The ‘creme de la creme’ of Firefox extensions

Mozilla Firefox is a popular, free, open source web browser that is extremely (and i do mean extremely) configurable and easy to use. Somewhat bare out of the box however, its functionality is easily extended with add-ons, of which there are literally thousands. Following is a list of some of my all-time favorites…

Last updated: 4-FEB-2013

Legend

Adds new functionality

Enhances existing functionality

Fixes a problem or restores removed functionality

Privacy related

Security related

Firefox Extensions – tested on Windows 7

Name	Functionality	Description	Notes/Caveats	Rating (1 to 4 stars)	Must Have!
Adblock Plus		The successor to Adblock, Adblock Plus is a must have extension for getting rid of annoying advertisements. There are alternative extensions which claim to duplicate the basic functionality of Adblock Plus, but at this point i do not believe that any are as complete, effective, well supported and as easy to manage. Adblock Plus comes as close to a ‘set it and forget it’ extension as i think one can get. Most people will simply install it, pick an ad blocking list to subscribe to and be done with it. Since the ad block lists are updated frequently and automatically, there’s really little more to do unless you need to allow or block particular elements on a per-domain basis.	In certain instances, it is possible for Adblock Plus to break a website. Disabling it is quick and easy however. Note that an option to allow certain, non-obtrusive ads is enabled by default.
Add to Search Bar		This extension makes it easy to add almost any search engine to the Firefox Search Bar.
All-in-One Sidebar		AiOS is a very handy and well done extension that organizes your sidebar content and allows you to access it quickly. In addition to your bookmarks, you can also view all your add-ons in the sidebar, as well as the error console, a web page, themes, downloads and more. The content can be optimized for displaying in the sidebar as well. I highly recommend this extension.
Better Privacy		Unknown to many, there are different types of cookies and opting to block cookies from the Firefox privacy options will not block them all. Better Privacy can deal with another type of cookie: ‘Local Shared Objects’, or so-called Flash cookies. This is another ‘set it and forget’ extension for most people, though there are options to protect specific LSO’s from being deleted. Personally i have never found it necessary to whitelist any LSO’s, but this capability may come in handy for folks using web cams, among other things.	I suppose it may be possible to break certain websites if they rely on Flash cookies. I have not experienced this however.
Bookmark Favicon Changer		Makes it easy to change the icon for a bookmark.
Copy Link Name		Right click on a link and what do you get? The option to copy the link address. Well what if you want to copy the link text? This simply adds the functionality that should be built-in to Firefox, but it isn’t.
Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus		Element Hiding Helper extends Adblock Plus by making it easy to hide offending content, via point and click, that is not covered by Adblock Plus. Adblock Plus is excellent at getting rid of advertising, but that doesn’t mean it will remove all the content you want removed. There are many ways to style particular websites and Element Hiding Helper is probably one of the easiest if all you need to do is remove an offending piece content.	Must have Adblock Plus installed
Element Properties		I have to wonder why in the world the geniuses at Mozilla decided to remove the “Properties” item from the context menu for certain objects. What were they thinking? Element Properties reinstates what never should have been scrapped in the first place.	Probably more for geeks
Find All		Find All is a really handy extension for those who use ‘CTRL + F’ allot to search a particular page for terms. Find All adds new functionality by finding and highlighting all instances of a word or phrase and displaying the word and part of the sentence it is contained in. It then allows you to click on each term to scroll to the location of the search term the page.