Firefox 3 Extensions - Updated

FF3 just went to RC2, so I've starred the ones that are compatible.

Last Update:  06.16.08

• Added Email This!, Print Preview to ESSENTIAL
• Added to COOL BUT NON-ESSENTIAL
• Added Bandwidth Meter, Image Toolbar, Package Mapping, RetailMeNot to TRYING
• Added  to RARELY USED
• Added to REJECTED
• Many now ff3rc1 enabled (indicated by leading * below), including Copy as HTML Link,GiftWisdom, Greasemonkey

------------------------

1. DOWNLOAD them all at once!

• Download all of my Essential, Cool, and Trying extensions in one file by right clicking the link (not available until FEBE/CLEO get updated to ff3).

2. ESSENTIAL

• * Adblock Plus - does what it says
• * Copy as HTML Link - awesome for copying a page ref for blog comments
• * Customize Google - cool idea - I especially like the links to other search engines, numbering of results, and filters (filter out certain sites from results).  Might conflict with Better Google 2, not sure.
• * Download Statusbar - don't use the awful download window, use this sleek status-bar toolbar.  Awesome.
• * Email This! - adds ability to "email this URL" to email client of your choice.  Nice.
• * Flashblock - a nice button for your toolbar that toggles flash objects - works perfectly.  May not be needed if the flash blocker in Custom Buttons 2 works fine.
• * Foxmarks - sign up for one of the few beta test slots if you can't wait for the final port of this great extension.
• * Google Preview - adds preview images to google results.
• * Greasemonkey - naturally - here's my fav scripts, not sure if some overlap with the Better Google extensions (below in TRYING)
  
  • AmazonBookCover - adds button to Amazon to view full sized image, not the "Search inside" image - good if you want to save the image for a blog post
  • Auto Add Feed - If you use Google Reader, this plugin allows you to skip that intermediate page when adding a new feed, and you end up directly in Google Reader.
  • Autopager (GM Script) - nice!  As you page down with the space bar on google results, it appends the next 10 results, forever!  No more page changes.  Nice.
  • Google Reader Print Button - allows better printing of items from GR.  NOTE:  To make this script work EVEN BETTER, you need to modify it (instructions) by (1) installing it in GM, then going into GM options to modify it, (2) commenting out two lines from the script, and (3) going in to the GM options for this script, and in the Included Pages section, add a * to the end of http://www.google.com/reader/view/*
  • Mouse Rocking - all of my previous mouse gesture extensions are not ff3b5 enabled - maybe this will do
• * IE Tab - allows you to emulate IE in a Firefox tab for apps that require IE (like Sharepoint or OWA)
• * InstaClick - for laptops or mice without center button - can open link in new tab by right clicking.
• * It's all Text - tired of typing up your comments in some puny comment box? Automatically launch your text editor of choice. Just click the 'save' icon to copy your text back to the original text box.
• * PDF Download - enhances PDF features in FF
• * PriceAdvance - when on supported sites (Amazon, Walmart, J&R, Target, etc.), shows prices for item on other sites.  (See also Guide to safe, effective online shopping)
• * Pricepinx - this is not actually a firefox extension, but an online service that allows you to track price drops for your favorite items.  Very nice. (See also Guide to safe, effective online shopping)
• * Print Preview - Print Preview button for your toolbar.  Toolbar Buttons also has a print preview button, so this extension might be redundant, except that it has a better icon for the button.
• * Tiny Menu - shrinks menus down to one small, but highly configurable dropdown.  However, I think it is causing crashes.  Am testing Personal Menus to see if better.
• * Toolbar Buttons - this excellent addon worked well in ff2. 
• * WOT - community-feedback based evaluation of sites, measures trustworthiness.  Although I never rate sites, it has caught some evil sites for me.

