Fun With Firefox

Not only does the new 0.9 version of Firefox rock the house, but there's more to it than meets the eye. Mozilla's proud to have slimmed down the new download size to only 4.7 mb for Windows, but the truth is, this uncomplicated browser can be as fancy as your little heart desires.

The secret? Firefox extensions. With Firefox 0.9's new Extension Manager (Tools>Extensions), it's never been easier to keep track of your customizations. Plus, you won't pay a cent for any of them!!

Here are some of my faves:

1. IE View- adds an option to context menu to view in IE if something looks funky in FF
2. Googlebar- Like IE's Google Toolbar, but better
3. Adblock- Tired of ads on your favorite sites? Kill 'em with this tool. Slightly buggy on 0.9, but still worth it.

Want even more helpful extensions? Visit Texturizer.net's page for almost 200 fun ones. Keep in mind that some extensions may have been created before FF 0.9, so note the release date and any accompanying documentation before proceeding.

Also worth mentioning: After each extension install, you'll need to close all open FF windows and relaunch the browser to enable the extension. At one point I installed about 5 cool extensions before restarting my browser, and ended up being unable to launch FF because it was eternally "finishing installing extensions." After some cursing and a couple system restarts, I ended up having to launch FF in safe mode (Start>Programs>Mozilla Firefox>Safe Mode) and uninstalling all my extensions to get past the freeze-up and start over. Keep it simple and add 'em one by one, with a FF restart each time, to prevent such chaos for yourself.

Now that I'm totally converted to the Mozilla side, I'm obsessed with Firefox extensions. Please share your favorites in the comments section below... the more we all know, the more power we have.

:)
sarah

Comments

[Phil]

Hey,anyone i need your help i was installing extensions to FF and i went to restart FF for the extension to take affect and now it wont start back up i tried re-starting in safe mode and everything please help

[Drac]

Hey Sarah Im a noob to computers.....strange i spend over 14 hours a day infront of one though lol. Either way I just now converted to FF and when I click on any of my old desktop shorcuts i get this error box thingy....it says "cannot find the file 'C\windows\desctop\shortcut to blah blah blah blah.url(or one of its components) make sure the path and file name are correct and that all required libraries are available." At first i thought it was cause i need to create the shourcut with in FF but it still does it either way. ohhh even though i get that little pop up it still enters the page on shortcut. I guess its ok but its a bit annoying! If theres anything u can help me with can u email me at thug_passion0336@yahoo.comthanks

[FermatsEnigma]

Favorite Firefox extensions? Gmail Notifier, Gmail Composer, Plaintext links, Diggler, Allow Right Click, Bug Me Not and SpoofStick.

[chia]

Firefox is nothing but a steaming pile of crap. It crashes when going to commonly used websites such as bn.com and symantec.com. And when I click on the toolbar it freezes itself to the screen forcing me to restart my computer. These glitches happen frequently and the same ones happen EVERY time i try em. I can't believe you would recomommend such a shoddy program. At lest IE works.

[Jeffry R. Fisher]

Sarah --

Love your show and your tips. However, I am having trouble with Firefox extensions...

They're a total zero for me. I have tried several times to "install" various extensions (from http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/), restarting Firefox each time.

Nothing new ever appears, and "tools => extensions" always shows nothing more than the "DOM Inspector 1.0" that came with Firefox.

I think there's a step missing both from your explanation and from the texturizer web site's instructions (which I actually read). It's probably something so obvious that you didn't think you had to mention it.

Firefox 0.9.3 (Gecko/20040803)Win98+

Thanks

[Dan]

Try out my new site: www.firefoxie.net :)ThanksDan

[Donut]

my extensions that i cant surf the net without.

AUTOHIDE- for full on full screen browsing!AD-BLOCKIE VIEW

SUPER DRAG N GO-Drag a link or anything like a uri (e.g. "abc.com" ), and throw it to anywhere blank on the webpage to open the it in a new tab . TRULY A MUST HAVE!

TAB BROWSER PREFERENCESEnables enhanced control for tabbed browsing.

POP-UP COUNTCounts the number of blocked popups.

BG SOUND TO EMBEDAllow playback of BGSOUND tags in Firebirdsometimes its a bish that it doesnt do it automatically in FIREFOX while othertimes its vewy nice to not have background music automatically play. with this u just right click the page and can choose wether u wanna hear it or not.



IMAGE ZOOMAdds zoom functionality for imagesme tend to use this quite a bit. cause some pics are just too fuggin small to make out.

BROWSER UPTIME

GMAIL NOTIFIERA Gmail notifier that integrates into the browser's user interface.



DOWNLOAD STATUSBARView downloads in an auto-hide statusbarme prefer this over the built in Download Manager

QUICK NOTEA note taking extension with advanced features.

FIRESOMETHINGThis extension allows you to change the product name in various parts of the browser. Random name generation ensures perpetual humor.

STATUSBAR CLOCKDisplay the date and time in your browser's status bar.



DEEPEST SENDERPost to LiveJournal and GreatestJournal directly from Firefox with this extension

CHROME EDIT

A Simple User Profile File Editor.for advanced customizations.

[Steve Sizemore]

new favorites

- google pagerank status- weatherfox

[saa]

how do you restart firefox?in order to activate extensions

[lian]

just close all open firefox windows and then reopen firefox

[Dani]

I'v restarted firefox, but none of my extensions have shown up. Can anyone help me? Thanks in advance