The Firefox browser is one of the most downloaded software on the Internet. More and more users are using Firefox because of its speed, security and a bunch of other features that make it stand out from the other popular web browsers like Internet Explorer and Safari.
What makes Firefox preferred by most Internet users is because it is more than just an application where you can open websites. It can be a platform where web developers, bloggers, SEO consultants, etc can use to make their day to day lives more productive. This is with the help of various plug-ins and extensions that is compatible with Firefox which allow Internet users to do various tasks.
As defined by Wikipedia, extensions add specific abilities to a larger software application. By using the different extensions and plug-ins available for Firefox, users don’t have to exit the browser as they can perform certain tasks faster right from within the browser, thereby saving time and increasing productivity.
Here is a list of the Top 7 Firefox Extensions to boost productivity:
- Fire Shot. If you like to do screen capture of websites, either for blogging purposes or you just want to save a copy of the web page, then this is the plug-in for you. This plug-in allows to capture image of the web page and saves the captured image in JPEG or other format.
- Speed Dial. Most of us use Bookmarks to save some of our frequently visited websites. But after some time, we would have accumulated a number of these bookmarks that we have to scroll through each one of them if we want to access one of the websites from the list. With Speed Dial, you will be able to organize your bookmarks in a dashboard and even group them per category for a much faster search.
- FireFTP. For blog and website owners who need to upload files to their FTP site, the FireFTP add-on eliminates the need for a separate FTP software as it can turn Firefox to an FTP utility as this allows access to FTP servers for easy uploading of files to hosting account.
- TinyUrl Generator. This nifty Firefox plugin provides the tool to shrink long URL to tiny URL that you can easily send via email or Twitter. Aside from the fact that tiny URL are more pleasing to the eye than the long URL, it can save up characters too especially when sending link via Twitter that has limited characters.
- Ad Block Plus. Advertisement and banners take as much as 10 times bandwidth in order to load it so most of us would rather skip the ads and banner and go to the content of the web page directly. The Ad Block Plus plugin allows users to stop any advertisement and banner from being displayed. This is especially useful for those with very slow bandwidth connection as it can definitely speed up the loading of the page.
- WebMail Notifier. If you have multiple email accounts from various web mail sites like Yahoo, Gmail, Hotmail, AOL and more, then you will find this plugin very useful as it checks all your web mail accounts and give notifications for the number of unread emails.
- FoxLingo. This plug-in is an all in one translator, dictionary, grammar checker and language learning services. It supports 3,000 unique language pairs and 31 online translators.
Plug-ins are free and very easy to install and it really extends the functionality of your browser. This are just some of the plug-ins available for FireFox and if you search the Mozilla Firefox site, I am sure you will find one out of the 1500++ extensions available that will meet your requirement to make your online life simple and more productive.
Tags: Firefox Extensions, Mozilla Firefox
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on November 1, 2011 at 8:55 am
Instead of TinyUrl, I would advise to use AddThis. It works with many different sharing services, and automatically shortens the URL when needed.
Also, Twitter currently automatically shortens up any URL, except for its own t.co – there’s no need to pre-shorten it.
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on November 1, 2011 at 3:31 pm
Speed dial looks pretty cool, but I have to say I’m not a fan of ad block. Ad revenue is the only way a lot of sites manage to stay online, I think it’s kind of an irresponsible tool.
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on November 2, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Many people don’t like to see advertising on a web page so they use Adblock. Unfortunately, many of the smaller sites will suffer with the increase in use of Adblock.
on November 2, 2011 at 4:22 am
Really nice list, Speed link is the add-on which I was looking for quite a long time. I have bookmarked many page and it’s really hard to find the specific page in quick time. I’m going to install it now. Thank you so much!!
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on November 2, 2011 at 2:15 pm
Speed Dial is a great extension for helping to organize and find your bookmarks quickly.
on November 2, 2011 at 2:52 pm
Hi Paul,
I loved this post. I have a few tips gained from reading this post and plan to implement them. I especially loved the FireFTP extension. I didn’t know this existed, so thank you for the tip.
I may also look into speed dial as I am super-hot on organising my bookmarks and use Firefox to do this. I have spent years organising my bookmarks into their own folders and sub folders.
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on November 3, 2011 at 8:12 am
I’m glad you found the post useful, Chris.
on November 4, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Great list Paul.
)
Certainly fits in nicely with my latest post too! (Glad I befriended you on BE and started going through your submitted posts
I definitely will be using FireFTP. Awesome!
Thanks for doing the research mate.
Another one that neither of us mentioned that Steve Scott pointed out to me in the comments thread (and I went and downloaded instantly) is EasyComment. It pre-fills the Name/email/Website blocks when you go to comment. And if you want to comment as an affiliate site, you can preset different “profiles” so set the right profile and just click the link and it will pre-fill everything.
Now THAT will increase online productivity
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on November 6, 2011 at 3:04 pm
The EasyComment extensions sounds like a great one for every blogger to install. I visit many blogs and it would save me time if I don’t have to repeatedly fill in the same information in the comment forms.
Thanks for visiting, Alex.
on November 8, 2011 at 7:15 am
I am using the Webmail notifier because its easy and convenient for me because I am maintaining different emails.
on November 8, 2011 at 8:16 am
The Webmail notifiers is a good extension. It can save you time because you won’t have to check each of your mail accounts to find out if you have mail as it will notify you when you do.
on November 8, 2011 at 6:38 pm
Great article. I am a big fan of AdBlock and FoxLingo. You also gave me a few other plugins to check out.
I would also nominate NoScript for its JavaScript protection and SEOMoz for its SEO capabilites. Some other good SEO mentioned would be RankChecker and the SEO Toolbar.
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on November 9, 2011 at 8:26 am
NoScript is one of the must-have extensions that I always install in my Firefox browser.
on November 9, 2011 at 10:23 am
For my blogging productivity, I love ScribeFire Next. It’s can increase blogging productivity than use built-in blogspot editor. It’s easy and fast.
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on November 16, 2011 at 7:10 am
I would add some twitter scheduling extension like bufferapp or Hootsuite extension to that list. But it is useful only if you are an active Twitter user.
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on February 18, 2012 at 10:28 am
Never heard of Fire Shot add-on, looks like worth trying that addon, specially for bloggers it might be helpful. Will try that addon.
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on May 12, 2012 at 2:12 am
I try to avoid using Adblock. Most of the websites I frequent are dependent on ad revenue in order to sustain themselves, and it seems rather heartless to take it away from them.