Ten Must-Have Firefox Add-Ons for Bloggers

I am a serious Firefox-ophile. When I am working on someone’s PC and I see that they favor Internet Explorer I ask them why. Most of the time, they have no reason except that it happens to already be installed on their PCs and many people don’t even realize there are alternatives.

I explain to them that not only does Firefox have fewer security theats, but there are also a huge number of extension that can add just about any functionality imaginable. From website and image previews to bookmarking and development tools, Firefox developers (both official developers and the open-source community) have created add-ons that can make the browser do anything this side of sit up and beg – and I hear that extension is due mid-year.

Every few weeks I head over to the main Firefox Add-ons repository and check out what’s new or interesting. I try approximately five to ten new extensions each month, but very few end up being something that sticks. I may use them occassionally, but they don’t often become part of my regular arsenal as a blogger.

The ten plugins in this article are extensions that I use each and every day and would seriously miss. I have included some less-known add-ons here in place of the always-talked-about ones because I find these to be especially helpful in terms of blogging. I’ll explain how I use them for blogging in particular as I go. One last note: I have linked to the developer’s page in place of the download page where applicable because I gotta share the link love.

• Firefox Tab Mix Plus

  As if tabs aren’t cool enough, right? Well, this add-on allows you to do all kinds of cool things with them. My favorite feature is that you can choose to have multiple rows of tabs. You can decide how many rows you want and change colors based on whether tabs have been viewed or not. Of the many tab plugins for Firefox, this one is my favorite.

• Firebug

  Ever find yourself one a webpage and think, “I wonder how they did that sidebar?” You can always view the source, but if the site is written with PHP and/or CSS elements you might not find out much about its construction. With Firebug you can see a lot more code, copy it and even edit and debug your own pages. If a page is taking a long time to load, you can monitor the activity to see exactly what is causing the problem.

• Cool Iris

  Cool Iris allows you to view images and other media on a 3-D scrolling screen. It is way cooler than I can make it sound, I promise. If you spend time looking at pictures or videos, this is a very quick and fun way to do so.

• Read It Later

  This add-on is priceless. Seriously. It allows you to bookmark pages to read later, but it makes it very easy and puts them in a customizable folder. When you are doing research online, it is nearly impossible to always keep your focus.
  
  You might start out looking for information on the latest pay-per-click network and end up watching videos about traffic generation on You Tube. With Read it Later, you can bookmark the distractions that you think may be useful and go back to them later. When it comes to staying on track, Read it Later is my favorite plugin.

• i-Lighter

  This is another bookmarking tool. I use this one primarily for project research or organizing related information. You can highlight text on a webpage and a pop-up will add the link, the text you highlighted and some notes. Once you have registered for a free i-Lighter account, you’ll be able to access, view and organize all of your highlighted links.

• FoxMarks

  I consider FoxMarks (soon to become XMarks) a must-have if you work between two or more computers. I use my laptop and desktop fairly equally and it drives me crazy when I bookmark something on my laptop and then can’t access it on my desktop. After a quick free registration, you can export your bookmarks from one PC and import them to another.
  
  After the initial setup, you can have FoxMarks automatically sync when you open Firefox or you can choose to control the synchronization yourself. I love this add-on because I never have to make a list of websites I want to remember to access on my desktop when I’m surfing on my laptop and vice-versa.

• Insta-Click

  This is an add-on that might annoy some people, but I absolutely love it. Insta-Click changes your right-click button so that when you click it the link opens in a new tab. On some touchpads/mice the middle button is automatically configured to do this, but I use a trackball so no middle button for me. As I said, because this takes over your right-click button it might bug some people because you can’t bring up the context menu if you are hovering over a link. For me, it’s like a dream come true because I am always opening links in new tabs.

• Smart Bookmarks Bar

  This is a very simple add-on that simply changes the text on your bookmarks toolbar to icons. I tend to drag things to my bookmark toolbar all the time and then I forget the links that get pushed forward and off the bar itself. This allows me to have a ton more links on the toolbar so I tend to keep them better organized. When you mouse-over an icon the name of the link will appear. Overall it just makes the bookmark toolbar more useful for me.

• Search Status

  This is a neat little add-on that adds icons on the bottom of the screen showing you how the page you are on ranks on various search engines. You can see Google Page Rank, Alexa score, Complete and a few other rankings. I use this to get a quick idea of how popular a blog is, including mine.

• Twitter Bar

  I love Twitter and I usually use TweetDeck for all my Tweeting needs. However, Twitter can be extremely distracting. Once I load a Twitter app I tend to get lost in reading and can’t tear myself away until I’ve read, retweeted and replied to all the interesting links and information.
  
  While this information and interaction is often useful, it can eat up a lot of unscheduled time. Sometimes I just want to throw out a quick Tweet without getting lost in Twitterland. For this, I use Twitter Bar. It places a teeny tiny Twitter icon next to the other icons on the address bar (where the “http:www…” goes) of Firefox. You simply type your Tweet into the address bar, click that little icon and you’re done. You have Tweeted without the threat of becoming distracted.

There are tons of add-ons for Firefox and I’m sure you’ll find some that help make your blogging – and other activities – easier. Just browse through the Firefox add-on directory and try out some of the cool extensions there.

This post is part of the Problogger 31 Days to Build a Better Blog challenge. It’s a few days late, but better late than never. The challenge for this day was to write a list post.