Firefox Addons (2010)

Its 5 years since I adopted Firefox as the primary browser. Ever since I have managed to get it into over 20 households. People love it once they see its secure, fast and the best. Over 2 years back I listed some of the best addons for firefox, Guess its time to do it again. But before that here are some key facts on Firefox

1. Its open source (mozilla project)

2. Its sister softwares are thunderbird (email client) and Sunbird (Calendar app)

3. Mozilla has integrated these apps into SeaMonkey a single application for Internet requirements.

4. On firefox, ver 4 (currently 3.6.4) is going have a 64 bit version with its addons and extensions.

5. Check out the browser market share stats at http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

PLUGINs
Firefox comes with various plugins. All plugins can be accessed from the following link - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/
Upon installing firefox, the first step is to install the plugins you require. The most important plugins you should not forget to add are - Adobe Flash and Media Player plugins.

Adblock Plus
This is a fantastic Ad blocker to firefox. Adblock Plus replaces my previous utility Adblock. Adblock has its own subscriptions facility that helps keeps ads under check. It also can be customized based on the website we visit. Its so good, You will never realize you have it in your browser.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: ****
Utility Value: *****


NoScript
This particular addon is amazing. It secures your browser to the highest level. All sites through numerous scripts that are intrusive and annoying if not dangerous. Noscript gives one the power to control what sites are allowed. Don't trust my word, check it out yourself. Install this addon, go to a website like weather.com (it may not load properly at first). Checkout the small icon (S sign with a strike across it in red) on the status bar of the browser. Click on it and it will reveal all the other host sites that have scripts on weather.com. Just allow the base URL (address) and your website will be rendered properly but preventing other sites you want to keep out of your browser. Use it for its the best addon of all. Again it is simple to use for me but not for some of my friends.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: **
Utility Value: *****

Forecastfox
This is a great weather forecast addon to your browser, It hooks up with Accuweather to bring you an updated weather information. Not only that, if you travel frequently like me, you will love it even more, just create all your towns and cities and just with a click of a button, you can get the updated weather on any city you want. It is fantastic considering it pulls weather info for cities in India as well. It was amazingly simple to configure and operate for me, But my wife took sometime to figure how it works.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: ****
Utility Value: ****

XMarks (formerly Foxmarks)
This is an addon for firefox that helps in synchronizing your bookmarks (favorites in IE) across your computers. Its very useful to me since, whenever I update my bookmarks, Foxmarks helps to synchronize them at my home computer, my wife's computer, my parents' computer as well as my in-law's computer. This way all of us are able to view the same bookmarks. Foxmarks not only gives you an option to download bookmarks but also merges with the one you might not want to delete. This way you can choose to merge/overwrite the bookmarks. Be careful on what you choose, else you will lose all your bookmarks on the server.

The recent feature improvement is sync up your passwords. But I do not trust it yet for that purporse, I use another utility for that.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: ***
Utility Value: ****

Firefox Sync

This is a mozilla labs addon. Helps one stay in sync with their Firefox by providing access to history, passwords, bookmarks and even open tabs across all devices.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: *****
Utility Value: ****

IE Tab Plus (better than IE Tab)

An enhanced version of IE Tab with Adblock Plus in IE supported. It also allows you import settings from IE Tab and synchronize cookies between IE and Firefox. Supports Firefox 3.6 and beyond.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: *****
Utility Value: ****

FireFTP

FireFTP is a free FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: *****
Utility Value: ****

ScribeFire
This is an addon for firefox for active Bloggers. It connects to various Blogs and helps you to configure your account on Scribefire. Scribefire offers an editor like interface (just like the one your blog service provides). The editor comes up on your firefox by clicking a small notepad icon on your status bar. This is fantastic to post something on your blog. Scribefire has come a long way and the latest version is very simple and easy to you. Try it and you will like it a lot. Please note Scribefire would put in a non-intrusive Ad on all you posting. But if you reload the post, remove the ad & re-publish it, it goes off.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: *****
Utility Value: *****


Dictionary (spell check)
This is a quite addon, it sits on your browser advising the user whenever he types emails or writes something on websites or on Scribefire about spellings. It just puts a red underline on words that are mis-spelt. Just right click and correct your spellings. People who like the spell check in MS Word, will find an amazing similarity in using this addon. Its a must have addon

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: *****
Utility Value: *****


Cooliris

The Cooliris 3D Wall -- The fastest and most stunning way to browse photos and videos from the Web or your desktop. Effortlessly scroll an infinite "3D Wall" of content from Facebook, Google, YouTube, Flickr, and more. Even watch TV shows & movies.

Personal Ratings
Ease of Use: *****
Utility Value: *****

Hope this article is of use to all Firefox users.