Enhancing your Firefox browsing 'experience'
Posted: Wed Jul 23, 2008 7:53 am
Firefox 3 is out. If you use Firefox and don't have it yet, get it (unless of course you rely on an extension in Firefox 2 that you specifically know isn't compatible, but there are actually 2 ways around that in most cases). The Firefox 3 memory footprint is much improved over FF2, and performance seems greatly enhanced for both browsing and scripting. There's also a new set of 'plugins' that seems to have enhanced the performance for Flash, media players etc. There's an old P3-450 clunking around in the corner here and youtube/myspace style flash movies are viewable for the first time in Firefox with FF3, also browsing no longer feels like a painful experience on that machine (once the browser manages to load into ram off the slow harddrive that is).
Here's a few tools I can recommend to Firefox users to improve the browser's security a bit:
Just for the heck of it, here's some other extensions I find useful:
These may be of interest to people who have an interest in web development:
I've got about another 15 extensions that I use to further customize my firefox installation (custom status bars with different tools on each, RSS feed readers, code editors, ftp plugins etc) but I think these are the most functional of the bunch. Also note that if you're on a machine starved for performance, the more extensions you load up into Firefox the more it might impact your performance. Also some extensions are known to have memory leaks, so this is an additional cause in Firefox 2's reputation as being a ram & performance hog.
Here's a few tools I can recommend to Firefox users to improve the browser's security a bit:
- CookieSafe - If you set it to only allow cookies for whitelisted sites (default), then only sites you explicitly allow will set cookies. No more 'fake' cookie results in spyware scanners (at least from FireFox).
NoScript - Allows you to disable scripting globally then selectively enable it on only sites (or specific subdomains) you choose. I used to leave this disabled until I went to places I thought might require a bit more security, but with the number of major corporate sites being injected with attacks these days I use it a bit more.
Stealther - If you're really paranoid (or wanting to cover your tracks) then enable this. No history will be logged (many things are even not cached beyond the page's immediate state), no cookies will be allowed (this overrides cookiesafe) and when used in conjunction with NoScript you're about as secure as you can get using a browser on a computer. Which isn't to say that you're truly secure, only that your browser is on lockdown.
Adblock Plus - the original Adblock+filterset.g are way out of date and not under active development any longer. Not exactly security, but it can be set to either download & hide ads (for sites that refuse content unless you accept ads) or to block ads entirely (which causes many sites to be a lot more responsive, as it's often their affiliate programs that are slowing things down).
Just for the heck of it, here's some other extensions I find useful:
- PicLens - Interesting 'gallery' plugin that I find useful since some of what I do is graphic design related.
PDF Download - I have hated PDF's browser integration for years, as it often appears to lock up the browser until it's done loading itself into ram. Then there's the inevitable wait to go to page 2 of the document as the dumb thing loads. Why not just download it and view when ready?
CoLT - Or Copy Link Text (but this has more features than the FF extension that uses the full name). Copy a link as the URL only, the text only, or copy it in several formats (including BBcode for easy forum pasting of links).
FEBE - Backup of most of your current firefox installation (extensions, skins, preferences, bookmarks, passwords etc) either selectively or all at once. Note that the current 'stable' version is FireFox2 only, FF3 users will have to grab the beta of 6
Classic Compact Options - I used to use two nice minimal skins in FireFox2 (MiniFox & MiniFoxFlat) but got tired of waiting for them to support FF3. This is a worthy alternative (actually I think I like it better now as it allows some customization). I usually move the address bar up next to the menu, with the google bar to the right, then I move bookmarks up next to the prev/next/refresh/stop/home/etc buttons and 'remove' the bookmarks bar as I also use The Web Developer extension and it takes another bar/line for itself.
Tab Mix Plus - I've used this for a long time now; even though the Firefox team has made improvements in FF2 & FF3 I still find it useful (especially as I'm used to it). I also let it override Firefox's default Session Manager because this one offers a bit more (at least to me). Unfortunately Firefox3 users will have to use the latest Dev-Build from the build forums.
[url=https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2175]Slashdotter - enhances /. (slashdot) if you're a frequent reader of the site.
These may be of interest to people who have an interest in web development:
- The Web Developer extension - This gives so much control over your browsing experience that I find I leave it visible all the time now. Used in conjunction with the DOM Inspector you're able to dig into most web pages out there and debug them or just see how they do what they do.
ColorZilla - gives Firefox a built-in eyedropper (which replaced Colorpix for me). Also has a Color Picker if you want it (I prefer to use ColorSchemer Studio for quick color palettes when not running photoshop, but it's non-free).
MeasureIt - A quick pixel-based ruler, especially useful not that Firefox 3 has followed the trend of full-page zoom (instead of just enlarging text).
Firebug - Edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript on any page that's been loaded into the browser.
I've got about another 15 extensions that I use to further customize my firefox installation (custom status bars with different tools on each, RSS feed readers, code editors, ftp plugins etc) but I think these are the most functional of the bunch. Also note that if you're on a machine starved for performance, the more extensions you load up into Firefox the more it might impact your performance. Also some extensions are known to have memory leaks, so this is an additional cause in Firefox 2's reputation as being a ram & performance hog.
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