Firefox is awesome.
Hm, it has been a while since I've updated! Sorry! I went to a very interesting Video Game Design camp/seminar in Atlanta for two weeks, and last week was at the beach! But, now I can resume our normally scheduled updates (or lack thereof).
Well, I decided to outline some of my favorite Firefox extensions - ways to make the best browser in the world even better! (If you don't have Firefox, go ahead and get it from www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/firefox/).
First of all - one of my favorites. The Download Statusbar (available from addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/26) gets rid of the pesky downloads window, and shows you in-progress and completed downloads on a statusbar at the bottom of the screen. You can hover over them to easily see how much you have downloaded, the estimated time left, the download speed, etc., and then open them, clear them from the bar, or delete them from the system once it is done! This is WAY better than the annoying default downloads window.
The next one, Firebug (available at addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843), is an amazing tool for any web-development related tasks. By hitting F12, you can instantly browse through, inspect, and edit the HTML, CSS, Script, DOM, and Cookies of a page - you can even make a change to the code, and view the updated page! The inspect tool is especially amazing - it allows you to move your mouse around a page, and Firebug scrolls to the code for that part! Really useful to try and find a bug in a particular section of a large page!
The next one is another web-development tool - the Web Developer toolbar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60). It has a WHOLE bunch of useful tools for testing/developing web pages - you can disable CSS and images, show all kinds of image information, anchors, link details, div orders, etc., resize the window, outline frames or tables, view source or generated source, validate CSS, HTML, or Links, and basically a whole bunch of other stuff.
Okay, the next one is probably one of the most useful ones you will ever find. Adblock Plus (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865) allows you to block any and all image, frame, or flash ads. Basically, you never have to see ads again! You can load a pre-made list of common ad servers that will take out most ads, and then right-click and "block" any others that you still see to add them to the list. This makes browsing the web SO much nicer, as you never again have to be bothered by annoying flashing ads!
Googlepedia (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2517) is another one of my favorites - whenever you do a google search, it displays the normal results on the left half of the screen, and then displays the relevant Wikipedia entry on the right side. Since half of the time I am searching for some general information - release date, population, or some other kind of encyclopedic fact, this means that I can just look to the wikipedia article on the left and quickly find whatever I am looking for! Only rarely have I searched for something that it hasn't been able to provide a relavant article for - this tool is really useful!
Lastly - themes. There are a whole bunch of themes that you can download for Firefox to customize your browser, and you can find them all from addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2 - just browse through here, find one you like, and install it! This way, you could find a theme based on your favorite sports team, a minimalistic theme, a dark theme, or a theme that imitates another operating system - whatever you want!
Enjoy Firefox!
Well, I decided to outline some of my favorite Firefox extensions - ways to make the best browser in the world even better! (If you don't have Firefox, go ahead and get it from www.mozilla.com/en-US/products/firefox/).
First of all - one of my favorites. The Download Statusbar (available from addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/26) gets rid of the pesky downloads window, and shows you in-progress and completed downloads on a statusbar at the bottom of the screen. You can hover over them to easily see how much you have downloaded, the estimated time left, the download speed, etc., and then open them, clear them from the bar, or delete them from the system once it is done! This is WAY better than the annoying default downloads window.
The next one, Firebug (available at addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843), is an amazing tool for any web-development related tasks. By hitting F12, you can instantly browse through, inspect, and edit the HTML, CSS, Script, DOM, and Cookies of a page - you can even make a change to the code, and view the updated page! The inspect tool is especially amazing - it allows you to move your mouse around a page, and Firebug scrolls to the code for that part! Really useful to try and find a bug in a particular section of a large page!
The next one is another web-development tool - the Web Developer toolbar (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60). It has a WHOLE bunch of useful tools for testing/developing web pages - you can disable CSS and images, show all kinds of image information, anchors, link details, div orders, etc., resize the window, outline frames or tables, view source or generated source, validate CSS, HTML, or Links, and basically a whole bunch of other stuff.
Okay, the next one is probably one of the most useful ones you will ever find. Adblock Plus (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1865) allows you to block any and all image, frame, or flash ads. Basically, you never have to see ads again! You can load a pre-made list of common ad servers that will take out most ads, and then right-click and "block" any others that you still see to add them to the list. This makes browsing the web SO much nicer, as you never again have to be bothered by annoying flashing ads!
Googlepedia (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2517) is another one of my favorites - whenever you do a google search, it displays the normal results on the left half of the screen, and then displays the relevant Wikipedia entry on the right side. Since half of the time I am searching for some general information - release date, population, or some other kind of encyclopedic fact, this means that I can just look to the wikipedia article on the left and quickly find whatever I am looking for! Only rarely have I searched for something that it hasn't been able to provide a relavant article for - this tool is really useful!
Lastly - themes. There are a whole bunch of themes that you can download for Firefox to customize your browser, and you can find them all from addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2 - just browse through here, find one you like, and install it! This way, you could find a theme based on your favorite sports team, a minimalistic theme, a dark theme, or a theme that imitates another operating system - whatever you want!
Enjoy Firefox!
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