As much as I’ve been using Google Chrome lately (which still has a blazing fast Javascript engine), Firefox is still my primary browser. The reason I don’t switch is that Firefox has a plugin system. I have a lot of plugins I use that I now consider essential. Here is a short list of plugins I’m currently using, which I recommend.  I may have covered some of these in past articles, but others have been uninstalled or fallen out of favor due to lack of author support, or instability.  The following are the plugins currently installed and running on Firefox.

AdBlock Plus:  since this is an advertising-supported site, it is very self-defeating to mention this plugin.  But this is far and away the best plugin I’ve used.  By subscribing to different filters on the internet, you can pretty much get rid of a bulk of the advertising on websites.  Some still won’t go away, but AdBlock Plus has  filtering that is updated regularly.  Don’t leave “Home” without it!

AutoPager:  if you frequently browse sites that have a lot of pages to them, this plugin will automatically load the next page(s) in sequence for you.  If you are reading pages of Google results, for example, all you need to do is scroll down your page, and AutoPager will automatically load the next page for you.  It is not perfect, but that is due to its design: it can’t “guess” how to navigate to the next page on many websites, but you will find that for the majority of sites out there (including those powered by common web applications like vBulletin, etc.), it works without any intervention on your part.

Easy YouTube Video Downloader:  how many times have you wished you could save a YouTube video to your computer?  This plugin gives you options to save YouTube video as three different file types (FLV, 3GP and MP4).

IE Tab:  for those running Windows, IE Tab lets you run an Internet Explorer window right in a Firefox tab.  You can designate which sites open up automatically in IE Tab, and switching between rendering engines is as simple as a mouse click on an icon in the status bar.

Screengrab: if you often need to save screen shots of websites, or portions thereof, Screengrab gives you the tools to do so.  You can save individual elements, or highlight screen areas to save on your computer, or copy to your clipboard.

Shareaholic:  if you use a lot of the social networking sites, blogs, etc., this plugin gives you simple one-click access to sharing your current page with the site of your choice.  For example, by right-clicking on this page and choosing the Shareaholic menu item, you can select Facebook from the list and share this article on your facebook account.  It also has a setting for WordPress, making it easy for me to share new items with you here at Rudy’s Corner.

PayPal Plugin for Firefox: this plugin is available for other browsers, and while I don’t always leave it activated (thus, I only give it an “honorable mention” here), it comes in handy for one reason: generating single-use debit card numbers for my PayPal debit card.  These single-use numbers only work at one merchant, and expire after a short amount of time.  Or, you can cancel it at any time.  It is a good security measure so you never have to give out your “real” debit card number online.

You can search for any of these plugins on Google.  They are worth searching out!