Interrupt19

Photo courtesy of Mozilla

The best feature of Firefox is the ability to customize it using third-party, open source add ons. There are hundreds of these extensions that customize Firefox to do just about anything you would want it to do. Of course, some of these add ons are better than others. The following ten recommended extensions drastically improve Firefox’s usability.

Firefox Showcase:
If you’ve been using Firefox for a while, you know how great tabbed browsing can be. You also know how confusing it can get when you have a ton of them open. Firefox Showcase will help you manage your open tabs and find what you need. Working like Expose in OS X, all of your tabs will open up in one screen. Just click on the tab you are looking for and you will be taken right there.

Undo Closed Tabs:
I am always accidentally closing the wrong tab or searching for a tab that I already closed but need to view again. Now, I can re-open either a recently or accidentally closed tab easily using the Undo Closed Tabs extension.

DownloadThemAll!:
A download manager extension that works inside of Firefox. Also a download accelerator, DownloadThemAll! increases your download speed and allows you to download everything from a webpage or customize what you want to download - all the images off a page for example.

Firefox Universal Uploader:
Download managers are convenient but what about when you need to upload files to a site? If you’ve ever uploaded a ton of files or pictures to a photo sharing or printing website, you know the pain of selecting and uploading a hundred files. Firefox Universal Uploader allows you to easily upload (and download) from sites such as Flickr, Picasa, Facebook, Webshots, and Google Docs.

Flashblock:
Online video is wonderful and Flash is great but honestly sometimes it either isn’t necessary or just gets in the way. With an older computer, a flash ridden website can easily slow Firefox to a crawl. With Flashblock you can control flash embedded websites. If you want to see the embedded Flash, just click on it to load it. Highly recommended if you have an older or low-spec computer.

NoScript:
NoScript is the king of protecting you against malware infested websites. Most unsavory sites and cross-site scripting that can harm your computer will do so using javascript embedded code. NoScript blocks all Javascript from websites unless you OK it. Whether permanently or temporarily, the only javascript that runs is the javascript you allow. It takes some getting used to, as almost all sites use javascript and some sites don’t act properly without it. Just allow the script if you trust the site and everything will be normal again.

WOT:
If you are concerned about phishing attempts, scams and malware sending websites, WOT is for you. WOT Warns you about risky websites by rating them according to trustworthiness, reliability, privacy and child safety.

BugMeNot:
I have to admit, I really hate having to give my email out and register to be spammed just to enter a website to look around or read an article. When I found out about BugMeNot, I was thrilled. Now, its even easier to use BugMeNot with the BugMeNot Firefox Extension.

PicLens:
If you spend a good amount of time searching for online images, PicLens makes life much easier. Instead of waiting for the next page to reload, you get a 3-D wall of images that you can easily browse through. Works with Google Images, Amazon, Flickr, Yahoo, YouTube and more.

Quick Translation:
Need to read a webpage in another language but don’t understand it? Quick Translation will translate any word you highlight using the Babylon translation engine. Supported languages include: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, French, German, Russian, Korean, Greek, Turkish, Arabic and Japanese. A helpful tool unless you’re trying to translate an unsupported language..