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from the towards-the-perfect-browser dept.
A recent discussion in another submission about how people avoid losing the contents of text fields on poorly behaving webpages made me curious: what sort of browser addons do other readers here find indispensable? Which ones completely change your browsing experience and keep you using your preferred browser? What is it that makes them important to you?
This is a power-user sort of community, so everybody probably has at least one addon to swear by: tell us about it! Don't forget to list what browser the addons are for, though. [Ed. note: Please include a link to the addon, as well.]
An unusual addon that deserves special mention for having the biggest impact on how I use the browser: Ubiquity, an abandoned Mozilla experiment that is still being maintained by the community. It provides a sort of command-line interface that can be called up at any point via a key combination, and can perform a wide range of tasks, from simple searches to browser control.
Many commands are shortcuts to various searches or other information (youtube, wiki, weather, map), but its browser control and page editing commands are what really make Ubiquity useful. It can do things like close multiple tabs based on a string match (close all tabs with Slashdot), or even make local edits to pages and view them on future visits. Being able to highlight (highlight) important parts of a reference document, or select text in another language and have it translated in-line (translate), and then save the changes (save) so they're persistent across visits, is a game-changer.
I don't know why Mozilla abandoned it, but they'll have to pry it from my cold, dead hands. It's the addon that keeps me using Firefox through good times and bad, because no other browser has anything like it.
Carry on reading to see my personal favourites:
My favorites for Firefox are:
Privacy / Security
- HTTPS Everywhere - Uses https by default on sites when possible.
- Ghostery - Tracking blocker.
- NoScript - Blacklist JavaScript, Flash, Silverlight, etc. on untrusted sites.
- Self-Destructing Cookies - Deletes cookies after you close the tabs that use them. Helps avoid cross-site tracking without breaking sites that need cookies to operate.
Must-have addons
- Tree Style Tab - Places browser tabs vertically along the side, using widescreen real estate better than the traditional horizontal tab layout. Also allows grouping of tabs as a nice bonus.
- It's All Text! - Allows you to edit text fields in an external editor of your choice, including any plugins, completion features, etc. that editor has. Also helps avoid content-loss when a site misbehaves.
- YouTube Center - Extra configuration for YouTube, including more control over video sizes. Available in addon or userscript form. Prebuilt versions can be found in the dist directory.
Convenience
- Click-to-Play Per Element - Restores the old Firefox click-to-play behavior. This one replaced Flashblock for me and helps keep sites sane by needing manual Flash activation.
- gui:config - Graphical front-end to many of the most common hidden options from about:config.
- Copy HTML - Easy way to copy text from a page, formatting included. Useful when you want to copy text and links simultaneously, such as when preparing a submission for SoylentNews.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by efitton on Friday September 05 2014, @01:44AM
I do use session manager and adblock. That said, as I told a GNOME developer touting extensions, they suck.
1. Hey, beta software not reviewed by the authors of the main branch. Obviously bigger firefox addons are a different story but...
2. Wack-a-mole. How many addons are there? Do I really want to try and find worthwhile addons? (hey, there is a entire soylent news article to help answer the question!)
3. Security. Are these being reviewed by anyone with firefox?
4. Updates. Firefox updates, the addons don't always update in a timely manner or at all. With GNOME we know they don't.
5. Install enough addons and then see if they conflict and cause problems.
6. (This doesn't apply to me but there are others without high speed internet in the U.S. and abroad) Can only install online. Perhaps with firefox you can download from a library onto a flash drive, etc. For Gnome I know you can't.
What irritates me most with both firefox and GNOME is the addons that clearly should just be a user preference but are not included. This happens much more frequently with the DE than the browser but having an extension to return to previous look and feel is exactly what should be a checkbox rather than an addon or extension.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 05 2014, @09:11AM
I'd say those are the most important problems. The first few points are not different to installing software in general; installing a Firefox extension is neither more nor less dangerous than installing an application you've downloaded. Indeed, you could consider applications to be extensions of your operating system.
You can. Just download the .xpi file. It's the very link you also use to install it.
I guess you could write an extension that tries to load the actual code from the internet at installation time; but such an extension would IMHO be quite suspect anyway.
(Score: 2) by efitton on Friday September 05 2014, @10:56AM
I didn't say I put them in order or importance. ;-)
(Score: 2) by everdred on Friday September 05 2014, @06:19PM
> GNOME (...) touting extensions
Yes. This is precisely what drove me away from Gnome 3. If I need to rely on community-created extensions to implement basic desktop functionality, and said community developers need to be actively involved in marking their extensions as compatible with new versions, this isn't going to work for me.