Comments on: How do you use your Firefox?

By: How do you use instant messaging?

How do you use instant messaging? — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 10:42:52 +0000

[...] we had a look at how you all use your browser, then how you listen to music and watch videos, now it’s time to find out about instant [...]

By: How do you use your media player?

How do you use your media player? — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 17:08:10 +0000

[...] up on last week’s much commented article about how you guys use your Firefox, I decided to also take a look at how you use your media player applications. This is perhaps a bit [...]

By: Firefox addon Friday 3/13/09 « Teck~Line

Firefox addon Friday 3/13/09 « Teck~Line — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 00:04:11 +0000

[...] How do you use your Firefox? (ghacks.net) [...]

By: Peter Owen

Peter Owen — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 13:14:37 +0000

I use several plugins, but I think I’ve found my satiation point for them. I posted about which plugins I use and why here: http://is.gd/kG0V

By: Daniel Pataki

Daniel Pataki — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:49:50 +0000

Hi Idodialog!

First of all, thanks for sharing that list, even though I use as few addons as I can, I am always open to new stuff.

I also completely disagree about the addon quality part. Most of them are above excellent, and I don’t think many people use the ones which are not :)

By: Daniel Pataki

Daniel Pataki — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 12:12:48 +0000

Hi nessa!

Mouse gestures are really easy :) You can go into advanced stuff and use them for a lot of things, but I mainly use them for navigation (back and forward).

This just involves holding down the right button and dragging left or right, I think that’s pretty simple :)

By: slapjimmy

slapjimmy — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:03:46 +0000

i used to use no addscript etc but i found them all too annoying. all it really does is teach you how to click “i agree”. if i infect myself i clean the infection. combofix is awesome btw.

my fav addons are:
quickdrag: to drag selected txt to google search
tab new homepage
ie7: new style tab button
text link: fixes links that are embedded
aging tabs: shows the tabs u clicked last in order of fading colour
net-usage

By: Idodialog

Idodialog — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:10:45 +0000

I use Chrome for minimalist but FF for all the heavy lifting, its my daily home. I entirely disagree about the quality of add-ons – most are excellent tho startup does take a hit, however I never have a crash and it runs fast and smooth and unlike Chrome can cope with lots of tabs started around the same time.
I’m going to bare my soul – here are my add-ons most of which I refuse to live without!
1. AdblockFilterset.GUpdater.xpi — Synchronizes Adblock with Filterset.G
2. AdblockPlus.xpi — Ads were yesterday!
3. AddBookmarkHere.xpi — Add a menuitem “Add Bookmark Here…” to Bookmarks Menu.
4. AutoPager.xpi — AutoPager is a firefox/mozilla extensions to autoloading next page at backgrand.And you can use it an XPath generator too.
5. BetterGmail2.xpi — Enhances Gmail with a compilation of useful features written by Greasemonkey user script developers. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.
6. CompactMenu2.xpi — Duplicates the menubar on the toolbar as a menu of menus.
7. Cooliris.xpi — Cooliris (formerly PicLens) transforms your browser into a full-screen 3D Wall for searching, viewing and sharing the Web.
8. CustomizeGoogle.xpi — Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam
9. DownThemAll.xpi — The mass downloader for Firefox.
10. DownloadStatusbar.xpi — View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar
11. FEBE.xpi — Backup your Firefox data
12. FoxTab.xpi — Quickly switch between tabs using interactive tab switching modes.
13. FoxmarksBookmarkSynchronizer.xpi — Synchronizes your bookmarks across machines.
14. GoogleRedesigned.xpi — A complete redesign of popular Google services
15. GoogleToolbarforFirefox.xpi — Take the power of Google with you anywhere on the Web!
16. Googlepedia.xpi — Shows you a relevant wikipedia article along with your search results.
17. IETab.xpi — Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.
20. PDFDownload.xpi — Allows you to choose what to do with a PDF file: download it, view it with an external viewer or view it as HTML.
21. QuickDrag.xpi — Extends the function of the drag-and-drop mouse gesture so that it can be used to load URLs, do a web search of selected text on a page, or save an image on a page.
22. RefractorforPrism.xpi — Create Prism applications directly in Firefox
23. Stylish.xpi — Restyle the web with Stylish, a user styles manager.
24. TabMixPlus.xpi — Tab browsing with an added boost.
25. TextLink.xpi — Allows URI texts written in webpages to be loaded by double clicks.
26. UndoClosedTabsButton.xpi — Add a toolbar and/or tab bar button to undo closed tabs
27. UrlbarExt.xpi — Extends the Location Bar with set of commands to (Make Tiny URL,Copy URL,Search site,Go up,Tag pages easily ,Navigate through sequential URL’s,Unblock filtered websites and Surf anonymously using online phproxy servers)
28. iterasiExtension.xpi — for Iterasi.com

By: nessa

nessa — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 08:01:47 +0000

@Rick (not the same Rick as above): Hey, Thanks for the advice. I have tried full screen but I like my taskbar too much, I have loads of windows open when I’m working or studying. Not found an alternative to the taskbar that I am comfortable with. :)
@Daniel Pataki : I think I should look into mouse gestures now, was too wimpy or lazy to learn how to use them so far.

