Lets say your computer has limited resources and you can only use five Firefox add-ons when browsing the Internet. Tell me, which would you choose and why. I’m currently cutting down on the Firefox extensions that I’m actively using because I felt that Firefox was using to much memory when I started it without opening a website at all.
This was largely due to the massive amount of extensions and themes that I had installed. After discovering that I could reduce the memory usage of Firefox by more than 15 Megabytes by simply reducing the amount of add-ons and themes I was using I decided to do just that.
I removed all themes but the default one and got rid of a handful of add-ons that I was using either because it was convenient to use them or because they would add a function that I was using from time to time. Add-ons that fell into this category where the Adsense Notifier add-on, the Google Toolbar, the StumbleUpon Toolbar, Gmail Notifier, Tab Mix Plus and others.
Several of the features that I was using were also available in one extension. As an example, the Search Status extension is displaying the Pagerank and the Alexa rank of the active website and I was able to remove the Google Toolbar and the Alexa Toolbar because of this.
I added Gmail to Thunderbird which made the Gmail Notifier obsolete because I run Thunderbird all day long. Five add-ons remained after this that I can’t live without, they are:
Adblock Plus – that’s my number one Firefox extension, can’t live without it.
Firebug – if you are a web developer you need this extension. It displays an unbelievable amount of information, great when working with CSS for instance.
Greasemonkey – a wonderful add-on that adds so much functionality.
Search Status – displays the Pagerank and Alexa rank among other things. Offers great information if you do SEO.
Tiny Menu – can’t live without the Tiny Menu anymore. All my menus, address bar and everything else is in one row on top. Saves lots of space.
Which Firefox add-ons can’t you live without ?
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Firefox Extensions that I use
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Personal Menu for Firefox
Adblock plus- love it
Greasemonkey- like you said- adds so much functionality
Speed dial- I find that really really useful
Stumble toolbar if you count that as an add-on- what would I do with my free time without that?
NoScript- love it, ok may be a pain to keep having to accept pages but it also blocks ads and other nasties :D
Great blog as always :D
Screen estate isn’t a premium on my box, although I do have a minimal layout. If I was limited to 5, I’d probably say ABP, StumbleUpon, FaviconizeTab, Stylish and PersonalMenu (I prefer the consistency of using an icon).
for me:
downloadhelper
ie tab
flashgot
Greasemonkey
Minifox theme
Downloadthemall
Faviconizetab
Fullerscreen
I have to really be careful when I goto friends houses because I want to install a bunch of extensions on their firefox.
Firebug – Perfect for programming, also very useful for downloading hidden things such as backgroundmusic and so on ;)
FireFTP – Fast, easy to handle. Like it very much for hosting my files.
Adblock Plus – Nothing left to say :)
All-in-One Sidebar – Looks nice, gives you a good overview.
Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer – Who don’t like to have his bookmarks on every Computer available. Automatic synchronizing.
If there are some “mistakes” in my comment: Call it swiss-english, but I wanted it like that :D
Here are my top 5, most quite developer related:
- Web Developer
- Search Status
- ColorZilla
- Dictionary Search
- Fint Finder
But in fact, I need at least 10 add-ons minimum as an absolute must…
my favorites, as a user and not developper, are:
- download statusbar(very useful to get rid of the download window)
- mouse gestures (an absolute must-have for me. my fav one from far)
- adblock plus (huge must-have too)
- unofficial googlebar (with instant search and highlights)
- scrapbook(very useful for cleaning and preparing a page before printing it or storing it)
after that, I still didn’t figured out how to use greasemonkey correctly to make it useful for me. And for development, the developer toolbar is a must-have too.
