Minimal Firefox 2 Add-ons

Last updated: November 24, 2006

Firefox 2 Add-onsUseful extensions for Firefox for web browsing and web development.

There are thousands of add-ons for Firefox. In this list I have concentrated on those extensions that minimize and cleans Firefox user interface and makes web browsing easier and more effective. Last part is for extensions for web developers.

Web Browsing

  • Aging Tabs: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Makes unused tabs fade with age and highlights the selected tab. If you usually have many tabs open at the same time, this extension might be visually helpful.
  • All-in-One Sidebar: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Sidebar control lets you quickly switch between sidebars, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions, and more in the sidebar, or view source code or websites in the sidebar. This extensions cleans nicely the user interface by gathering all opening windows into sidebar.
  • BetterSearch: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    While waiting for Firefox 2 version look GooglePreview. Enhances Google, A9, MSN, Yahoo, Answers.com (web results), AllTheWeb, del.icio.us, Ask.com, Clusty.com, Vivismo.com, Dogpile and Simpy.com by adding preview thumbnails and Amazon product info as well as new special links to the search results.
    This extensions is great with search sites as well as with del.icio.us lists to help to memorise the tagged sources.
  • Blogger Web Comments: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Waiting for Firefox 2 version. Post and read comments on any webpage. You can see on any web page list of blogs which have a links to the current page.
  • BugMeNot: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Bypass compulsory web registration with the context menu via www.bugmenot.com.
  • del.icio.us: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Keep, share and discover all your favorite thins. For del.icio.us users. There is a new extension by del.icio.us called del.icio.us Bookmarks. It integrates more tightly with Firefox’s bookmarking system, so it conflicts with other extensions like Google Browser Sync and Foxmarks. The new extension might be worth trying.
  • FaviconizeTab: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage Added 2006-11-24
    The width of the specified tab becomes small up to the size of favicon. This is a must tab space saver add-on!
  • FxIF: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    View EXIF data in image properties.
  • Google Notebook: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Allows notetaking while browsing. Well, for Google Notebook users this is a must.
  • GooglePreview: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Inserts web site thumbnail previews in Google and Yahoo search results. This extension feels faster than BetterSearch.
  • Greasemonkey: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    A user script manager.
  • IE View Lite: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Cut down version of IE View (Firefox add-ons page). Open Internet Explorer view in a tab. IE View and IE Tab extensions does the same thing, but both of these extensions use C++ code to do their thing, which means they use DLLs, which means they’re larger than the JavaScript-based IE View Lite and more susceptible to changes not only in Firefox but in Windows itself.
  • IE View: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Opens pages in IE via Firefox menus. There is also IE View Lite (Firefox add-ons page), which is, according to the author, a cut down version of IE View. Both of them allow the current page or a selected link to be opened in Internet Explorer. Third option is IE Tab (Firefox add-ons page), which works like IE View but opens IE pages in Firefox tab. IE Tab extension uses C++ code to do its thing, which means it uses DLLs, which means it’s larger than the JavaScript-based IE View and more susceptible to changes not only in Firefox but in Windows itself.
  • Menu Editor: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Customize application menus. This is a nice way to hide unnecessary menu items.
  • Mouse Gestures: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Allows you to execute common commands using mouse gestures.
  • New Tab Button on Tab Bar: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Adds a new tab button to the tab bar. When you have only couple tabs, it is easy to open new tab by double-clicking empty area on tab bar. But when there is no empty space, New Tab Button on Tab Bar extension is handy.
    Now that Tab Mix Plus is Firefox 2 compatible and if you use it, it includes this extension’s functionality.
  • SearchStatus: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Display the Google PageRank and Alexa ranking with search-related tools.
  • Stealther: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Surf the web without leaving a trace in a Firefox.
  • Stop-or-Reload Button: Firefox add-ons page :: homepageTurns the stop and reload buttons into a single one. When you can stop, you have a Stop button, otherwise you have a Reload button. This is a small extension to minimise a little user interface.
  • Stylish: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Customize the look of websites and of the user interface. This is a must extension if you want to tweak Firefox user interface. For example to show only those web site icons on tabs that have a favicon and fade the not selected tabs icons like in Flock web browser (I guess code needs some cleaning):
    @namespace url(http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul);
    /* Fade just the icon */
    .tabbrowser-tabs tab:not([selected="true"]) .tab-icon {
      -moz-opacity: 0.25 !important;
      display: -moz-box !important;
    }
    .tabbrowser-tabs tab:not([selected="true"]) *|tab:not([image]) .tab-icon {
      display: none !important;
    }
    .tabbrowser-tabs tab:not([selected="true"]) .tab-text {
      margin-left: 2px !important;
    }
    .tabbrowser-tabs tab[selected="true"] .tab-icon {
      -moz-opacity: 1 !important;
      margin-top: 1px !important;
    }
    /* Alternatively, kill only default tabbrowser icons (no site icon) */
    .tabbrowser-tabs *|tab:not([image]) .tab-icon {
      display: none !important;
    }
    /* Show icons (no matter what) when hovering over the tab */
    .tabbrowser-tabs *|tab:hover .tab-icon {
      -moz-opacity: 1 !important;
    }
  • Tab Mix Plus: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Tab browsing with an added boost. This is a must., but waiting for Firefox 2 version…
  • Tab Sidebar: Firefox add-ons page :: homepage
    Displays previews of your tabs in your sidebar. Occationally this might come handy.

