If you do not already use FireFox, please GET IT NOW. I cannot emphasize enough how insecure and irresponsible Internet Explorer is. Recent testing has unearthed over 752 web addresses that can infect IE with spyware without a user clicking on anything, including 20 search engines. Simple solution. Get Firefox. It blocks popups, conforms to web standards, allows tabbed browsing and as you will soon discover, gives you much more control over your Internet experience than IE.
Now that THAT essential step is complete, I’ve put together a compilation of the most important Firefox Extensions (an extension is an add-on that enhances the functionality of Firefox) that you should get:
VITAL:
* Google Toolbar for Firefox – many, many more features than the standard searchbar (you can also get google suggest here)
* Super DragAndGo – Drag a link to a new tab, text string to a new search tab by throwing it anywhere
* Disable Targets for Downloads – prevents download links opening in a blank window
* Single Window – keeps external links from opening new instances of Firefox
* Tabbrowser Preferences – lets you set MANY options about tabs (honestly, there may be some overlap between plugins, I’m not sure)
* User Agent Switcher – This might not sound important, but it is… if you come across any site that (like Windows Update) that requires Internet Explorer, you can just click the User Agent and tell Firefox to pretend its Internet Explorer.
* Web Developer – absolutely essential for any web designer; I use it every day; it is amazing the CSS and HTML stuff you can do with this extension!!!
NICE:
* downTHEMall! – lets you right click and download all of the images with a user-defined extension; great for sucking down tons of fonts or images or sounds or whatever.
* SwiftTabs – move to the next tab or the previous tab with a key
* ColorZilla – page zoom, eyedropper, image magnification, etc.
* Bandwidth Tester – tells you the bandwidth of your current internet connection
* Measure It – add a built-in pixel measuring tool to firefox… this is a great one!
