One of the things I like in software is having the freedom to tailor it to my needs and preferences. I’m not talking about customizing the interface only, although I am certainly happy when I can choose whether the interface will be blue or green. For myself, tailoring the software to my needs means that I am able to choose which additional features (besides the basic functionality) to include and which to remove.

The customizability of Firefox is probably one of the reasons that makes it my preferred browser. Unlike Internet Explorer, for which there are almost no addons with additional functionality available, Firefox extensions are a dream come true. Among the hundreds available extensions, there are real gems that add extremely useful functionality to the browser. The full list of available extensions can be seen at: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/ , and I must warn you that if you plan for a short visit there, it will hardly be short because there is so much to see!

With so many extensions listed there, I start to think that maybe one day we will really see how the browser has turned more into an operating system of sorts, providing all the functionality users need in order to live on the Web. Well, I personally have installed so many extensions I like that it was inevitable that they would all slow down the performance of Firefox. The slowdown is most noticeable at the program’s startup, when the extensions load. However, there are almost no side effects during runtime (if having a context menu with over 30 commands can be accepted as normal for a geek). Performance of the browser also depends on what extensions you have installed because not all of them are in fully working order, and not all of them are for all versions of Firefox. At least in my case, there were no unpleasant surprises due to extensions crashing the browser.

Currently there are about 700 extensions, with new extensions being constantly added. So, it will not be possible to review all of them. Besides, unless your computer is very, very powerful, having over 60-70 extensions installed simultaneously is hardly a wise step. So, listed here will be some of the extensions that are the most appealing, but if you want to get the whole picture of Firefox extension diversity, you may want to go to the extentsions site and see for yourself.

Basically, the available extensions are divided into groups, although many extensions are classified under more than one group. The groups are as follows: Blogging, Bookmarks, Developer Tools, Download Tools, Editing and Forms, Entertainment, Humor, Image Browsing, Kiosk Browsing, Languages, Miscellaneous, Navigation, News Reading, Privacy and Security, Search Tools, Tabbed Browsing, Web Annoyances, Website Integration, and XUL Applications. There is also a category where the newest extensions are listed, a category where extensions are listed based on the number of downloads for the last week, and a category where the extentions are ranked is based on the rating users have given. I just would like to note that the higher number of downloads is not a valid piece of criteria for the quality of the extension – sometimes users just download the same extension time and time again just to see if it’s finally working, and not because they love it that much.

The review of Firefox extensions will start with an all-time champion (with over 12 million downloads) FlashGot. It is not the only extension in the Download Tools directory, but it is far ahead the others. The main function of the FlashGot extension includes the ability to allow users to download files directly from Firefox. The extension adds a context menu option, which allows to download only a selected link or all links on a page. This feature comes very handy for mass downloads, when it is too time-consuming to download all files one by one. Besides FlashGot, there are extensions that integrate other popular download managers with Firefox, like Webcow and DownloadStudio. An interesting extension in the Download Tools category is FireFTP. This extension allows you to run an FTP client from within your browser.

Active Googlers will appreciate the CustomizeGoogle extension, which allows to remove or add many Google features. For instance,  removing ads and adding search results from other search engines. Another interesting extension is the googlebar, which is similar to the Google toolbar for Internet Explorer.

One of the distinctive features of Firefox are browser tabs – while browsing, you can open pages in separate tabs, rather than in separate browser windows. It’s very convenient because the taskbar is not cluttered with multiple browser windows, while at the same time, you can still have dozens of pages open simultaneously. There are several extensions for tabbed browsing that need mentioning. The Tabbrowser Preferences extension is one of the top downloads. As the name implies, it allows to configure many options about tabs. SessionSaver is very useful for people who like opening many tabs while browsing. On opening the browser, the tabs from the previous session are restored, so one can go with browsing where they stopped surfing previously. There are also extensions for bookmarking all open tabs (Bookmark All), for coloring tabs in different colors (HashColouredTabs), and for cloning tabs together with the browsing history (Duplicate Tab).

Among the several mail notifiers, the Gmail Notifier is the most downloaded but if you have a Yahoo account, you might be interested in Yahoo! Mail Notifier or in YMail Notifier. If you are fond of RSS, then the Wizz RSS News Reader extension might be just for you. Other useful goodies are the weather extensions Forecastfox, 1-ClickWeather, and World Weather.

Since I am not (yet) an active blogger, I was not very interested in the Blogging extensions, but active bloggers might not skip the Blogging category where there are several extensions that provide quick access to popular blog sites (JustBlogIt, livejournal), or forums (Webdesign-forum.de), or simply to show when a friend has posted something new in their blog.

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