September 2008

I’ve received a couple of requests for a list of the extensions that I use. See below for the list, a brief description of each, and brief commentary on how or why I used them.

My monitor isn’t large or wide-screen so screen real estate is very important. I don’t like to have extra toolbars or sidebars, especially the ones you can’t toggle open and closed with a single button click. In addition to screen real estate methods I describe below, I save space on my browser by not using the following toolbar buttons: history, home, new tab, new window, cut, copy, paste. These can all be replaced by learning the easy keyboard shortcuts. I also have my toolbars set for small icons with no text. I do use the Bookmarks Toolbar for my favorite links.

Enabled Extensions: [62]

• Adblock Filterset.G Updater 0.3.1.3 – “Synchronizes Adblock with Filterset.G.”
• Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5 – “Ads were yesterday!” Since I don’t fiddle with it much and the status bar button has all the functionality I need, I just use it and not the toolbar button.
• Add Bookmark Here ² 3.0.20080915 – “Add a menuitem “Add Bookmark Here…” to Bookmarks Menu.”
• Better Flickr 0.3 – “A compilation of the best Greasemonkey user scripts for Flickr. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.”
• Better GCal 0.3 – “Enhances Google Calendar with a compilation of user scripts and styles. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.”
• Better Gmail 2 0.6.1 – “Enhances Gmail with a compilation of user scripts and styles. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.”
• Better GReader 0.4 – “Enhances Google Reader with a compilation of user scripts and styles.”
• Better YouTube 0.4.3 – “A compilation of useful Greasemonkey user scripts for YouTube. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.”
• BugMeNot 2.0 – “Bypass compulsory web registration with the context menu via www.bugmenot.com.” Accessed via the context menu.
• Clippings 3.0.1 – “Save frequently-entered text for pasting later.” I access it through a single small button on the right side of my status bar.
• CoLT 2.4.1 – “Adds a Copy Link Text item to the browser’s context menu.”
• Compact Menu 2 2.2.0 – “Duplicates the menubar on the toolbar as a menu of menus.” What I did with this was replace all the text menus on the top left of the browser with a single button. I rarely use most of them anyway, so this saves a lot of space. If I need to access them, I just click on the button and a drop-down menu appears.
• Copy Link Name 1.2.6 – “Copies the name (source anchor) of a link.” Option accessed via the context menu.
• Ctrl-Tab 0.19.3 – “Ctrl+Tab navigation for tabs similar to Alt+Tab on various operating systems. Shift+Ctrl+A / Shift+Cmd+A shows all tabs in a grid.” Kind of like Firefox Showcase but better.
• Custom Toolbar Buttons 0.5.0.5 – The regular Toolbar Buttons extension comes with far more than I need, but the creator also has an extension creating utility on his website that allows you make a custom extension with only the buttons you want. The main ones I absolutely have to have are buttons for directly opening my Profile folder, opening the Options window, the Extension window, and Bookmarks. I put these in the top left right next to the Compact Menu button.
• CustomizeGoogle 0.75 – “Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam.”
• Daily Dilbert 2.3 – “Shows Dilbert strip of the day.” Accessed by a little button on the status bar.
• Download Manager Tweak 0.7.2 – “A modification of the Firefox download manager that changes its appearance and allows it to be opened in a separate window, a new tab, or the sidebar.” I have mine set to open the download window in a tab and automatically close it when the download is finished.
• DownloadHelper 3.2.2 – “Download videos and images from many sites.” Easy to use button on my top toolbar.
• Extended Copy Menu 1.5 – “Provides the option to copy selection as plain text or html.” The options show up in the context menu.
• FireFTP 1.0.2 – “FTP Client for Mozilla Firefox.” Toggled by a toolbar button.
• Fission 1.0 – “Progress bar in the address bar (Safari style).” Allows me to just watch the address bar instead of the status bar for the progress meter of a loading page. I have it set to show destination urls when I mouse-over them too, so that’s another thing I don’t have to look down at the status bar for.
• Forecastfox l10n 0.7.2008050801 – “Get international weather forecasts from weather.com, and display it in any toolbar or statusbar with this highly customizable extension.” I have it at the far left side of my status bar, icons only except for current conditions.
• FoxNotes 2.7.8 – “A Handy Note Taker.” Nice utility. Easy access through a button on my top toolbar. I’ve got a lot of stuff on it. If I ever transfer it all over to Google Notebook though I might use Google Notebook exclusively.