3. COOL BUT NOT ESSENTIAL

• * Configuration Mania - shows lots of FF3 config items without having to go to about:
• * Craigslist Image Previewer - very nice - lets you see thumbnails in search results rather than having to click into each one.
• CuteMenus - adds nice icons to menus
• * DragDropUpload - allows you to drag and drop attachements onto gmail
• * Faviconize - minimizes tabs to their favicon.  Good if you have lots of tabs open.
• * Fission - adds progress bar to address bar, like Safari
• * Nuke Anything Enhanced - Temporarily remove anything from a page before printing - if you refresh page, nuked items return.  Nice.
• * StumbleUpon - find related sites to ones you visit and like
• * Stylish - provides alternate styles for various sites - indispensable for frequently visited sites like digg and youtube (and maybe gmail and greader too).  The styles are updated often, but my favorites now are:
  • Beautiful Digg - nice layout and dark theme for digg - though main nav color hard to read
  • Craigslist Craiggers - sleek, a must have for craiggers!
  • Check marking visited links - this is very cool, although on my home machine, the checkmark was somehow replaced with a small box with four numbers in it.  Not sure what's up with that. 
  • Combine Stop/Reload buttons - simple, works
  • Digg - Fluid, Ad and Spaceing Remover (Updated) - widens it out for higher resolutions.
  • Digg.com - comment tweaks 2.0 - really nice changes, with up/down ratings buttons
  • Google Calendar - colorize Sat/Sun (start on Mon) - adds color to the weekend, and starts the week on Mon.  They also have one that starts the week on Sunday.
  • Google Maps Max Updated! - maximizes use of space on google maps.  Nice.
  • My Yahoo Cleaner - removes ads from my.yahoo, but I wish it did a little more
  • OS X Style Google Reader - makes google reader look awesome!
  • Stylish customized toolbar button - nice functional button for stylish, mandatory
  • userstyles.org - sea green color scheme - best one for looking around userstyles, the place where you look for all of your stylish styles
  • Userstyles.org :: Enlarge screenshots on hover - also essential for looking around userstyles.org
  • Very clean lifehacker - no ads, no wasted space
  • Wikipedia - Grey Lady - a nice simplification of wikipedia
  • Website: cleaner - Yahoo! Mail Beta - removes ads
  • YouTube.com - dark gray redesign (vC) - one of the best youtube themes out there, black, but could be more compact.
  • YouTube No Comments - hides comments on youtube
• * TabScope - popup image when you rollover tabs
• * WebDeveloper - great all around tool for looking at what's under the hood.
• * Woot Watcher - see your daily woot in the status bar - now updates and shows percentages for WootOffs - WOOT!
• Yet Another Smooth Scrolling - Same as SmoothWheel, but more features.  Nice.

4. TRYING

• * Bandwidth Meter - bandwidth diagnostics
• * Better Gmail 2 - compilation of GreaseMonkey scripts to make gmail work better. 
• *** WARNING *** I have isolated my crashes to this extension, not sure why. Better GReader - bunch of GM scripts to enhance Google Reader
• Better YouTube - automatically loads higher res videos if available, and other GM scripts to enhance YouTube
• * BlueOrganizer - a bookmark organizer on steroids, with some sort of widget creator for bloggers too.  Hmmm.
• * Digg Firefox Extension
• * FEBE (b6) - still in beta.
• * FireBug (1.1b) - still in beta.
• * FireShot - screenshot util
• * GA? - Is Google Analytics Installed
• * GSpace - use your gmail accounts like disk drives to store files
• * GiftWisdom - gift tracking and such
• Grab and Drag - I love and hate this extension - to love it, use the Setup Wizard, or try makomg these changes in the options, then tweak from there:
  • General tab
    • Features (all checked)
    • Text Toggle - First drop down set to '1', second one set to '2'
  • More Options tab
    • Drag multiplier - set to slower (I use 1.2)
  • Momentum tab
    • Enable momentum
    • Set time sensitivity to about 25% (close to short)
    • Set Decel to about 40%
    • Set Friction to about 10%
  • Gestures tab
    • Enable Flick Gestures checkbox
    • Set Scroll Speed to aboue 40%
    • Set Time Limit to about 25%
• Greasemonkey- here are the scripts I am trying
  • GoogleMonkeyR - Google results - multiple columns of results, Remove "Sponsored Links", Number results, Auto-load more results, Remove web search dialogues
  • View image links - generate album view for image links. all button has access key (the first letter).
  • Clean TheFreeDictionary.com - for when I get this page when searching for a definition.  No more ads.
  • eBay Hacks - Show only negative feedback Mod - adds two new tabs to ebay - Complaints Received and Complaints Left
• * Image Toolbar - nice toolbar like in IE
• * Mouse Gestures - there are about three different gesture packages, this one was my old favorite.  Until Greasemonkey is back up, this will do.
• * myibay eBay bid sniper - ebay bid sniper tool.
• OpenBook - adds advanced features to bookmark add dialog
• OPIE - backs up file extension preferences ().  Probably just as good as other extensions by Chuck (FEBE/CLEO).
• * Package Mapping - select the routing number, right click and map it - mashup of shipping status and google map.  Nice.
• * Phoenity Aura (theme)
• Print/Print Preview - Replace the default "Print" button with the Mozilla Suite style "Print/Print Preview" toolbar button/menu
• *** WARNING - has caused massive slowdowns previously **** RetailMeNot - finds coupons for you automatically when visiting various vendor sites.  Coolness.
• * Shareaholic - allows you to tag via multiple services.
• * SmoothWheel - I like Yet Another Smooth Scrolling better, but it's not updated for rc1.
• * Stylish - here's the latest styles I am trying out.
  • Greasemonkey - cleaner manage window - not sure it works until gm is updated for b5
• * Sxipper - password manager
• * TabMixPlus (dev) - still not ff3 ready, but can't wait!
• * Translator - allows you to translate any web page into nearly any language at the click of a button.
• * ThumbStrips - a visual representation of your browser history, lets you view thumbnails
• * Update Scanner - scans for updates on pages that don't have RSS.
• * VeriSign's OpenID SeatBelt - one of many OpenID tools.  I like theirs best, but I don't love it.
• * Video DownloadHelper
• * WebMynd - browse your web history from google.
• * Zotero - helps you save online references.  Might help w/ blogging, we'll see.

