Thursday, March 11, 2010
| Here's 5 Firefox Add-ons that I constantly use:
UnMht -https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8051 -This is for viewing and saving web pages into Internet Explorer's MHTML format, which has the .mht extension. -Since the time of Ie5, circa 1999, Internet Explorer has allowed people to save their documents into a single MHTML file. Back then, other browsers save a complete web page as a .html file with the accompanying .jpgs, .gifs, javascripts and css saved into a sub-folder that has the same name as the .html. Which means that your computer can quickly be littered with lots of tiny files! Recently, other browsers have caught up with Internet Explorer and let you save a complete web page into a single ZIP archive file. But, this is not as beautifully implemented as Microsoft's MHTML. -Which is why when Firefox has an addon that can do this, I happily left the slowly sinking ship called Internet Explorer.  Hell, I'll even put this as the main reason why Firefox is now my main browser now. Note to Chrome developers: I am watching but I see no reason to make Chrome my main browser as you guys don't support MHTML. There must be so many guys like me, who have saved tons of articles on everything, from tech articles to recipes, in MHTML format. These people need a way to easily open these articles, so throw them a lifeline and let them be rescued!
Xmarks -https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410 -Bookmarks synchronizer across different Firefox installations and OSes. -This is the 2nd reason why I finally switched over to Firefox, instead of continuing to use Internet Explorer. If you haven't heard of this, it allows you sync your Firefox bookmarks across different installations. For example, you may have Firefox running in Windows or Linux – in your laptop, home computer, work computer and USB thumb drive. They can all have access to your latest bookmarks as they are now automatically synced across the Internet. But you will need to register to use this free program. Just your name and password; and nothing to bug you ever! Note to Firefox developers: Google Chrome has a better implementation of this. Nothing to Add-on and no need to register if you have a Google Account; it just works out-of-the-box! Be afraid! Be very afraid!
Video DownloadHelper -Youtube and other video sites's video downloader. -Nowadays people's surfing life revolve around Youtube, so this one is a must! -This is to help me download Youtube or other videos that are of interest to me. See a recipe that I think I can try out with my limited cooking skills? Download and save to hard disk, of course!   NoScript -This one is for security reasons and it is especially useful to prevent you from inadvertently infested with malware after landing on a trojan infected site. With this enabled, no unsafe scripts can execute without your permission. -Having this is a bother, however; it's pretty much like having a firewall, you will need to give permissions on what can execute on your computer whenever you land on a new site. Unlike a firewall, it won't ask you each time for permission, but you will find that a link or button cannot be clicked or Youtube is grayed out which will give you hints that something is not right. But in time, you will know how to read its icon on the bottom right and enable permissions accordingly. Easier learning curve than when you first learn how to deal with your non-Windows firewall!  User Agent Switcher -A user agent in this context, refers to how your Firefox browser identifies itself to a web site that it is accessing. -Changing your user agent is especially for when you want to masquerade as Googlebot, useful when certain sites block access to their articles by asking you to register, for example. You will notice this at certain sites where after you read their first article, you find that clicking on their subsequent links bring up a registration page. So what you do, is simply to pretend to be Googlebot, Google's search engine bot, which they always allow to access their pages. -This has many other uses and entire articles have been written about its virtues so feel free to find out more. Lately, however, I find that some sites have checks in place against this trick so your mileage may vary. And finally … |
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