• GButts 1.5.8 – “Display all of your Google Services as buttons just next to your “Home” button or anywhere you like it!” You can pick and choose which buttons to display. I’ve got quite a few on my top toolbar above the toolbar that contains the address bar.
• Gmail Notifier 0.6.3.8 – “A notifier for Gmail accounts.” Very functional button. I keep it just to the left of my GButts toolbar, and to the right (with flexible spacing) of my Compact Menu and other menu buttons.
• Google Calendar Notifier 2.5.3 – “This extension provides robust notifications and display of your Google Calendars for today, as well as showing any upcoming all day events for tomorrow.” This one I keep on the right side of the status bar.
• Google Gears 0.4.15.0 – “These are t
  he gears that power the tubes! ”
• Google Notebook 1.0.0.22 – “Allows notetaking while browsing.” Adds nice in-browser functionality. Clicking on the button, which I keep on the right side of my status bar pops up an unobtrusive window that you can use to drag stuff to or edit your notes and manage your notebooks.
• Greasemonkey 0.8.20080609.0 – “A User Script Manager for Firefox.” Very versatle extension. Only takes up a small button on the right side of my status bar. Click to turn on or off. Right-click for options.
• IE Tab 1.5.20080823 – “Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.” I keep this button just to the left of my address bar and to the right of the stop/reload button.
• IE View Lite 1.3.3 – “Cut down version of IE View by Paul Roub.” For when I want to actually open a page in IE rather than in IE within Firefox. I keep it between the IE Tab button and the address bar.
• Image Zoom 0.3.1 – “Adds zoom functionality for images.”
• KeyScrambler 2.2.0 – “KeyScrambler protects you against keyloggers.” Works automatically. Doesn’t require any buttons.
• Link Alert 0.8.2.1 – “Changes the cursor to indicate the target of a link.” Better than Tarket Alert, in my opinion, because it doesn’t clutter up webpages with icons indicating the nature of the target url. Instead, icons appear next to your curser when you mouse over them.
• Linkification 1.3.5 – “Converts text links into genuine, clickable links.”
• Menu Editor 1.2.6 – “Customize application menus.” Good for cleaning up messy menus, putting what you want where you want it.
• MinimizeToTray 0.0.1.2006102615+ – “Minimizes Mozilla windows into the system tray.”
• MR Tech Toolkit (formerly Local Install) 6.0.1 – “MR Tech Toolkit power tools for all users. (en-US)” Very useful extension. I used it to create this extension list. It can also suppress version checking for extensions, so it can force (although not always without complications) compatibility of extensions that haven’t been updated yet for the current version of Firefox or its nightly builds. It does other useful stuff too.
• NoScript 1.8.1.3 – “Extra protection for your Firefox: NoScript allows JavaScript, Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice (e.g. your home-banking web site). This whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach prevents exploitation of security vulnerabilities (known and even unknown!) with no loss of functionality… Experts will agree: Firefox is really safer with NoScript ” Iirc, the button for the upper toolbars has more functionality than the status bar button, plus I spend more time at the top of my browser than the bottom, so I use the toolbar button and suppress the status bar button.
• Open IT Online 1.2.1 – “Open IT Online allows you to open your files online without the need of any software to be installed.”
• Password Exporter 1.1 – “Export and import your saved passwords.” Useful, especially in conjunction with password managers like KeePass.
• Print/Print Preview 0.6 – “Replace the default “Print” button with the Mozilla Suite style “Print/Print Preview” toolbar button/menu, with additional “Page setup” option. Adds new options to context menu as well.” Get more functionality for less space.
• Read it Later 0.9821 – “Save pages to read later, then bookmark.” Adds a little checkmark within the address bar for marking items to be read later. Also adds a functional button on the toolbar; I keep it between the address bar and search bar.
• Refractor for Prism 0.2.1 – “Create Prism applications directly in Firefox.” I’ve been using Chrome to create desktop apps for Google webapps like Gmail, so I’m not sure if I’ll be keeping this. It does the same thing though and if you’re not a Chrome user, you might find it useful.
• Remember The Milk for Gmail 1.0.3 – “Task management goodness.” Enhances Gmail with RTM.
• Screen grab! 0.95 – “Saves a web-page as an image.” I prefer this to Fireshot. It’s a much smaller extension because it lacks Fireshot’s in-browser editing features (but you can just use an external image editor like GIMP) and because basic Fireshot is freeware but it comes with the Pro version, which you have to pay for, built in. I keep the button for it on the right side of my status bar.
