10 Best Firefox Add-Ons

Sun, Jun 21, 2009, by Jaison

Browsers

Best Firefox Addons, Extensions and Plugins you should have if you are a Mozilla Firefox user. This article will be updated frequently so if you like it, make sure you bookmark it.

Image from Wikipedia

Everyone loves  a list. That is why i gave the title for this topic as 10 Plus best Firefox addons. Why i gave a “plus” in my title? Because every day there is a useful Firefox addon or extension and plugin available for Mozilla Firefox. Now that the latest Firefox version is just around the corner, the developers are working overtime to come up with new useful Firefox extensions. I will try to update this article with new and interesting Firefox extensions as and when they are released. I will be categorizing this article based on the max downloads per week and based on the kind of extension it provides. Please share it with your friends and don’t forget to digg and stumble if you like it.

1. Adblock Plus 1.0.2 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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This is the top downloaded addon from the Mozilla website. It had around 725,577 weekly downloads. It is all about blocking those annoying ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download other things on the page. There are lots of customizing options available. The developer has even given a youtube video to illustrate the installation and working of Adblock Plus 1.0.2. You can use this link to download Adblock Plus 1.0.2.

2. Xmarks (formerly Foxmarks) 3.1.0 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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This Addon was formerly known as Foxmarks. Now they have made a lots of improvements on it and is now called Xmarks. It is the number 1 bookmarking add-on. It will let you bookmark webpages and optionally passwords also. It will automatically synchronize both bookmarks and passwords. There is a huge user base for Xmarks. Because of this Xmarks lets you find out the best of the web by letting you know what other people are bookmarking. It is a great way to discover new sites and share your own. If you search in Google, there is a high chance that you will not end up seeing the best article which suits you. But if a large number of people are bookmarking one particular site, you can be rest assured that the site has some good content.  It had about 161,328 weekly downloads as i write this article. You can download Xmarks Addon here

3. Cooliris 1.10 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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If you are a person who is mad about surfing web for pictures, if you are a person who spends considerable amount of time in photo sharing sites like flicker, google images etc, then believe me, you are going to love this add on. Cool iris 1.10 provides a 3D full screen view of your images in Full-Screen. Cooliris developers claim that their product is the fastest and most stunning way to browse photos and videos from the Web or your desktop and i second that claim. In Cooliris 1.10 you can scroll a “3D Wall” of your content from Facebook, Google Images, YouTube, Flickr, and many more and it provides you a different perspective of your images like you have never experienced so far. It has got a healthy 178,910 weekly downloads when i write this article. You can download cooliris 1.10 from here

4. Shareaholic 1.8.1 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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I have been using Shareaholic for the past few months now and i am really happy with the ease of bookmarking or link sharing service it provides. It is the ultimate add-on for the link sharing author. Shareaholic allows you to share, e-mail, bookmark, and blog the stuff you find online very easily across Facebook, Twitter, Digg, GMail, LinkedIn, and lots more and really useful for online writers who want to advertise their content. If you are a triond or other online publishing user, then Shareaholic 1.8.1 is a must for you. Within minutes you will be able to share your articles to a huge audience. It also allows you to add or delete a particular link from the list of sharing network. There were about 22,343 weekly downloads for this add-on when i am writing this article. You can download Shareaholic 1.8.1 addon for firefox  from here.

5. TwitterFox 1.8.1 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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If you are a twitter user then you will love this addon. It allows you to tweet, see your tweets, see user profile, and much more from your mozilla browser itself. There is no need to login to the twitter home page. It will alert you when you receive a new twitter message.  Once you install Twitterfox, a twitter icon will appear on the  bottom right of your browser. On a single click, it will open a small sub window with the latest tweets which you received. It also has a small text input field to update your status. If you have any problem with twitterfox, you can tweet them at the support  @TwitterFox or add them at http://twitter.com/twitterfox. It has a decent 74,490 weekly downloads. You can download Twitterfox 1.8.1 from here.

6. WebMail Notifier 1.2.1 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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I think more people should know about this wonderful add on. I tried it out and even if there is lot of room for improvement, it serves the basic purpose. It has almost 18,424 weekly downloads as of now. The idea is great. It provides access to your multiple email accounts by just  a click of a button. Once installed, it will be placed in the bottom left of your browser. You can then assign multiple email accounts to this addon. It will promptly display the number of unread mails in your account. You can assign multiple email accounts. I even tried multiple gmail accounts and it worked perfectly. The best thing i liked about this one is that once i assign all my gmail accounts to this (Work, Personal, Fun etc..) i can easily switch from one account to another by just a click. There is no need for doing the old style logout and login again. Here is the link to download Webmail Notifier 1.2.1. Currently they support the following email providers.

mail.google.com(Gmail & Google Apps)
mail.yahoo.com (yahoo.com, ymail.com, rocketmail.com)
mail.live.com(hotmail.com, msn.com, live.com)
www.daum.net(hanmail)
www.naver.com
www.empas.com
www.nate.com

Below sites are supported by user script.
mail.qq.com
www.fastmail.fm
www.gmx.net
mail.lycos.com
www.orkut.com
freemail.web.de
poczta.fm(poczta.interia.pl)

In case you are using another webmail, the developer was good enough to provide the free script to configure your mail id.

