CamDawg Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 I'll spare the litany as to why y'all should be using Firefox (or at least not using IE). That being said, there a huge number of extensions and I'm always on the prowl for new and nifty stuff. So, here's your chance to share your extensions with everyone. I'll start with an article I put together a few months back for the myself and the other web developers in the office: While addons.mozilla.org is the repository for Firefox/Mozilla extensions, there are various reasons why you may want to check the home pages for these extensions directly. The home pages will often have more recent versions available, or betas--the latter being very important after major releases of the browser and its ancillary extension architecture changes. Must-Have Extensions The following extensions are what I would consider a baseline for using Firefox as a development tool. Checky Adds a context menu with a ton of validators--XHTML, CSS, RSS, accessibility, etc. etc. (Most of the common ones are already in Web Developer, below, but this list is huge.) Checky, unfortunately, has not yet been updated to be compatible with Firefox 1.5. Colorzilla Adds an eyedropper tool to Firefox, which allows you to get hex values for any color on a page. Fangs Shows a preview of what the current page would look like in a screen reader--great for checking accessibility. Unfortunately, it has also not been updated for Firefox 1.5. HTML Validator A fantastic extension based in the W3C Tidy validation tool. Validates XHTML on the fly as you visit pages. Even better, it adds validation and highlighting to the View Source function, and can even suggest corrections. The validation is generally stricter than the W3C's online validator. The newer versions have also started adding some accessibility validation. LinkChecker With one click, it will follow every link on a page and tell you if the links are 404/invalid. Web Developer Top dog of the development tools. You can view styling for specific elements, edit CSS live on a page, outline images/block elements/custom items, and a whole mess of other functionality. Includes basic validators (not as many as Checky) including a load-time analysis. Other Useful Development Extensions While not in the 'must-have' category, there are many extensions which can still be useful for development. Google Pagerank Status The Google Pagerank Status extension queries Google for the pagerank of the current page. Pagerank is a rough measure of how highly Google ranks the current page, which is a critical factor in getting listed in Google search results. GreaseMonkey GreaseMonkey allows users to run arbitrary scripts on any given page. The scripts can enhance functionality of the page or simply remove common annoyances. While extremely powerful, the model is not without risk as GreaseMonkey has had a few security holes since its inception. Also, developing your own script can be time-consuming. IE Tab (Windows only) Slightly different than IE View (below), IE Tab opens a site in a new tab using the IE rendering engine but keeps it within the Firefox application. MeasureIt MeasureIt allows you to get the height and width, in pixels, of any element on a web page. NoScript Essentially a whitelisting mechanism for pages using scripts, it can temporarily or permanently allow sites to execute client-side scripts. ShowIP Displays the IP address of the current site in the status bar. Venkman Javascript Debugger A powerful console for debugging Javascript. Unfortunately, it has not been updated for Firefox 1.5 yet. View Cookies Adds a "cookie" tab to the "Page Properties" dialog box that shows all cookies in use by the current page. Non-Development Extensions Adblock Nuke any image/flash object/frame/script from a page. Supports wild card and regexp filtering. Adblock Filterset.G Updater Filterset.G is a fairly comprehensive and up-to-date list of elements to be blocked by Adblock. It updates itself regularly and supplements (not supplants) your existing Adblock list. Bork Bork Bork A completely silly extension. It changes any text on a page to the language of the Swedish Chef from the Muppet Show. Also available for Thunderbird--it will automatically Bork spam email. ChatZilla ChatZilla is an IRC client for Firefox. Customize Google Customize Google adds a number of useful changes to the Google site, such as being able to directly go to images returned by the Google search or adding links to run searches through alternate search engines with one-click. Disable targets for downloads Some downloads spawn a new page or tab when downloading; this prevents this. Forecastfox Adds current weather forecast and a radar map to the browser. IE View (Windows only) For bad, evil sites that require IE, this adds a right-click option to open the current link in IE. LiveBookmarkThis Adds a context menu option to add a link to your bookmarks as a Live Bookmark (RSS) instead of a regular bookmark. Opera View Like IE View, except that it launches the current link in the Opera browser. Plain text Links Allows you to highlight text and then open it as a link from the context menu. Useful for old sites which have web addresses in their pages but don't actually link them. Sage An RSS and Atom feed aggregator integrated with Firefox. Sort Extensions Once you install all of these extensions, you'll want to be able to sort them. Spoofstick An anti-phishing extension, it displays the actual URL of the site in case the address bar is taken over or includes deceptive characters. Unfortunately, this extension has not been updated for Firefox 1.5. Tabbrowser Preferences Highly recommended; adds a lot of extra preferences and controls for using tabs. Targetkiller Eliminates any target= from links to prevent new windows. Wiki-Quick-Find Highlight text, right-click, and it will be submitted to the Wikipedia as a search. However Checky, Fangs, and Spoofstick have not been updated for FF 1.5. Anyone else have any recommendations? edit: Fixed Greasemonkey link Link to comment
Macready Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 Hello - You already have my two favs, AdBlock and NoScript. FWIW when EasyTutu was only listed at PPG, Firefox held a ~10% lead over MSIE as the most common browser used to visit the page. Once I advertised it at SP, MSIE retook the lead by a solid margin. So I'd say a good portion of mod-savvy BG'ers already prefer Firefox. Link to comment
jester Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 Makes me wonder, if I should switch from opera. Link to comment
devSin Posted January 30, 2006 Share Posted January 30, 2006 However Checky, Fangs, and Spoofstick have not been updated for FF 1.5. Anyone else have any recommendations?Safari. Link to comment
icelus Posted January 31, 2006 Share Posted January 31, 2006 Damn you, CamDawg. Another hour out my life spent making a list! Adblock Filterset.G UpdaterSynchronizes Adblock with Filterset.G Adblock Plus Filters ads from web pages AI Roboform Toolbar for Firefox (Requires AI-Roboform) Allows to use Roboform in Firefox Bookmark Backup Creates a backup of your bookmarks each day Cache Status Easy cache status & management from status bar Disable Targets for Downloads Prevents download links opening a blank window Download Statusbar View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar DownThemAll! The mass downloader for Firefox FLST Focus Last Selected Tab FoxyTunes Control any media player from Firefox and more... Google Safe Browsing Warns you about fraudulent web pages Google Toolbar for Firefox Take the power of Google with you anywhere on the Web! IE Tab Open IE-only pages in "embedded IE" IE View Open pages in IE via Firefox menus MR Tech About:About Adds about: options to Help Menu and Toolbar buttons MR Tech Disable XPI Install Delay Disables default delay when installing extensions PDF Download Allows to choose what you want to do with a PDF file: download it, view it with an external viewer or view it as HTML Print Allow printing via context menu Print Preview Creates a Print Preview toolbar button and context menu item Show Image Adds context menu entry to reload images that failed to show on page Sort Extensions and Themes Sorts the lists of installed extensions and themes alphabetically SpiderZilla Spiderzilla is an easy-to-use website mirror utility Tab Mix Plus Tab browsing with an added boost Tabbrowser Preferences Enhances control over some aspects of tabbed browsing Text Link Allows URI texts written in webpages to be loaded by double clicks Yahoo! Toolbar Mozilla version of the Yahoo! Toolbar Link to comment
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