Five Firefox Add-ons to Maximize Productivity

If you read this blog regularly, you know that I love Firefox. If you don’t read this blog regularly you know it now. The thing I love most about Firefox is that the users are so passionate about the browser that those who program are willing to spend their time creating free, excellent add-ons to make Firefox even better.

I haven’t built one (yet), but I find add-ons to be almost magical. One quick installation and suddenly something that was annoying and seemed to take forever is now fun and fast, thanks to some brilliant programmer who decided to share his/her skills for the good of all. I tried to use Google Chrome for awhile and I barely knew how to begin without my add-ons. Seriously, I’m that dependent on them.

Every few months, I visit the Firefox Add-on respository to see what is new or what I might have missed. A few weeks ago I stopped by to dig in. This time I found several contenders that had magical potential. Unfortunately, in practice, many of them failed to impress. However, there were a few that were so great that I’m already addicted.

I’m still using all the Must-Have Firefox Add-ons I discussed a few months ago, but now I have five more to share. Not only are they really cool and fun to use, but each one of these particular add-ons has helped me to further maximize my productivity.

• Interclue

  

  Interclue is a helpful link for people who frequently use the web for research and hate wasting time waiting for pages to load before knowing if they are useful. Once activated, Interclue will allow you to see a preview of the page and use the Clueviewer to learn about and view more of the site.
  
  While the ability to preview a site by hovering over a link is in itself really cool, I recommend you read through the tour because Interclue is packed with features that can make your time on the internet much more productive. The tour isn’t long and you’ll be glad you learned about all the fantastic features.

• Firefox Showcase

  

  If you often open a ton of tabs in Firefox and you hate having to click on each one to find what you are looking for then the Firefox Showcase add-on is for you. All you have to do is press F12 and a new Firefox window will open, showing thumbnails of all your open tabs. You can click on a thumbnail (or double-click, depending on how you configure the options) and that tab will become the active item on your desktop.
  
  Firefox Showcase has many options ranging from how you want to view the thumbnails to how you want to switch views. It may take you a week or so to remember that you don’t have to switch through tabs to find the one for which you are looking. However, once you get used to pressing F12 to view your open tabs, you will officially be in love with this add-on.

• Speed Dial

  

  Speed Dial allows you to create a tab (or several, separated into groups) that shows nine thumbnails linking to websites of your choice. Rather than just creating a basic links page of your favorite sites yourself, Speed Dial allows you to quickly and easily create a visual directory of your most-used sites.
  
  When I first installed this add-on, I was annoyed to find that whenever I closed Firefox, I lost all my stored URLs and preferences. This problem basically made the add-on useless, but I wanted to use it. So I emailed Josep del Rio, the creator of Speed Dial and he explained that the problem was actually a Firefox issue. He directed me to an article that discusses Firefox preferences not saving and explains how to fix the issue – which is actually caused by a corrupt preferences file. It took me approximately three minutes to fix the issue and it turned out ot fix some other issues I’d already been having with Firefox as well.
  
  With the Firefox problem solved, I made Speed Dial my homepage and I use it at least twice an hour – probably more. You can use the plugin as a single tab or you can create groups that load in separate tabs (still within one Firefox tab). I have a group of sites I log into before I visit other blogs (like My Blog Log and Blog Catalog), a group of my site login pages and several other groups that make my online work a whole lot more productive. It helps me remember to check things I sometimes forget and it saves me typing time. I’m a fast typist, but if I add up all the time saved in a week, it becomes substantial.
  
  An example: if it takes me 10 seconds to type a URL and 2 seconds to navigate to my Speed Dial tab, click on the right group tab and then click a thumbnail, then I’m saving 8 seconds each time I load a site. I can also choose to use hotkeys to do this, but I’ve found that when using groups it takes about the same amount of time. Two seconds might not sound like much, but multiply it by the 36 sites I currently have on Speed Dial and say I open each of those sites 3 times a day (that’s conservative – some are opened less and some many, many more). In this example, I’m saving nearly 15 minutes a day. That’s nearly two working hours a week. Not too shabby for a free Firefox add-on.

• Auto-Context add-on

  

  I recently reviewed the Auto-Context add-on. I’m mentioning it again on this list because it it just that cool. You can go read the review for more information, but basically this is a add-on that will help you immeasurably with creating posts and advertising swipe files. You can copy and paste text to a file without having to create or even open the file. Bottom Line: If you are a blogger or internet marketer, you will love this add-on.

• EntreBar

  

  If you aren’t familiar with Entrecard and you’re a blogger, I recommend you check this service out. It’s a credit-based ad network for bloggers. You place a widget on your blog that rotates ads (that you can approve) for other sites and allows Entrecard users to “drop their card” at your site. You earn credits when you drop your card on sites of other users. You can also buy, trade or perform various requests (such as commenting on a blog) to get credits. You then use your credits to set up campaigns to show your blog’s ad on other users’ widgets.
  
  The Entrecard network is divided into many categories so this is a legitimate way to increase your targeted traffic. It’s also an excellent service for finding other blogs that interest you and bloggers with whom you can network. There are many, many ways to navigate through the site and this is where the EntreBar can become very helpful. It can help you feel less overwhelmed by all the options and focus your navigation to get more done.
  
  You may think you don’t need another toolbar taking up valuable page space, but you can just hide the toolbar when you aren’t working with Entrecard. With all the features of this toolbar you will soon find it indispensible. Once you login to your account (directly from the toolbar), you will be able to easily surf to Entrecard users’ blogs so there is no need to visit the Entrecard site at all. The EntreBar offers many surfing options. You can choose a specific category and also search based on popularity, newness and other factors. The EntreBar also includes links to key places on the Entrecard site (message inbox, help, etc) so you can easily get where you need to go in one click.

I hope that you’ll find these add-ons as useful as I do. If you have a Firefox add-on – or other great productivity tool – that helps you get things done faster and more easily, please share in the comments.