7. FlashGot 1.1.9.4 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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From the 659,810 weekly downloads you can figure out how popular this is. I dont download much so it is of not much use to me. But I have heard some good user reviews for FlashGot.  FlashGot is basically a download manager. The Developers claim that you can download one link, selected links or all the links of a page together at the maximum speed with a single click. You can use the most popular and reliable external download managers of your choice. Their recent enhancement called the “FlashGot Media” command grabs video and audio clips while the video or audio is playing which makes it stand out from all the ordinary download managers. To see all the supported download tools and other details click here. You can download FlashGot 1.1.9.4 here.

8. Yoono – Socialize Your Browser 6.0.1 (Recommended by Mozilla)

If you are a social networking addict then this is the add on for you. Yoona allows you to have all your social networks and instant messaging in one easy to use browser sidebar. So if you have accounts in Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Yahoo Messenger, Gtalk, etc then you can install Yoono and login to all the above sites. There is no need for opening one tab for each of these. Instead Yoono will notify you if you have an update in any of these social networking or instant messaging sites. In short it lets you simplify your online social life. Here is the download link for Yoono 6.0.1. It has got 34,406 weekly downloads.

9. StumbleUpon 3.29 (Recommended by Mozilla)

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How can i not write about stumble upon? If you ask me to name the single most useful and reliable mozilla firefox addon, i will name this one. This was one of the first addons i ever used. I still use it. I have installed hundreds of addons and uninstalled 99% of those after 1 week or so. But i will never (My teachers told me never to use the word “never”, but still :) ) uninstall this one. Ever since i installed it, i have used it every day and whenever i don’t have access to my laptop, i miss it very much. So, how is it useful? Imagine searching for an item in Google. If it is a very popular item, then Google will overwhelm you with search results. zillions and zillions of them. In those cases, if you have stumble upon, you can tell the  quality ones from the not so good ones. You can also search for stuff inside stumble upon and there is a greater chance of finding what you are searching for via stumble search. This is because it is real people who are rating the sites up or down. It has tons of search features and my favorite one is the video search. What it basically does is that understand your likes and dislikes based on the ratings you give for each site (Rating is easy, just one click) and present more sites of your liking based on your ratings. You can download StumbleUpon 3.29 from here.

10. Ubiquity 0.1.8 (Recommended by Mozilla)

I should end this article with what i think is the next generation addon for Mozilla Firefox. Ubiquity allows you to include user defined commands to the browser to do specific tasks. This means that you can automate your task by creating a command using Ubiquity. If you are a kind of person who like to explore and create a new things and like the adventure, Ubiquity is the thing for you. Here is a Mozilla provided tutorial on Ubiquity. There is a small video which i found explaining the features of Ubiquity which you can see here.

It is really useful in those rare occassions when firefox does not work and that particular page will only work in IE (Very rare but possible). Here is the link to download IE Tab Addon for Firefox.

11. FoxTab 1.1.2 for 3D browsing experience

If you need a break from the normal browsing experience and to see something new, then you should install the addon FoxTab which is a 3D tabbed browsing extension. There are 5 attractive layouts for you to choose from each better than the other. It opens up a whole new browsing experience as flipping between opened tabs becomes easier and more enjoyable than ever before. There is also a grouping and filtering features which allows you to logically group the tabs.  Enough words, just see the video.

 You can download the latest Foxtab addon from here.

12. Tab Mix Plus – Enhanced Firefox tab browsing

Tab mix plus is a very useful firefox addon for everyone interested in tabbed browsing. It actually enhances Firefox tab browsing features by adding some extra flexibility and control to your browser. Some of the popular features include duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows etc. A session manager with crash recovery that can save and restore combinations of opened tabs and windows gives one more reason for the user to download and install this addon. Click here to download Tab Mix Plus.

You can watch an intro video here (It is pretty old).

Side Note

This article will be updated frequently so if you like it, make sure you bookmark it and share it with your friends.

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13 Comments For This Post

  1. Ramalingam Subramaniam Says:

    Very interesting and useful information.Thanks for sharing.

  2. shelly Says:

    nothing about new tabs? I’d add the new tab approach from new tab king for Firefox extension.
    –shelly

  3. Jaison Says:

    Hi Shelly,

    Thanks for the valuable feedback. I am writing an update on this article for all the tab features in Firefox. Will be updated today. Check back tomorrow. Please give suggestions on the firefox addons which you liked most

    Thanks again for the useful feedback.

    Jaison

  4. Ren Says:

    Useful read. Thanks for the effort.

  5. SEO Says:

    Well Written article. I liked cooliris. Will check back again for the updates. bookmarked it. :=)

  6. swatilohani Says:

    mindblowing Jaison, from India

  7. huh? Says:

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  8. Jaison Says:

    Sorry, Triond did not publish the whole thing. I corrected the error and resubmited. Will be updated in a day.

  9. Jack Says:

    Nice list you’ve got there! I liked AdBlock Plus and Cooliris, would try out the other ones too. Here’s another one that I would suggest. It is a VeriSign secured tool called Billeo. Does a wonderful job with managing passwords. It also tracks your expenses and makes online payment a breeze. Very handy! http://www.billeo.com/features.jsp

  10. Alex Says:

    Some best firefox addons i have ever found. Thanks for doing the research for me

  11. raghu Says:

    nice collection..

  12. Alexiandria M Michaels Says:

    i am going to have to check these out! i do love cookie killer for firefox.. that is my favorite… :)

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