50 Best Firefox Extensions for Power Surfing

(Copied from http://www.quickonlinetips.com/archives/2005/12/50-best-firefox-extensions-for-power-surfing/ for my own ready reference)

Which are the top firefox extensions? Here is an attempt to collect the 50 popular and best firefox extensions
which make your browsing, downloading and navigation in Firefox as easy
as possible, while harnessing the full power and features of Firefox.

These extensions should work on the latest versions of the Firefox (use the Nightly Tester Tools extension to make them work). Use extensions which work best for *your* needs. The fastest way to install these extensions from developer sites is to drag them to the url bar. Look at these top extensions to manage firefox extensions if you decide to install lots of them.

Control Firefox Tabs

• All-in-One Gestures
  - merges the popular following extensions for management of mouse
  gestures, scrolling and power navigation. (Mix of Mouse Gestures,
  Rocker navigation, Tab scroller, History scroller, Link tooltip and
  Autoscrolling extensions)
• Tabbrowser Preferences
  - a comprehensive UI for changing a number of the hidden tabbed
  browsing preferences in Firefox. It also provides the ability to
  control how internal and external links are opened in the browser and
  how the browser will react when links are sent to it.
• Tab Mix Plus - More tweaks
  added to tabs. Ability to select and open muliple links in tabs, open
  link in a duplicated tab, merge tabs and close tabs from similar
  domain…
• Duplicate Tab - allows you to clone a tab with its history and place the duplicate tab in a new window or in the current window.
• Colorful Tabs
  - Colors every tab in a different color and makes them easy to
  distinguish while beautifying the overall appeal of the interface.
• Viamatic foXpose - Click on the icon in the status bar to view all the browser windows with a single click.
• Firefox Showcase - easily locate and select any open browser window in Firefox.
• Separe - Helps you keeping tabs tidy by introducing a new kind of tab.
• Permatabs - turn tabs of your choice into permanent tabs that can’t be closed, and stick around between sessions.
• FaviconizeTab - resizes the width of the tab to display the favicon only (and back again).

Control Website Links

• Linky - Lets you
  open or download all or selected links, image links and even web
  addresses found in the text in separate or different tabs or windows.
• Linkification - Allows Firefox (0.9+) to view plain-text URLs and e-mail addresses as actual links
• IE Tab - can open the
  current page or a selected link embedding Internet Explorer in tabs of
  Mozilla/Firefox. Very useful for those IE only pages.
• FirefoxView
  - Open Firefox with the current page or a selected link displayed in
  Internet Explorer. Adds “View in Firefox” menu items to the
  content and link context menus.
• Paste and Go - lets you
  paste an URL from the clipboard into the address bar and load it as a
  single step, either via the adress bar’s context menu or by
  pressing Ctrl-Shift-V
• ErrorZilla
  - changes the default 404 error page with following choices: a google
  cache, an archival snapshot from the wayback machine, a ping, a trace
  route, and a whois lookup.

Control File Downloads

• FlashGot - handles single and massive downloads with several external Download Managers.
• PDF Download - Every time
  you click on a link, checks if the target is a pdf file and in this
  case let you choose what you want to do (open pdf file inside a new
  tab, download it to the filesystem or view it as HTML).
• ScrapBook - helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections.
• DownThemAll! - adds
  new advanced downloading capabilities to your browser. It lets you
  download in just one click all the links or images contained in a
  webpage or refine your preferences using fully customizable filters.
• TargetAlert -
  provides visual cues for the destinations of hyperlinks. If a hyperlink
  points to a something that is not a web page (in cases of pdf, doc, zip
  files etc.), then TargetAlert will try to append an icon to the
  hyperlink that represents its destination
• Download Manager Tweak
  - modifies the default appearance of the firefox download manager and
  allows it to be opened in a separate window, the sidebar, or a tab.
• Download Statusbar - is a browser extension that allows you to keep track of ongoing and completed downloads in a hide-away statusbar
• Disable Targets For Downloads - Prevents sites spawning blank windows when clicking binary downloads.
• FireFTP - is a free, secure, cross-platform FTP client for Mozilla Firefox which provides easy and intuitive access to FTP servers.

