The Propellerheads March 14, 2010

Q: My brother convinced me to switch to Firefox and Thunderbird. Are there any good add-ons that you can recommend to enhance my browsing pleasure?

A: Boy, can I! But before I jump to it, let's define add-ons for the uninitiated. An add-on is what the name implies, something extra beyond the normal browser or e-mail client functionality. They are intended to make our lives easier, quicker and friendlier. The cost is that each one you add on will cause things to slow down a little bit. For this reason, my installed add-ons are kept to a minimum.

To see which add-ons are installed and which are available, and to install new ones, simply go to the Tools menu and select Add-ons. Or, you can go to addons.mozilla.org. I would not recommend add-ons that are not listed on this site.

First, Firefox is awesome at handling those pesky popup windows. But what about all those other annoying Web widgets like advertisements and flash animations that hold your browser hostage? For these we turn to Adblock Plus and Flashblock.

Adblock Plus does just that, blocks advertisement content from being downloaded at all. This really speeds up Web pages. It uses a list of partial URL matches to perform its magic. For example, on a typical weather.com page, 11 of 60 images or scripts don't get downloaded. It's fully customizable, of course.

Flashblock is my next favorite. It will disable all Flash animations on a Web page. Again, this speeds up page loading and prevents those full-screen Flash ads from infuriating you. It leaves the place holder for the animation there, so you can play it if you want, and naturally you can disable it on sites that require Flash, like YouTube.

Next up, I personally don't appreciate Firefox's Download Manager popping up in a separate window. Therefore, I utilize Download Manager Tweak to have this show up in a tab instead.

I love tabs ... so much so that I don't want them to live depressing, rudimentary lives. Therefore I have ColorfulTabs. This add-on doesn't do anything but make Firefox look prettier. My one vanity, if you wish.

Unfortunately, not all Web pages are accommodating for people who use a Web browser other than Internet Explorer. So sometimes I am forced to use IE for certain sites. But, actually clicking on the IE shortcut invokes a violent spasm of detest, so I utilize the IE Tab add-on instead. Although everything else is good ol' Firefox, that one tab uses the IE rendering engine. There, I feel better already.

My next group of add-ons might not be for everybody. These are really useful for Web development. An absolute must is Firebug. It helps analyze the HTML structure of a Web page and also diagnose why that celestial CSS that you wrote isn't working as intended.

Finally, if you ever have to write documentation that references a lot of screen captures of Web pages, give FireShot a shot. It not only captures the visible portion of the screen, but the entire page, which I can tell you is way better than pasting them together in Photoshop.

Ooops, it looks like I've run out of space to mention Thunderbird add-ons. I'll have to cover them next time. Until then, have a colorful, pest-free browsing experience.

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. E-mail them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc. 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our Web site at www.askthepropellerheads.com.