I think most of the people switch IE to Firefox. However, I use Firefox as the complementary application for browsing. I use portable Firefox, extract once and use anywhere. However, it is slow to start the application.
But, Firefox is really nice.
The followings are some extensions/plugins/addons that I like:
Adblock Plus – Disable a lot of advertisement, so that, no need to download those unwanted advertisement.
All-in-One Gestures – Using mouse gesture to “Go back one page” and “Go forward one page”, how nice? Just by draging right-click from right to left or left to right.
All-in-One Sidebar – You can view all your addons at the sidebar, easy and clear.
Clear Cache Button – A button at the toolbar, click once clear your cache.
CookieSwap – Just, if you want to visit some page, but you need to clear the cookies, however, you want your cookies remain, then, you swap a new profile using empty cookie. After that, you can swap back your original profile, and your cookies are still there.
Download Statusbar – Overload the default download interface, very nice.
Download Helper – You can sniff the .flv file from the website such as YouTube. Very nice.
DownThemAll! – Download accelerator, so that you can download the file faster.
Fasterfox – Though I install it, I not sure whether it affects the browsing speed or not.
FAYT – Find as you type, very good, no need to press “F3” or “Ctrl+F”, just type and you start find the text in the page.
FEBE – Backup your Firefox extensions.
Firebug – Are you writing your own webpage? Are you going to use Javascript? If you are using Javascript, then this extension is very nice for you.
Flashblock – If you visit a webpage and there is a lot of Flash, then it will affect your download speed, because your connection is downloading those Flash. How about disable them, and if you want, just click on them?
FlashGot – Do you have any download manager such as Free Download Manager, Orbit and FlashGet? You might like the download manager integrates with your Firefox.
Greasemonkey – How to use this extension? You need to install the userscripts, then you can do many things. Eg: change the text and background colour, resize the textarea. Because it uses Javascript. If you good in programming, you can write your own script and modify the page you are browsing.
Image Toolbar – Move your mouse to the image, popup a toolbar, then you can save, copy and else, just like IE.
MediaPlayerConnectivity – Do you feel frustrated when you find a song in Chinese websites, but you cannot play those .wma file? By using this extension, you can connect the media file to your other media player you have installed. And it will not start the media file automatically unless you click them.
Mozilla Archive Format – Using IE, you can save the page as .mht, so that all the image files will be included inside one .mht file. How about Firefox?
NoScript – Script are dangerous? Using this extension, disable annoying script.
PDF Download – Annoyance when open a PDF file because it will embedded in the web browser, sometimes just makes your browser no response?
PopupMaster – Disable annoyance popup.
Quick Preference Button – Want to change your Firefox preference? Eg: you can disable image easily with this extension.
QuickRestart – Click and restart your Firefox. Because, after installing the plugins, you might not restart immediately.
Session Manager – Firefox suddenly terminated? How is your previous browsing pages? Where are they?
Show Picture – Visit a page, and the image is slow to show up, or just no response. Then, you can right-click and “show picture” just like IE.
Tab Mix Plus – Tab browsing, with more other functions.
Uppity – Just click the button, then you can go up one level of your url address.
User Agent Switcher – Change your browser’s user agent.
View Dependencies – View the information of the page, the dependencies.
I also install other plugins. I felt the plugins I listed above are very important for me.
Added (24/10/2007)
Sage – I myself don’t use this as the default RSS reader. However, I tried it already, its interface is very good.
Bookmark LinkChecker – If you got a lot of bookmarks/favorites, you can use this addon to check the status of your bookmark, either they updated, not updated, redirected or no more existed.
Added (26/10/2007)
MinimizeToTray – Because of slow to load Firefox, you can just start the Firefox and don’t exit it. However, it might be annoying that use the space of the taskbar. So, this extension just help you to minimise your Firefox to the tray icon. So that, whenever you want, just open it.
Added (16/12/2007)
Enhanced History Manager – Provide search for the history
FireFTP – Using Firefox like FileZilla
ChatZilla – Can access IRC protocol like mIRC
FoxFilter – Can filter the content when browsing, it is good to prevent your children to browse dirty stuffs.
FoxLingo – Provide those language translation websites and services
SpiderZilla – Web spider, that is download the whole site for the offline browsing, but it is not easy to use.
Blogarious 