Firefox is one of the very best browsers on the market, far better than IE (and faster), it has more configuration options than Opera and a host of add-ons make it a breeze to configure to your personal preferences.  You have to start somewhere so why not start with these 5 add-ons?  Add-ons are not listed in any particular order.

1.  Adblock Plus, this should be self-explanatory, it blocks ads, plain and simple.  Before it activates you will have to subscribe to a “definition” list of sorts that tells it what ads to block, pick one and go.

2.  Fasterfox, because a fast browser can be faster.  Many of the tweaks that Fasterfox applies are network configuration settings, allowing the browser to load pages faster and browse between previously visited sites faster, it also adds a pageload timer to the bottom of the window.  Choose between “Default,” “Courteous,” “Optimized,” “Turbo Charged” or “Custom” options.  I’ve found that “Optimized” works best.

3.  McAfee SiteAdvisor, is that site you love downloading from really safe, if it has been indexed (and a lot of sites have) then SiteAdvisor will tell you and allow you to view detailed site reports, available in a basic free version or a slightly more feature-full paid version, the free version should suit most home and laptop users just fine.  Don’t go online in Firefox without it.

4.  Session Manager, Windows decided to crash when you had 15 different tabs open and were in the middle of something critical, with Session Manager, lost browsing sessions will be a thing of the past, set it to restore “Previous Browsing Session at Startup” and you will no longer have to worry about browser or operating system crashes (well, provided the computer boots up again).

5/5a.  These two kind of tie in with each other but you can use one without the other but if you must just choose one, choose Firefox Showcase which displays a thumbnail of each open tab in a new window, click a thumbnail to open that tab or close the ones you no longer need open.  It’s okay by itself but it’s even better if you install the Vista-Aero theme for Firefox.  Yes, it makes it look a lot like IE7 and function like it to but you will need Firefox Showcase installed to use the “Showcase” feature that the theme gives you.

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Entry was posted on Saturday, December 29th, 2007 at 1:36 pm under Internet.  Print This Post

Read more entries by Jonathan Schlaffer.
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