Best Firefox Add-ons of 2013

https://blog.mozilla.org/theden/2013/12/04/13-best-firefox-add-ons-of-2013/

by yeukhon • 13 years ago

115 53 13 years ago

blog.mozilla.org

caiob• 13 years ago

Mostly bloatware. :(

Sir_Cmpwn2• 13 years ago

I made a Firefox add-on recently [1], and it was horrible. The API is underdocumented and obtuse, and the dev enviornment is annoying to get set up. On top of that, AMO review times are on the scale of months. Writing the equivalent Chrome extension [2] was a considerably better experience.

[1] https://github.com/MediaCrush/Firefox

[2] https://github.com/MediaCrush/Chrome

vanni• 13 years ago

Very different experience here while developing a Firefox add-on [1] with the Add-on SDK [2]: I think that the API is nice and well documented, the development environment - based on virtualenv - is very easy to set up (I work under Ubuntu), and AMO review times are in the order of weeks - not months.

[1] Google Plus Follower Stats for Firefox [ https://github.com/vannitotaro/gpfs-firefox ] [ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/google-plus-followe... ]

[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/latest/

Sir_Cmpwn2• 13 years ago

Did you write a similiar extension for Chrome? My opinions may be made skewed by my experience with the Chrome extension. Chrome extension development is sublime, the APIs are great and well-documented, and the enviornment couldn't be better.

sergiosgc• 13 years ago

Hugely different experience here. I wrote one extension[1] on a Sunday a couple of weeks ago. I had never touched Firefox development or extension development before, so I was a bit overwhelmed when trying to go through the documentation. After I got Jetpack[2] running, though, development was a breeze. Good docs, reasonable develop/reload cycle.

I only requested the preliminary review at AMO so far, and that took about 24h.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/css-live-relo...

[2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/developers/docs/sdk/latest/

dmix2• 13 years ago

It shoud be all privacy plugins, such as:

HTTPS Everywhere

Flashblock

Disconnect

Noscript

AdblockPlus

Duckduckgo

sliverstorm• 13 years ago

They are listing the best NEW addons.

zpao• 13 years ago

No, they aren't. Taking a look at the first one on the list... the latest version was published in 2011.

JohnTHaller• 13 years ago

Unfortunately, not all of those are appropriate for everyday users. HTTPS Everywhere breaks several sites, possibly due to misconfiguration, and can trigger switches to a server's self-signed HTTPS certificate which, in Firefox, makes it look like the site got hacked. Noscript is really only for techies and breaks all kinds of sites since there's not much reason to build or test for browsers without JavaScript anymore.

mathrawka• 13 years ago

What is the benefit of Disconnect if you are using Adblock Plus and HTTPS Everywhere already?

byoogle2• 13 years ago

Disconnect, which I work on, is designed to filter requests faster: https://disconnect.me/faster.

Disconnect also does some fancy visualizations, if you're into that sort of thing: http://youtu.be/Lvem1Z66C7Q?t=40s.

dmix2• 13 years ago

Disconnect prevents some MITM wifi attacks as well.

https://blog.disconnect.me/widgetjacking

rquirk• 13 years ago

Cookie Monster too - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-monste... - which is like Noscript, but for cookies.

aw3c2• 13 years ago

And http://www.requestpolicy.com/

mikro2nd• 13 years ago

All of these, plus Self-Destructing Cookies (featured on Mozilla's list).

I love plugins like this that just quietly get on with their job without bothering me with too much noise, allow me to easily override their functioning when I need to and just work smart.

bad_user• 13 years ago

For me it's these:

    AdBlock Plus 
    Firebug
    HTTPS Everywhere
    JSONView
    Markdown Here
    PDF Viewer (former pdf.js)
    Readability
    SPDY Indicator
    User Agent Switcher
    Web Developer

And in case you use Firefox, but like Chrome's UI: FXChrome + Omnibar

barrkel• 13 years ago

For me, in addition:

  TreeStyleTabs
  TabMixPlus
  Status-4-Evar
  RefControl
  Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus
  Export Cookies
  FireGestures
  Flashblock
  FoxyProxy
  Image Zoom

nhebb• 13 years ago

Image Zoom

It's such a simple add-on, but I use it daily. Along with NoScript, it's one of the reasons I switched back to FF from Chrome.

ExpiredLink• 13 years ago

Status-4-Evar

Status-4-Evar is a nice little helper:

" ... status bar was removed in Firefox 4.0. ... Status-4-Evar aims to bring back (some of) the old status bar items, give you more control over the built-in Firefox features, and provide new alternatives."

https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/status-4-evar/

IvyMike• 13 years ago

Regarding #1: Even without the plugin you can drag a highlighted URL to a new tab and presto it opens.

Regarding Video Resumer: I watch a lot of longer video lectures online, and being able to resume where I left off is a great feature. Why the dudes at Google haven't added this themselves is beyond me--it's how TiVo worked since 1999. Maybe a patent issue?

FreeFull• 13 years ago

Firefox actually lets you select a URL and right click to see the normal link options. I assume the addon makes even malformed URLs work though.

ivank• 13 years ago

A few less-popular addons:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/findbar-tweak... replicates the scrollbar find result highlights you see in Chrome and IDEA

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mozilla-archi... saves pages to .mht or .maff format, with a reasonable pre-filled filename. Also reads .mht files.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autopager/ loads all pages of paginated content in the current tab. This also works great with Mozilla Archive Format for saving entire forum threads/articles/user comments.