Control Webpage Behaviour and Navigation

• GreaseMonkey - Install user scripts and change the behavior of any web page
• Image Zoom -
  Right click on an image and select a zoom option from the popup menu,
  or, hold down the right mouse button in combination with the mouse
  wheel to zoom in or out on an image.
• Fasterfox - Speed up
  Firefox. Dynamic speed increases can be obtained with Fasterfox’s
  unique prefetching mechanism, which recycles idle bandwidth by silently
  loading and caching all of the links on the page you are browsing. Also
  tweaks many network and rendering settings. (Some readers said it
  actually slowed down their firefox - verify yourself)
• SpellBound -
  enables spell checking in web forms such as html textarea / input
  elements (html input password elements are not checked by SpellBound)
  and rich text form elements. This allows you to spell check forms
  before submitting them.
• BugMeNot
  - Bypasses compulsory web registration using the BugMeNot without the
  hassle of surfing to it and querying its database everytime.
• AutoCopy - Select text on any web page and it will be automatically copied to the clipboard. Middle click to Paste.
• Copy Plain Text
  - Copies text without formatting. Have you ever copied something and
  been annoyed that the text formatting (bold, font size, etc) came with
  it? Don’t you wish you could just copy the text itself, without
  having to copy it, paste it into notepad, then copy it again?
• Google Images Re-Linker
  - This will let you click the thumbnail images on images.google.com,
  skip the referred framed page, and jump straight to the full-size image.
• Extended Statusbar
  - adds an Opera-like statusbar for Firefox that shows number of loaded
  images, bytes downloaded, average download speed, load time and
  percentage of the page loaded.
• Resizeable Textarea - Resize small textareas in forums to your needed size avoiding scrolling.
• Adblock Plus - is an enhanced version of Adblock. Block ads, applets, flash, embedded-media etc.
• Flashblock - blocks all Flash content from loading on a webpage.
• Sage - add a lightweight RSS and Atom feed aggregator which integrates with Firefox’s bookmark storage and Live Bookmarks.
• Cacheout!-
  lets you try to access articles on servers affected by the Digg Effect
  /Slashdot Effect through Google’s caching service and
  CoralCDN.org.
• Pearl Crescent Page Saver - capture screenshots and save full webpages as images easily.
• Reload Every - adds an
  option to the context menu to reload the web page you are viewing every
  so many seconds or minutes. Useful if you keep refreshing some pages
  often.
• Copy URL+ - copy to
  the clipboard the current document’s address along with
  additional information such as the document’s title, the current
  selection or both. Customize it to add your own menu entries.
• InFormEnter - adds a
  small, clickable icon next to every input field in a web form, from
  where you can select the item to be inserted with your frequently used
  information such as name, email, address and whatever else you want to
  be available from the form menu.
• All-in-One Sidebar
  - is a sidebar control, inspired by Opera that lets you quickly switch
  between sidebars, view dialog windows such as downloads, extensions,
  and more in the sidebar, or view source code or websites in the
  sidebar. Can be extensively customized.
• Text size toolbar - Adds buttons to increase or decrease text size or restore default size easily. Useful for those small unreadable font sizes.
• Reveal - allows you to see thumbnails of pages in your session history and quickly find the page you want.
• Mystickies - allows you to place sticky notes all over the web and organize them with tags.
• Clear Cache Button - Adds a clear cache toolbar button that cleans the cache in one click. Very handy for those who have use for it.
• gTranslate - translate any text in a webpage just by selecting and right-clicking over it. Uses the Google translation services.
• Xinha Here! - is a wrapper for the Xinha HTML editor that enables WYSIWYG editing in any textarea and text box on any website.
• Yoono - instantly suggests alternate sites and people who share the same interests while you are surfing.
• BlueOrganizer - It helps
  you personalize your web experience based on what you already like,
  helping you discover relevant new information and save time.

