Essential Firefox extensions

If you use Firefox (which you really should!) you would know about the plethora of extensions available for it. Here’s a list of extensions I use with Firefox, and why:

Web Developer
That’s what I am, so this is an obvious extension for me! It add loads of useful web developer tools to Firefox. Every time I see something on the web that makes me think “hmm… wonder how that’s done?”, this toolbar gets me the answer much faster that looking through the source code!

FoxyTunes
Control your music player straight from the browser. Especially useful on slower PCs, when switching from the browser to maximize iTunes or Windows Media Player takes a good few seconds more than you can stand. Also has an alarm clock for your favourite morning song!

IE Tab
Some older websites (and newer ones designed by strange web developers) are designed only for Internet Explorer (Air Deccan, for instance). This lets you quickly switch a web page to use IE’s rendering engine.

ForeCastFox
Displays the local weather forecast in the status bar. Not very useful for me, but I like the pretty satellite images. 🙂

DownThemAll!
Download manager. If you’ve got the bandwidth, this can increase the speed of a download by upto 400%. Supports resuming.

Google Toolbar for FireFox
Pop-up blocker, and all-in-one search tool. If you use Google extensively, this is a must-have.

Wizz RSS News Reader
Self-explanatory. Read my earlier post on why I prefer this over other news readers.

Gmail space
This lets you use your 2.5GB (and counting) Gmail space to store large files, without having to attach them and send them to yourself. It has a nice FTP-style interface.

SiteAdvisor
This one from Mcafee helps to keep your PC spyware free by warning you about dangerous websites. Integrates with Google search results.

FoxyMeter
Tells you how many pages you have surfed so far, and other information. Mine tells me that I’ve surfed 58414 pages since September 22nd 2006, at 768 pages per day. I really do need to get out more.

This list is by no means exhaustive – they are only the extensions I have come to find useful. You can download hundreds of extensions from the Firefox Add-ons site. Also see what Download.com and PC Magazine have to say about it. Remember that installing too many extensions can slow your system down, depending on it’s configuration. This dude installed 100 firefox extensions at the same time just to see what would happen. Wonder what he was tripping on!

What’s the extension you cannot do without?

Best way to download youtube, metacafe & Google videos

I’ve been using the firefox extension Video Downloader for some time now. It stopped working on youtube for a while and so I went looking for a simpler alternative – and found one. Paste the url of any video you’re viewing into the search option on keepvid, and it throws up the direct link to the video file. Or better yet, drag this link to your bookmarks toolbar and hit it whenever you need to download a video. It’s in beta (of course) and currently works with:

angryalien.com
artistdirect.com
blastro.com
blennus.com
blip.tv
bofunk.com
bolt.com
castpost.com
current.tv
dailymotion.com
devilducky.com
findvideos.com
video.freevideoblog.com
grinvi.com
grouper.com
hiphopdeal.com
lulu.tv
metacafe.com
midis.biz
Music.com
MusicVideoCodes.info
myspace.com
myspacevideocode.com
newgrounds.com
pcplanets.com
pixparty.com
revver.com
sharkle.com
streetfire.net
thatvideosite.com
theonenetwork.com
videocodes4u.com
videocodesworld.com
videocodezone.com
vidilife.com
vidnet.com
vimeo.com
vsocial.com
web62.com
zippyvideos.com

Here’s a decent (and free) flv player to watch the videos after you download them. To convert .flv files to other video formats download Super. (Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer)

More integration from Google – Orkut and Gtalk

Google has integrated Orkut and Google Talk.

At Google, we like it when people talk with each other. So we figured we should make life a little easier for our friends on orkut, where getting in touch and staying in touch is the name of the game. We noticed that a lot of orkut users have been using a separate instant messaging program to chat, which just seems like unnecessary work — clicking around, keeping separate buddy lists, etc. This is why we’ve built Google Talk into orkut, so you can see your friends’ availability and chat with them more easily. And, as a special Google Talk bonus, if you want to do more than text chat, you can make voice calls, leave voicemail, and transfer files.

We’ve put some orkut features into Google Talk too. In addition to chatting, calling, and sending files to your Google Talk buddies, you can also scrap them, receive instant notice when others scrap you, and quickly jump to any of their orkut profiles.

Gmail client for Motorazr V3

Google just launched their gmail client for mobile devices. I’ve never been a fan of how Gmail looked on Opera Mini on my motorazr, so I downloaded it as soon as I saw the news. Didn’t find it here though, had to navigate to gmail/app from my mobile to find the link. Opera Mini had to exit to download the application (gmail.jar) and installation took no time at all on my crappy GPRS connection. Loaded pretty quick, here’s how a conversation looks like:

gmail-client-capture.jpg

Decent. Interface is quicker with shortcut keys, layout is clean, and they’ve included a whole lot of features that make sense on a tiny mobile screen. If you use Gmail (which you should) and the client is compatible with your phone, this is a must have.

If you use Gmail hosted email, you may have a few problems – I repeatedly got Error 404 and 500 error messages.