By: Daniel Pataki

Daniel Pataki — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:34:02 +0000

Wow. lot’s of comments here, it was interesting to read how you all approach addons.

I was surprised that none of you mentioned mouse gestures which elliminate the need for back and stop and forward buttons completely, and can even replace bookmarks somewhat.

Dante had a comment that many users who pack FF full of addons are like showing off geeks. I actually do think it’s true sometimes, but not too much. I do think for some people they think they’re somehow more proficient the more addons they have, but I don’t think this is the majority.

All in all, addons are damn useful, if you need the speed and resposiveness though you’ll have to make compromises. Although I found that once I stopped and had 5 addons instead of 25, I didn’t really miss the others.

By: Dustin C

Dustin C — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:16:19 +0000

My Firefox install comes with almost no addons. the only one i really use is tab to window.

the only bar i have is my nav bar with the file menu stuff, nav buttons, url bar and the search bar all on one row, then my bookmark toolabar on the next row. everything is extremely small and very minimal. my bookmark toolbar is just favicons centered.

By: mrogi

mrogi — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:27:18 +0000

AdBlock Plus is the only must-have FireFox extension.

By: Rick (not the same Rick as above)

Rick (not the same Rick as above) — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:23:08 +0000

Ben, David, nessa, and others who like a minimalist interface to save screen real estate: Have you tried full screen mode in various browsers? The F11 key makes it happen. Firefox’s full screen is great, it gives you an auto-hide tab bar and address/navigation bar.

By: Diablo1123

Diablo1123 — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:17:19 +0000

Few basic stuff.
Adblcokplus NoScript and Downloadmanger is all i thinik
And flashgot.

Also use Shiretoko just for fun.

By: Danny

Danny — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:43:33 +0000

I tried liking FF but there’s very little to like. Most add-ons are crap, the essential ones ought to be pre-built into the code, and the performance leaves a lot to be desired. In the end, no add-on was a real killer feature, so I moved on to Google Chrome. Less is indeed more.

By: Terence Hill

Terence Hill — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:14:01 +0000

I keep my FireFox slower but full of features! With a minimal Firefox I’d lose more time doing many things that I can do easily with the installed addons.
I have 40+ addons (some almost unused though, but ready to use) ;D

By: nessa

nessa — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:28:01 +0000

oh. P.S. I used Zotero while writing my thesis. But the database got too heavy for my normal browser with all the entries and research materials. I liked it so much that I installed it into portable firefox and I use that as a separate instance, a standalone zotero research powerhouse.

By: nessa

nessa — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:24:39 +0000

Minimalistic for me. I have less than 10 add-ons but they speed up my work on the net considerably. Tab mix plus, Flashblock, ad blockplus, foxmarks, Fasterfox, Stylish, context search, Custom toolbar buttons and tumblrpost are essentials for me.
I like to read so lots of space in the browser is good for me. I use personal menu to collapse the menu bar into a button and squish it with the navigation bar; bookmarks bar is hidden, and lots of tweaks with stylish. I use Full flat theme which is very minimal and seems to speed up a browsing (I feel :p)
@ben: I think I use something similar for bookmarks in a list. (Am i allowed links?) You can make your own custom toolbar button at http://codefisher.org/toolbar_button/toolbar_button_maker?flag=en-GB. I think you can get dropdown bookamrk functionality and much more from the custom toolbar buttons extension. Just see if you find something you like. Very useful and customizable.

By: archer

archer — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:46:52 +0000

dante, i’m sorry, but that’s an idiotic comment. i have no one looking over my shoulder that i’m trying to impress. i work alone. i find these extensions continuously useful.

By: Dante

Dante — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:33:29 +0000

I use the minimalistic approach to Firefox also. I only have 3 add-ons: Febe backup, NoScript and ShowIP. I found this to be as fast as Chrome withOUT the security holes that Chrome has.

One thing that I have found with folks who put on a tonne of add-ons: they’re like the geeks who loads up their belt with gadgets until it looks like Batman’s utility belt. They have an insane desire to impress others who don’t really care, but would definitely chuckle at them behind their backs.