Web Development

9 thoughts on “Minimal Firefox 2 Add-ons”

  1. Hi, I’m the dev of BetterSearch, thanks for the mention. 🙂 I released a new version of BetterSearch (v1.13) on Saturday, which is FF2.0-compatible.

    Just letting you know.

    Cheers,
    Carlo

  2. Thanks for the tip. Updated the new version of BetterSearch and it’s working great. Well, one thing I noticed is that Thumbshots.org and WebShotsPro.com thumbnails image quality is not as good as GooglePreview’s.

  3. GooglePreview is using a paid service for the thumbnails. Since I have no data regarding how many people are using the extension how often, I can’t make any predictions or guesses about the monthly fee I’d have to pay for a pay service, and so I am unsure about how to proceed.

    I am kind of reluctant to sell my liver for better thumbnails for my users, if you know what I mean. 🙂 If I could calculate the projected monthly cost in a working way, it’d be easier to make a decision. I can’t, and so I went with free services.

    But if you are talking about the “quantity”, i.e. which preview thumbnails are available, then I think it’ll get better soon. The more people are using webshotspro.com, the more thumbnails will be generated, since more different requests are made. If an image doesn’t exist on their machines, then it’s added to the generation queue, and available shortly thereafter. The more people are using BetterSearch, the more thumbnails will be generated. Makes sense?

  4. I wasn’t aware of that. Thank you for explaining. I did mean the quality and as a free sevices I agree that Thumbshots and WebShotPro are a way to go. 🙂 And about quantity, yes, that makes sense. I browsed the websites of those services in order to get to know them better and I guess the combination of those two is working well.

  5. Umm… what gave you the impression that IE View is written in anything other than Javascript? IE Tab does, indeed use native code, but IE View is all JS. The size difference between IE View and IE View Lite distributions is basically due to some missing features, no icon, and an english-language-only implementation in IE View Lite. The actual runtime memory use of the two is virtually identical.

  6. Thanks for the comment and clarification, Paul. My mistake, I corrected the listing. In fact there is a mistake in InforamtionWeek’s article about IE View saying that it would be coded with C++. I trusted them too much without checking…

  7. Pingback: Minimizr » Blog Archive » PageAddict Firefox Add-on for Internet Addicted and Statisticians

  8. Pingback: Minimizr » Blog Archive » Firefox 2 Tabs Add-on FaviconizeTab

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