• ScribeFire 3.0.1 – “A full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.” Since it pops up a blogpost editor/writer on the bottom of my browser, I keep the button for it on the status bar.
• Socialbrowse 0.5.9.0 – “The easiest way to share links.” Ever since I started using SocialBrowse, I’ve almost completely stopped using StumbleUpon. It’s just so much more fun and easy to use. No toolbar too, although it requires three buttons that have to be just to the right of the address bar, instead of StumbleUpon’s one button. One SB button toggles a sidebar that contains a feed of all the items and comments shared by the people you’re following. Another button toggles a pop-up comment window that appears in the top right of the webpage you’re viewing. The last button you can click to share items; it drops down a menu of categories to choose from and also gives you the option of emailing or tweeting the page. You have the option of having items and comments shared by the people you’re following pop-up in little windows in the bottom right of your browser for a few seconds too.
• Stealther 1.0.6 – “Surf the web without leaving a trace in Firefox.” Single, easy-to-use button I keep on my top toolbar.
• Stop-or-Reload Button 0.2.2 – “Turns the stop and reload buttons into a single one. When you can stop, you have a Stop button, otherwise you have a Reload button. (Like Safari)” Space saver.
• StumbleUpon 3.26 – “StumbleUpon Toolbar.” Toolbar button toggles the toolbar open and closed. Nice space saver that. But I don’t find StumbleUpon as fun and easy to use as SocialBrowse, so I’m contemplating dumping it.
• Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7pre.080830 – “Tab browsing with an added boost.” An absolute must-have extension for me. It’s a major reason why I don’t use the new tab and new window buttons. I have TMP set to automatically open most links into a new tab, including those opened through the address and search bars.
• Tempomail 1.
  0.8 – “Create temporary email addresses to protect your mailbox against spam.” Didn’t like Trashmail so much, so I’m trying this one out. Accessed through the context menu.
• TwitterFox 1.7 – “This extension lets you know twitter statuses.” Very useful. Unlike the other Twitter FF extension, this one doesn’t create a side bar. It’s just an unobtrusive button that displays the number of unread tweets you have beside it. When you receive tweets they pop up in a little window for a few seconds. And you can click on the button to open up a bigger popup window to write and send tweets, read all your tweets and more.
• Ubiquity 0.1.1 – “An extension that allows for the use of dynamic commands in Firefox.” Very cool. Doesn’t take up any space. Just hit Ctr-Space to open a pop-up window and enter commands.
• United States English Dictionary 3.0.3 – “English United States (en-US) spellchecking dictionary.”
• Weave 0.2.6 – “Weave is the Mozilla Labs prototype for online services.” Awesome extension: currently syncs the following between FF on each of your computers: bookmarks, browsing history, cookies, saved passwords, tabs, saved form data, and imput history. Syncing functionality for extensions, themes, search plugins and microformats is planned for the future. Button and, unfortunately, username appear on the status bar; click for options.
• Web Search Pro 2.7.4.2 – “Search the web the way you like.” Useful search bar which includes a resize search bar/address bar feature and drag-and-drop. Replaces the standard FF search bar but retains all the different search services. I don’t use the WSP or DragnDropZones buttons though.
• wundrbar 0.2.2.8 – “A next generation search bar.” Has some similar functions to Ubiquity, but since the Wundrbar search service can be included in FF’s search bar or Web Search Pro search bar, with much (not sure about all) functionality, and because this extension creates another search bar I don’t have room for, and because Ubiquity can do more without taking up any space, I’m not sure I’ll keep it.
• Zotero 1.0.7 – “The Next-Generation Research Tool.” Very useful. I keep the button on the right side of my status bar.

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Okay. I finally caved in and bit the bullet. Follow me if you’re interested. I’m mainly following some libertarians and sci-fi/fantasy authors, editors and publishers at the moment. I also found Amazonmp3 on Twitter, posting daily specials, which I’ve already taken advantage of: Kiss’s Greatest Hits – not my favorite band by any means but you can’t beat 16 songs for a mere $1.99 (usually $7.99), several of them classics.

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