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If you are a fan of Open Source Software (OSS) as I am, then you likely already know that the OSS banner-carrying company
Mozilla∞ has created a very powerful browser under their
Firefox brand. If you are not such a fan of OSS, and do not use Firefox, then I urge you to give it a shot, especially with my tips that are to follow. If you are
lobotomized∞ and enjoy referring to anyone who prefers Firefox as a "
Fanboy" (*
Koff*), then you are strange, and have my pity.
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This google tool is an awesome tool if you hop between multiple machines often. This system synchronizes pretty much everything you need from system to system. The session window can get a little annoying from time to time, but its well worth it. Bookmarks, persistent cookies, passwords, and tab sessions all share seamlessly. Best of all - it keeps a backup of your settings so that if you rebuild your machine, you just re-sync, and it's all back!
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This, together with the Google Browser Sync are all you need to keep your browser experience intact between machine builds. This allows you to back up seemingly *everything*, and package them into easily re-installable
.xpi packages. You can do them on-demand, or schedule the backups. So all the time you spend knitting these extensions, themes & configurations to get your browser setup "just right" won't be lost when your hard disk goes tits up.
FSM∞ bless the geek that came up with this one.
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I just stumbled across this one because it was recently updated, and man is this cool. It makes using online maps really great. I haven 't played with it a lot yet, but having a sidebar that lets you store multiple locations and flip map views between a number of popular online mapping tools is a winner in my book. So far it looks to be imminently useful, and if you use the All In One Sidebar tool as well, it's just one click away whenever you need a map. The best part is that since you can store your default location (not in itself a new feature), it makes getting directions to anywhere simply a breeze. Just one click, type in the address and away you go. If you don't like the directions in one mapping system, just switch to another. How cool is this?
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I almost took this one off the list as it can be a little high maintenance, and I'm not sure if I like the idea of abject content censorship... but it is *very* effective. This amazing little doodad completely suppresses ad information from your web browsing experience. And it does so very smartly, such that you often don't even realize content has been blocked out. One thing I have noticed is that delays in loading a web page can often be the fault of all the ads loading up on it. Well, this puppy puts a stop to that, so that only real content is loaded, completely eliminating ad-based delay. My only problem is that sometimes I *want* to see the ads, but it's easy to turn off, so it stays on the list and is a keeper!
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If you are a blogger, this tool is for you. Once installed, it adds a nifty little button in the bottom status bar
(
) that you simply click, and up pops a lovely WYSIWYG blog
editor∞. It couldn't be simpler. Click the button, type some stuff... add an image or two... and hit "Publish". Done, and very cool for the blogger. And it supports more than just Blogger, but you'll have to see for yourself if your favorite blog engine is supported.
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OK, let's face it. The file download function native to Firefox suck. That little popup window and defaulting to save to the desktop are for the birds. So some smart fellow came up with this little tool that stacks up your download progress bars along the bottom of your browser window. It works really great, and is a much needed improvement for the native download capability.
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This is a handy little tool that floats a really cool javascript "Pop-in" window over hyperlinks giving you a preview window of the destination page. It's more than a preview window, though... you can actually resize and fully browse the page within this window. It works great, and I haven't been able to break it yet. Don't get too used to browsing that way though... it does have a habit of closing on you inadvertently... but it is very handy. And try it on Google images, and it automatically gives you a full size preview of the image. You know how annoying it can be having to load through the pages to get to the image... well this tool makes it much easier. They have a special-made
tool for image gallery viewing∞, but I haven't tried it yet. This works well enough for me ;)
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A must-have for those who download PDFs in Firefox. The way Acrobat tries to natively open PDFs in-line is notoriously finicky - causing browser lockups and crashes galore. So this tool simply waits for you to click on a PDF icon, and then politely asks you what you want to do with the PDF, opening it gracefully if that's what you want to do. Basically another fix for a native shortcoming between Firefox and Acrobat.
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Marginally useful, but cool enough to add. Highlight any address, and you get a right-click option that brings up an embedded javascript window with a Yahoo map of that address. Pretty cool, but given you can't print from it, or do directions, I wouldn't blame you if you didn't install it. I just like some of the whiz-bang in my browser ;)
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Another tool that makes up for a lack of function in Firefox,
FireFTP allows your browser to respond to FTP:// URL's, handling them as a very capable FTP client. From a purist point of view, I can see why they didn't write in this functionality... but I am so used to this from IE, that this feels like a "catch up" component to me.
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A greatly enhanced sidebar, which allows quick access to your bookmarks, history, add-ons, download status, and more. I have found it pretty useful. It's amazing how helpful simply eliminating one click can be. It also serves as an extra
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Silly eye-candy, and actually slows down tabbing between windows. I'm not sure why I like this, or why it made the list... but I just think its cool that it turns my window into a 3D cube and rotates to the other tab. But it is slower to switch, so if you are easily annoyed by such trivial inconvenience, then pass this one up. If you like to giggle at whistles and bells, ga'head and enjoy the guilty pleasure.
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For web developers, this is one handy little tool. If you have ever pasted screenshots of web sites into photoshop just to figure out what exact colors to match in your project, then this tool is for you. A simple little "eyedropper" button just like in photoshop that, when activated, displays the RGB value of the colors you hover your mouse over. It also tells you what tag the current element is residing in, if you are debugging stuff. I like it. I think I'll keep it.
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If you are juggling between IE and Firefox, this is a pretty handy extension. At it's simplest, it simply adds a context-menu (right-click) option on any web page to "
Load this page in IE". But the best part is that you can flag certain pages to *always* load in IE! So if you usually work out of Firefox, but there are certain pages that render better/only in Internet Explorer, it will divert that page to load with IE when called. Handy! There's another related one that will embed an IE window within a tab in Firefox called
IE Tab∞. I didn't opt for this as I rarely use IE, so I don't need it.
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Perfect for you porn-hounds. And me. Yes, I surf porn, and have children, wives and babysitters that I want to hide it from. Second to the left-handed mouse, this extension is the greatest invention for the online flesh-tone connoisseur. This extension toggles a "
no footprint" browsing experience, leaving no traces in any form of history, cache, or conscience. Take that, prying eyes. I'm clean! ... I'm clean.
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Lastly, I'll put a quick list of a handful of video downloaders that are cool to cap youtube videos and such. These enable you to grab the flash video that the viewer otherwise will not let you download directly. They all do it differently, and I've not tested all of them... but I did use a couple... and they do work! To help you guess best, I listed them in order of popularity as listed on the Firefox extension site. 