Control Privacy / Security

• SwitchProxy
  - lets you manage and switch between multiple proxy configurations
  quickly and easily. You can also use it as an anonymizer to protect
  your computer from prying eyes.
• NoScript - allows JavaScript,
  Java (and other plugins) only for trusted domains of your choice. This
  whitelist based pre-emptive blocking approach prevents exploitation of
  security vulnerabilities with no loss of functionality
• Always Remember Password
  - Instructs web sites to always remember your password. Some sites like
  Yahoo Mail, Hotmail, and banking sites instruct the browser to never
  allow your password manager to retain your information.
• CookieCuller - Extended Cookie Manager to protect/unprotect selected cookies.
• Stealther
  - surf the web without leaving a trace in your local computer by
  *temporarily disabling history (and address bar), cookies, formFill,
  disk cache and sending of ReferrerHeader. Verify details of what
  exactly it can work for you.

Control Web Searches

• Google Toolbar for Firefox
  - Lets you search google and all its services easily. Also powered by
  Google Suggest (Get query suggestions as you type in the search box),
  SpellCheck, AutoFill, Pagerank of webpage, access to gmail,
  WordTranslator etc.
• CustomizeGoogle -
  enhances Google search results by adding extra information (like links
  to Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like
  ads and spam).
• NextPlease! - allows
  you to assign keyboard shortcuts to jump to next and previous links on
  search results pages, like Google, Yahoo, Ebay, Amazon, and many other
  sites.
• BetterSearch
  - enhances Google, MSN Search, Yahoo Search, A9, Answers.com,
  AllTheWeb, Dogpile.com, del.icio.us and Simpy.com bookmarks by adding
  previews (thumbnails) and Amazon product images and info etc.
• Answers -
  Press Alt (or Option on a Mac) and click any word to get a quick,
  relevant definition or explanation, drawn from a collection of over 100
  reference titles.

Control Your Music / Video

• FoxyTunes - Listen to music while surfing the Web, and control your favorite media player without ever leaving the browser.
• MediaPlayerConnectivity - Allow you to launch embed video of website in an external application with a simple click

Control Your Email

• Better Gmail
  - A range of Gmail enhancements (with best Greasemonkey scripts),
  including skins, saved searches, keyboard macros, secure access,
  attachment icons, attachment reminders, label colors, signature
  floating and more.
• Gmail Manager
  - Allows you to manage multiple Gmail accounts and receive new mail
  notifications. Displays your account details including unread messages,
  saved drafts, spam messages, labels with new mail, space used, and new
  mail snippets.
• Gmail Notifier - checks and notifies your email in Gmail accounts.
• AJAX Yahoo! Mail - Preview your messages with a single click. Adds AJAX support to the Yahoo! mail.

Control Your Bookmarks

• Bookmark with Del.icio.us
  - Integrate del.icio.us right into Firefox. Easily access your
  bookmarks and post new bookmarks. Post a bookmark without leaving the
  page you are on.
• Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it will work silently in the background to keep your bookmarks synchronized
• StumbleUpon - is an intelligent browsing tool for sharing and discovering great websites.
• Reliby - provides you with Reload all Live Bookmarks functionality.
• Clipmarks - lets you save and share Web page content without having to bookmark the entire page.
• Shareaholic - Share, bookmark and e-mail web pages quickly without leaving your browser.

Control Other Popular Services

• Adsense Notifier - Displays your Adsense earnings on the statusbar.
• Forecastfox Enhanced
  - Get international weather forecasts and display it in any toolbar or
  statusbar. Now with improved radar images and allows for pausing,
  restarting and setting the frequency of automatic updates.
• DictionarySearch - Looks up a user selected word in an online dictionary you selected.
• Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various essential web developer tools.
• Scribefire - A full
  featured blog editor that sits right within Firefox and lets you easily
  post to your Wordpress, MovableType or Blogger blogs.
• Map+ - enables you to quickly view a map of a selected address in Firefox without changing windows or tabs.
• ChatZilla - is a clean and easy to use Internet relay chat (IRC) client.
• TwitterFox - notifies you of your friends’ tweets of Twitter.

This list is by no means complete and you may not agree with my choice, but this is merely an attempt to find the top and best firefox extensions.
This post is regularly updated. If there is some favorite firefox
extension you use which deserves a mention here, post it in
comments… [This post is constantly updated.]

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