JetSpiegel• 13 years ago

Autopager is amazing, I never have to click the next buttons anymore.

d0ugie• 13 years ago

wise of Mozilla to milk that add-on lock-in while they still can

bitemix• 13 years ago

I try to consult the Firefox /g/uide: http://www.logicalincrements.com/firefox/

arsenerei• 13 years ago

This is not for everyone, but I recommend vimperator[0] for anyone who wants to use vim in their browser.

0 - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/vimperator/

CatMtKing• 13 years ago

Or Pentadactyl (http://5digits.org/pentadactyl/) -- the nightly build works on the latest version of FF.

mrtksn• 13 years ago

I made this one when I was trying to learn JavaScript: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/budaneki/

It's an on-the-page look up and translation extension, I believe it was the first of it's kind when I made it and didn't use any JS framework but pure JS. I am kind of proud of it.

Still have users regularly asking me to implement it for Chrome :)

pagade• 13 years ago

For Me:

Adblock Plus - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/

Tab Mix Plus - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus

iMacros - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/imacros-for-f...

SearchLoad Options - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/searchload-op...

DownloadHelper - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/video-downloa...

DownThemAll - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/downthemall/

Dictionary Tooltip - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/dictionary-to...

FoxClocks - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/foxclocks

IE Tab 2 - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ie-tab-2-ff-3...

Memory Fox - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/memory-fox

All-in-One Sidebar - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/all-in-one-si...

spyder• 13 years ago

For me:

FirePicker for Firebug to quickly adjust colors in CSS https://addons.mozilla.org/hu/firefox/addon/firepicker

Yet Another Smooth Scrolling to make scrolling smooth like on touch devices https://addons.mozilla.org/hu/firefox/addon/yet-another-smoo...

NetVideoHunter to download videos from YouTube and music from Grooveshark https://addons.mozilla.org/hu/firefox/addon/netvideohunter-v...

Omnibar https://addons.mozilla.org/hu/firefox/addon/omnibar/

Groxx• 13 years ago

I've been enjoying Ghostery. Nicer / cleaner than most privacy plugins, and it speeds up pages noticeably (same as adblock, mostly through killing iframed social things).

r0h1n• 13 years ago

I highly recommend one of the plugins on this list, "Google/Yandex search link fix". It rewrites Google's tracking URLs in search results on the fly.

This to me is offers both convenience and privacy benefits - (a) I can right-click and copy actual URLs from a Google search instead of gibberish, and (b) Google does not get to know which links I'm clicking on from its search results.

w1ntermute2• 13 years ago

Is there a similar Chrome extension?

stusmall• 13 years ago

If you are concerned about google tracking you then the links in search results are the least of your worries when using chrome.

jamesbritt• 13 years ago

The "remove redirects" bookmarklet is handy for this

https://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/zap.html

But it's not automatic.

ochn• 13 years ago

There is a greasemonkey script: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/121261

inovator• 13 years ago

Can we have a chrome edition as well? :)

yeukhon• 13 years ago

Hackernews OP here: I am so glad I shared this on hacker news. I think this is great because you guys put time into listing things you use and provide food feedback, way better than some of the review feedback one would find in an addon.

unlimited_power• 13 years ago

There is also Adblock Edge which is a fork of Adblock Plus without the "acceptable ads" feature:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-edge/

baby• 13 years ago

I'm always amazed at how many people never heard or don't use Tree Style Tab. This is the only plugin that makes Firefox a must have.

TomDavey• 13 years ago

Completely agree. It makes it a cinch to nicely organize one hundred active tabs or more within a single modest sidebar.

Last time I checked there's nothing for Chrome that's as good. Tree Style Tab is one of the things that could keep me on Firefox forever.

1457389• 13 years ago

Thank You.

cpeterso• 13 years ago

If you use Firefox in a corporate environment that requires you to change an LDAP password every couple months, the "Mass Password Reset" add-on lets you change multiple saved passwords at the same time:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/mass-password...

wyclif• 13 years ago

It's so refreshing to read an end-of-year list that isn't a slideshow. One of the many things to love about web-friendly companies like Mozilla.

anon4• 13 years ago

No mention of GreaseMonkey? I'd put it at number one, simply because it gives you a way to write extensions that run on every browser with a *Monkey compatibility layer. Half the stuff I use is just userscripts.

olegp• 13 years ago

Nice to see New Tab Plus, a new tab replacement add on mentioned.

We have a new tab replacement out as well as well. Unlike NTP, it's similar to the old style Chrome new tab page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/starthq/

The functionality is pretty basic for now, but we're slowly rolling out much cooler features like deep links, multiple screens and Greplin like cloud search.

sergiotapia• 13 years ago

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome last week and I'm loving it! It may be the SSD I recently upgraded from a traditional hard drive, but it feels really really snappy. Unfortunately, I don't find use for any of the addons mentioned here or in their top lists. I just don't need 'em. I only have Adblock Plus for most websites which I disable on websites I use regularly.

A lot of the addons in this list just seem like bloatware to me, trying to create a problem that allows their fix to exist.

Istof• 13 years ago

It isn't only the SSD... Firefox is alot faster then it used to. Also, those are new addons, not necessarily the best.

paigosa• 13 years ago

I would recommend tor button, which makes it easy to use firefox with tor

Best Firefox Add-ons of 2013

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