is also the content we will be interested in in this article. We will explore 20 extensions with the most commonly used add-ins, following the advice of experienced Web surfers, developers and IT professionals. Are you looking for the ability to stream the web more effectively, enhance the ability to see and feel, good design tools or serious Web development assistance? Yes, all here.

Mastery tools for the Web

StumbleUpon

First is a warning: StumbleUpon is quite dangerous for performance! It is one of the social networking Web applications that has become increasingly popular in recent times. It provides a way to find new websites that you may find interesting and useful.

This extension will add a StumbleUpon toolbar to FireFox. All of StumbleUpon's main features are usable through this toobar, but remember to set up an account first. When registering, you will need to select a number of topics to start with some of the favorite types of websites (such as: ancient history, human psychology, ways to improve yourself .), but can absolutely see consider this issue later.

StumbleUpon's toolbar

After installation is complete, click on the Stumble button! on the toolbar to use a random website on the list. If you don't like this website, click on the Thumbs button, if you want, click the Thumbs Up button. The more websites are launched, the more Stumbles exactly matches your interests. If the website launched is not included in the StumbleUpon database, you can enter some of its basic information so as not to be confused with another website.

StumbleUpon should not always be used, but it is quite fun and can take you back to all the interesting websites of the days of surfing the Net before.

Version used : 2.91
You can download it from the website : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/138

Gmail Manager & Yahoo Mail Notifier

These two extensions perform some basic operations for the corresponding Web mail services.

Yahoo Mail Notifier is quite simple. It has only a small envelope icon placed on the status bar, showing the user how many new mail messages are in your yahoo mail account. A small pop-up list will be launched to attract users' attention when new mail arrives. Click on the icon, you can go directly to Yahoo mail.

Version used : 0.9.9.2
Download at addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1264.

Gmail Manager can do all the work of the Yahoo Mail Notifier, along with some other functions. If you hover your mouse over Gmail Mangager, you will know how many new messages you have received, how much spam you have, the labels on each message, and the mailbox space used. Below is a list of the latest 10 messages, with the From, Subject and the first line in the message. You can turn off the display of this information. The manager also supports multiple Gmail accounts. You can set up an open link to a new message editor window in Gmail.

Pop-up notifications of Gmail Manager

Version used : 0.5.3.
Download at : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1320

Greasemonkey

Greasemonkey is not for weak hearts. Basically, it allows you to add JavaScript to all Web pages, but writing these scripts requires a good knowledge of scripts. However, there are many users who are willing to share the scripts they created with you.

On the first installment, Greasemonkey does nothing. It only allows scripting operations. You must write, install, and configure the script before you see any changes on the Web pages.

So what do these scripts do? The answer is that it can do almost anything that can be done on JavaScript. For example, I use both Google Gmail and Reader services. There is a script that makes Reader appear on the same page as Gmail. That is quite a big change. (It's easy to break a script, and it's easier to remove Greasemonkey in case you need to undo a change).

Do you want Google search results to appear in two columns?
There is already a Greasemonkey script that helps you.

There are many scripts that perform small tasks such as removing Edit on Wikipedia. Most of us will never edit these pages. So why not delete them a bit? Another script, as you can see in the figure, turns Google search results into two columns, helping users more effectively exploit the large screen space. People never stop creating new possibilities!

Check out userscript.org website to get an interesting and appropriate script. If you want to write your own scripts, refer to diveintogreasemonkey.org , or Mark Pilgrim's Greasemonkey Hacks provided by O'Reilly Media.

Version used : 0.6.7.20070131.0.
Download at : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/748

Visual enhancements

FireFox Showcase

FireFox Showcase is a great extension, because of the convenience as well as the use of an advanced function of Internet Explorer 7 in FireFox: display all the small windows of open programs and tabs.

After installation is complete, a new Showcase menu will appear under the View menu. From there, you can choose to display all the small frames of the tabs in the current window or all tabs on every window. (Meanwhile IE7 only displays a small frame of tabs in a specific window.)

In addition, you can choose to display small frames in a new tab or in a floating window.

Function of FireFox Showcase

You also get some new options under the Sidebar submenu: the option to open tabs from the current window or from all windows, in the FireFox sidebar. No problem if you want to choose the type of display of small frames. Just click one of the frames to link the window / tab.

If you think that this extension is too complicated, you can safely ignore some options and only use it according to its default configuration.

If you have a habit of finding yourself a wave layer in open tabs, click around and find the right page. FireFox Showcase will save you a lot of effort and frustration.

Version used : 0.9.2.1.
Download at : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1810

Cooliris Previews

This interesting extension allows you to preview a Web page before actually opening it. After installing Cooliris Previews , a small blue icon will appear next to any link you hover over. When the mouse pointer is placed on the icon, the content of the page is displayed. When you hover the mouse over the blue icon and the pop-up window, the preview will disappear. At the top of the pop-up window are some additional icons, which allow you to lock the open window, open the preview in a new tab, send in the form of an email to a friend (but must register account at Cooliris Website), close the window or use the Back button. You can hover your mouse around this preview window, then the Back button.

Preview frame on Cooliris Preview of a video on YouTube

Actually this extension is more neat than useful. But with websites like YouTube, the preview is enhanced. If you preview a link to YouTube, only the video is opened in the preview window.

In addition to Preview, Cooliris also adds context-based search functionality on the right-click menu. Highlight a word or phrase on a page, right-click and then Cooliris Search, then use one of thefreedictionary.com, Google Images, Google Search or Wikipedia pages to search. If you hover over one of the four options, the result will be displayed in the preview window. If you click them they will open in a new tab.

If the preview window appears too much, you can remove it easily by clicking an icon in the status bar. You can stop or allow to preview each page in a row.

Version used : 2.1.
Download at : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2207

Colorful Tabs and ChromaTabs

Colorful Tabs are quite basic. It colors the tabs with pleasant light tones. After a long day of searching, soft colors will help your tired eyes to relax.

Colorful Tabs give comfort to tired eyes.
The color for each tab is set randomly.

The latest version requires FireFox 2.0 onwards. With older versions of FireFox, you can use Colorful Tabs v1.4. See the following link for more details.

Version used : 1.9.
Download at : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1368

ChoromaTabs is quite similar to Colorful Tabs. The only difference is that ChromaTabs determines the tab color according to the hostname in the URL. If you browse another website, the color for the tab will change.

ChromaTabs looks similar, but the color for the tab is assigned by domain name.

Version used : 1.0.
Download at : addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3810.

It is personal preference. Colorful Tabs assign random tab colors. As long as the tab is open, the color for it stays the same, regardless of where you surf. With ChromaTabs, colors are alternating (some will not be very attractive).

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