Firefox Plugins
Last updated 28 May 2008 at 21:25h.
First of all, use Firefox 3. It’s much, much faster than its predecessor.
Second, most of the following plugins will work with it out of the box. But some of them need to have their ‘install.rdf’ file modified inside its XPI archive. Just rename the XPI file so that it has the extension .zip, and open it. Open the ‘install.rdf’ file and look for the ‘maxVersion’ setting. Set it to ’4′ and save it and put it back in the archive. Rename the .zip archive so that it is an .xpi archive again and drag it onto Firefox. As usual, it will then ask your permission to install the extension. You can do this trick for any extension that fails to install. But there is no guarantee that it will work or will be bug free.
Oh, one minor setback: The Firefox Addons site decided to go with subscribers only. I advise you to create an account. I wasted too much time finding the extensions elsewhere.
Ok, here they are in order of appearance. I found that it’s best to install them in that order too :)
- FEBE
The plugin to backup your profile, settings and plugins. I can just dump my profile as a whole, or just some extensions. If you want to keep browser state across different computers, get FEBE.
You might need to get on the forum to find the latest version that is FF3 ready. - Tab Mix Plus
The best all in one extension that covers everything that Firefox itself does not, or not well. A couple of my reasons for going with it:
- LOFI tab rotation: Ctrl-Tab gives a visible menu (like Alt-Tab, not default though), and shows a tab list where the previously active tab is shown on top.
- tab memory: remember up to a configurable amount of tabs. If you closed on too many, hit CTRL-F12 or right click on the tab bar to see the ‘Closed Tabs List’.
- session memory: you can keep everything the way it is, even after a crash. - Ahhhh, I am sitting behind my comp a bit too much right now….will be back to update this list later.