Sorry, but I don’t see any point in cutting add-ons:
======================
Created: Fri Jan 04 2008 23:55:47 GMT+0200 (FLE Standard Time)
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; ru; rv:1.8.1.11) Gecko/20071127 Firefox/2.0.0.11
ID сборки: 2007112718
Extensions: [25]
- Adblock Plus 0.7.5.3: http://adblockplus.org/
- Back to Top 5.0: http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions
- CLEO 3.1: http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions
- DOM Inspector 1.8.1.11: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/inspector/
- DownloadHelper 2.5.3: http://www.downloadhelper.net
- Dr.Web anti-virus link checker 1.0.15: http://www.drweb.com/
- ErrorZilla Mod 0.2: http://www.jaybaldwin.com/News.aspx?id=51
- Fasterfox 2.0.0: http://fasterfox.mozdev.org/
- FEBE 5.1.1: http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions
- FlashGot 0.7.1: http://flashgot.net
- Forecastfox Enhanced 0.9.5.2: http://users.rcn.com/shoofy/forecastfox_enhanced/
- FoxyProxy 2.6.2: http://foxyproxy.mozdev.org
- ImgLikeOpera 0.6.15: http://imglikeopera.mozdev.org/
- Java Console 6.0.03: http://www.google.com/search?q=Firefox%20Java%20Console
- Morning Coffee 1.26: http://shaneliesegang.com/projects/coffee.php
- Mouse Gestures 1.5.2: http://www.mousegestures.org/
- MR Tech Local Install 5.3.2.6: http://www.mrtech.com/extensions/local_install/
- NoScript 1.1.9.6: http://noscript.net
- OpenBook 1.3.4.1: http://www.chuonthis.com/extensions/
- Speed Dial 0.5.0.7: http://speeddial.uworks.net/
- Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6: http://tmp.garyr.net
- Talkback 2.0.0.11: http://talkback.mozilla.org/
- Ukrainian dictionary 1.4.0: http://ispell-uk.sourceforge.net/
- United States English Dictionary 2.0.0.6: http://www.blogzilla.info/spellchecker/
- VideoDownloader 1.1.1: http://videodownloader.net/
Themes: [2]
- Firefox (default): http://www.mozilla.org/
- Noia 2.0 (eXtreme) 3.371: http://kasteo.deviantart.com/
Plugins: (5)
- Java(TM) Platform SE 6 U3
- Microsoft® DRM
- Mozilla Default Plug-in
- Shockwave Flash
- Windows Media Player Plug-in Dynamic Link Library
=================
And all that with 9 open pages – below 70Mb (~68), what is slim against my 1 Gb of RAM on my home PC (on working PC I got 2 Gb).
Ad block plus – you don’t realise just how much this does until you use someone elses computer
Tiny menu – Screen space is precious ona 1280×800 laptop
delicious – how did I cope without tagged bookmarks before?
google toolbar – Yes I know theres google built into firefox, but one search box can control pretty much all my google apps, and theres loads more functionaility built in
greasemonkey – as said already, its just so damn good
As others have said
-Webdeveloper
-SearchStatus
-delicious bookmarks
-Adblock Plus
-HTML Validator
bonus add-ons (if we get to go over 5)
-MeasureIt
Adblock Plus
IE Tab
All In One Sidebar
Download Helper
Download Statusbar
Ad Block Plus w/ Rick’s list
Flashblock
NoScript
Gmail Manager
Tab Mix Plus
Martin you are not making sense. You saved 15 whole MB? Wow. That’s impressive [not].
How much physical memory do you have on your computer? I have 2GB.
I just restarted FF to get a reading of memory reading minus the usual memory leak so well known to FF users. With 54 tabs open in 2 windows, I am using:
InMem KB….Private KB….Total KB
259,112…….248,136…….399,612
Would 15MB make any real difference in these totals? I think not. I have over 1GB of free Windows memory available right now.
Anyway, if I had to choose only 5 FF apps (out of the 40 or so I have installed), I might choose:
1. Adblock PLus
2. Scrapbook
3. Noscript
4. Flashblock
5. Permit cookies
If you gave me 5 more, I’d add:
6. Cooliris
7. Plain old Favorites
8. IE View
9. Fetch Text URL
10. Download Helper
- All in one Gestures, Closing tabs with an L rocks
- Flashblock, No you can’t play music or show a goofy ad!
- Google Toolbar – Autofill, Bookmarks, Highlighted searches, so much power…
- Tabbrowser Preferences, set in my tabbed browsing ways.
- ColorfulTabs, silly yet mildly useful.
-Adblock Plus
-Firebug
-Web Developer
-Auto Copy
-DownThemAll
Bonus:
-ColorfulTabs
-Adblock Plus
-Stumbleupon toolbar
-CustomizeGoogle (no longer need to click “Next Page” to see more results as the page scrolls endlessly!)
-Hyperwords
-Greasemonkey
Adblock Plus
Auto Copy
No script
Personal Menu
Download Statusbar
———–
Almost there:
Fission
Searchbar Autosizer
Greasemonkey
1. Canadian-English dictionary
2. Customize-google ( when it works) :/
3. Downloadthemall!
4. About this site bookmarks
5. Fission
Noteables
6. Orbit Downloader firefox integration
7.Password exporter
Can’t live without Mouse Gestures
I’d go for the following five:
- Hit-A-Hint: keyboard shortcuts to all links/fields
- ViewMyCurrency – automatically translate all currencies to your local currency
- Download Statusbar – better download status.
- Firebug: for JavaScript debugging
- Google Notebook: for saving snippets and pages publish them as RSS
(Adblock Plus makes my browser way too slow…)
1. Adblock Plus – very useful to clean up frequently visited sites
2. All-in-One Gestures – mouse gestures
3. ScrapBook – incredible useful add-on for web based researches that allows you to save and annotate any web page.
4. Tab Mix Plus
5. Flashblock – useful for slow machines when visit the web pages full of flashes
1. Adblock Plus
2. Scrapbook
3. Firebug
4. Unplug
5. KeyScrambler
My top five:
1. Tab Mix Plus
2. Adblock Plus
3. Download Statusbar
4. Greasemonkey
5. Past and Go 2 (this one is very useful)