Firefox is the Future
Firefox is the future. That's how I described it, almost immediately after I got it. Firefox is such a huge improvement over Internet Explorer, words do not begin to describe it. Though, the core of the browser defines the experience it's really the plug-ins that excel the program to new heights. I just wanted to point out some of the essential plug-ins that make my experience so enjoyable.
Adblock Plus - This plug-in is an absolute must. Whenever I play around with a new install of Firefox, this is the plug-in I always find first. Pair this with Adblock Filterset.G Updater and it makes an unbeatable combination. This will block out all the common advertisements and if some seep through, you can add their URLs to the black list. It's always shocking to me when I use a browser without Adblock and I see all the ads. Ads were yesterday's news.
All-in-one Gestures - This plug-in is the source of speed when I'm navigating through the web. Hold down the right mouse button and draw something to perform an action. I've mapped drawing a line to the left as previous tab and a line to the right as next tab. But beyond that is the rocker functionality, which I cannot live without anymore. Hold down the left mouse button and click the right button to go forward in history. Hold down the right mouse button and click the left button to go backwards in history.
FoxyTunes - I mainly got this app for a quirk that I needed to deal with. I always have music on and whenever I start a video, from YouTube for example, I have to tab switch into Winamp or iTunes, pause the music, switch back before I can view the video. With all the controls built into Firefox, I can easily pause the music, view the video and return without having to switch applications. Very handy. It's also nice to have the song titles easily visible in case you're listening to music you're not familiar with.
PicLens - I found this plug-in like an hour ago. It's a very cool app that turns photo galleries into a 3-D wall. It's built to work with all the big photo management sites like Facebook and Picasa. When zoomed to full screen the Facebook galleries aren't that great because the pictures are low resolution but using it with Picasa was fine.
Tab Mix Plus - I also got this app to deal with another quirk. Some pages take longer than normal to load and since I'm such an impatient man I usually switch to another tab. I disliked how the tabs didn't show any progress of downloading the page. Using this plug-in, each tab is a progress bar that shows how much of the page has been downloaded so I know when pages are finished loading.
Tab Scope - For some reason I wanted this feature. I don't know how much usage I'll get but it can be kind of handy. When you hover over a tab, it'll show a small screenshot of the page. So if you have a bunch of pages open and don't know which one's which, this could make your life a little bit easier. Again, I don't know how useful this is but it's a neat feature.
Those are my essential plug-ins that I use. What are some of yours?
Adblock Plus - This plug-in is an absolute must. Whenever I play around with a new install of Firefox, this is the plug-in I always find first. Pair this with Adblock Filterset.G Updater and it makes an unbeatable combination. This will block out all the common advertisements and if some seep through, you can add their URLs to the black list. It's always shocking to me when I use a browser without Adblock and I see all the ads. Ads were yesterday's news.
All-in-one Gestures - This plug-in is the source of speed when I'm navigating through the web. Hold down the right mouse button and draw something to perform an action. I've mapped drawing a line to the left as previous tab and a line to the right as next tab. But beyond that is the rocker functionality, which I cannot live without anymore. Hold down the left mouse button and click the right button to go forward in history. Hold down the right mouse button and click the left button to go backwards in history.
FoxyTunes - I mainly got this app for a quirk that I needed to deal with. I always have music on and whenever I start a video, from YouTube for example, I have to tab switch into Winamp or iTunes, pause the music, switch back before I can view the video. With all the controls built into Firefox, I can easily pause the music, view the video and return without having to switch applications. Very handy. It's also nice to have the song titles easily visible in case you're listening to music you're not familiar with.
PicLens - I found this plug-in like an hour ago. It's a very cool app that turns photo galleries into a 3-D wall. It's built to work with all the big photo management sites like Facebook and Picasa. When zoomed to full screen the Facebook galleries aren't that great because the pictures are low resolution but using it with Picasa was fine.
Tab Mix Plus - I also got this app to deal with another quirk. Some pages take longer than normal to load and since I'm such an impatient man I usually switch to another tab. I disliked how the tabs didn't show any progress of downloading the page. Using this plug-in, each tab is a progress bar that shows how much of the page has been downloaded so I know when pages are finished loading.
Tab Scope - For some reason I wanted this feature. I don't know how much usage I'll get but it can be kind of handy. When you hover over a tab, it'll show a small screenshot of the page. So if you have a bunch of pages open and don't know which one's which, this could make your life a little bit easier. Again, I don't know how useful this is but it's a neat feature.
Those are my essential plug-ins that I use. What are some of yours?