4. RARELY USED BUT OK

• * Aardvark - allows some tweaking of pages before printing, etc. - just never used it
• bookStack - advanced bookmark management capabilities (experimental)
• * BugMeNot - I still haven't figured out how this works for bypassing mandatory registration for sites like the NYT - whatever, never used it.
• * BuyLater - amazon price drop notifier (see also my Guide to safe, effective online shopping).  Works fine, but I like using PricePinx better.
• * Copy Link Text - right click on a link and choose from drop down
• Custom Buttons 2 - custom buttons for the toolbar.
• * Dugged - firefox 'mirror' app - just not useful to me.
• * EditCSS - works fine, but not as nicely as the tools in Web Developer toolbar
• * Extended Copy Menu - has 'save as html,' but doesn't really do what I want.  Blah.
• * FireGestures - same as MouseGestures, I think - but I only need the 'rocker' function, so I just use the Greasemonkey script.
• * Firefox Activities - experimental, adds ie8 Activities functions - not too many yet, so not that great.
• Flash Killer - Flashblock works fine
• * Personal Menu - does the same as TinyMenu, but with buttons.  Too much learning curve for me, and TinyMenu does enough.  But for the uberTweaker, this is a cool app.
• * Smoothwheel - makes scrolling in firefox much more smooth and pleasurable.  But YetAnotherSmoothScroller works better.

5. REJECTED

• * Autofill Forms - just another form filler, like AI Roboform - except doesn't handle credit cards
• * Find Bar - adds expressions to the / find bar - but seemed to disable the '/'
• * Glubble Family Edition - safe, child-oriented browser experience, but too intrusive.  Better to just install something on the back end like K9 Web Protection.
• * HyperBK - bookmark manager enhancement - but just too much going on to be helpful
• Quick TransLation - language translation tool.  For some reason, this thing kept adding a bunch of javascript into my blog posts in HTML view.  Scary. I think it was just bad coding, though, not malicious.
• * Router Status - lots of network stats available from status bar icon - but doesn't work with my Belking router.
• * Stylish - here are the stylish styles that I tried that were close, but not good enough.
  
  • Addons header styling - works ok, but a little messy
  • Add Bookmark Dialog: Show Folder Tree - doesn't seem to do anything in ff3
  • Add-ons Manager - cleaner design - does nothing
  • Combined Stop, Refresh, and Throbber buttons! - doesn't exactly work, throbber seems to take up a second spot, over whatever button is nextdoor.
  • Customize Toolbar window - For the Customize Toolbar option in FF, did not work in ff3b5
  • Firefox 2+3 - Slim Extension List - works, but kinda ugly with hard lines
  • Gmail Redesigned (by Globex Designs) - slows down scrolling a bit, though it is pretty
  • Mozilla Add-ons Cute icons - didn't do anything in my ff3b5
  • Toolbars - Buttons Closer for Firefox 3 - i like this, removes wasted space in dropdowns, but interferes with Stylish button checkmarks and mouseover on top menu (makes choices disappear)
• * Yapta - airline ticket search and notification - but no real value add

Firefox 3 Tips, Tricks, and Resources

• Firefox 3 beta 2 and incompatible extension workarounds
• Strange but complete list of all firefox extensions, with current level of FF3 readiness
• Animated PNG article and tools (Mozilla labs, very cool)

Comments

[Chuck Baker]

While CLEO wont be ready for Fx 3 until later, FEBE 6.0beta is available now. This version contains a new function called "Quick backup" which will backup selected extension/themes and store them in a cleo-like package.

See http://customsoftwareconsult.com/extensions/febe/febe60.html

[seeker]

Wow. Thanks Chuck. It doesn't back up Greasemonkey scripts, does it? Please oh please? Thx.

[Fraser]

A bookmark addon on steroids, with the ability to share the things you love as a widget. AND the ability to enjoy contextual browsing.

Contextual browsing?

Let's say you're reading a movie review on Meta Critic - with a single click you can add it to your Netflix Queue, find it on Amazon, etc.

It's the power of our SmartMenu and contextual browsing

Read more about it if you're interested:
http://blog.adaptiveblue.com/?p=891 (books)
http://blog.adaptiveblue.com/?p=1024 (music)

If you have any questions or feedback please drop me a line - I'd love to hear them!

Fraser

[seeker]

I've been trying adaptive blue, it looks cool, but it or one of the other add ons i added recently is slowing down ff3 something fierce. Also, I've been working with your support group to figure out how to add my saved books to my widget, but it's not clear. I'll figure it out.