The Add-ons for regular Internet Surfers

1. The WOT Add-on (Web of trust)

Web of Trust warns you about risky sites that cheat customers, deliver malware or send spam. Never in my life did I have a problem with some serious viruses infecting my computer until about a month ago. Suddenly my browser got frozen and in about 5 minutes all the programs and applications on my computer stopped working while the antivirus software that I had (kasperski) haven’t showed any thread which surprised me tremendously. Having restarted the system I trying at least something I was continuously getting the notice that I have to send a sms to some address and buy the security code that should unblock my computer or something along that line. I had to reinstall the system on my pc but this was not the end yet.

On the next day I found out that I got the virus on my server that have infected all the .html and .php files. I knew from the server logs that the virus got there from my computer and thanks God I had files backed up.
Doing my daily job I visit hundreds of website and I had no idea where I could get such a deadly virus from. That’s when I started thinking that I need in some way to exclude the potentially dangerous websites or at least know what websites have low reputation. Now I’m a happy user of the WOT add-on. It works very simply and graphically clear.

Next to every link and in the browser address line you will see the circle that changes the color from green to red depending on website trustworthiness, green being safe and red very poor. They gather this information from website visitors using the WOT and you can also rank the website for several parameters like trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy etc. You can also leave a review if you say got infected from this website and want to warn the rest of the community. In case you get to the dangerous website they will show you a big pop-up with the warning before actually prompting you to the page, where you can choose where you want to see why the page is considered as dangerous, ignore the warning and go to the page or leave the page. If you have children there is also a children control option where the websites will adult content will not be available for browsing. You can get additional info on WOT add-on here.

2. Read It Later Add-on

Read It Later allows you to save pages of interest to read later. It’s very simple but very useful, at least for
me. Browsing tens of interesting pages daily I often don’t have time to read them right away. I used to add the pages I wanted to read to the bookmarks and then was totally forgetting about them or couldn’t find the pages I needed and finally I ended up with the long-long list of bookmarks cluttered with stuff of any kind one can ever imagine. Read it later add-on allows you to add the page to the read list in one click. You can right-click with the mouse anywhere on page you’d like to read later and choose an option “read this page later”.You can also copy the link and add it to the library clicking on small yellow arrow on the top right cornet of the browser.

3. Ad block Plus

A simple nice add-on that blocks add-on the pages. Once installed it will show up in a red hexagon in the top right of the browser window. Nothing special to say about it but it makes my life easier.

4. AddThis

AddThis is a nice add-on making sharing and bookmarking simple. The list of social icons will be added to your
browser toolbar area as well as to right-click mouse options. You just click on the icon, the application connects to your social network account and posts the update there. Here’s the sample how it looks in Twitter:

Though I use AddThis I still have a separate toolbar for stumble as this is one of my favorite websites and I love to have the options to leave a comment, thumb up or just view some cool stuff directly from the toolbar. You can install this add-on here.

Add-ons that I use in my work of a project manager

If you are starting the career of the project manager in some company or just have a start-up project I do recommend you to add this add-ons to the browser as they can not only make your life easier but help you choose the right direction in your marketing campaign as well as provide help to the customers if they run into some problems with the website.

1. Fire FTP

This might be one of the most Firefox add-ons. This plugin allows you to upload files to the server as any other FTP client but you don’t have to install it separately on your computer. The interface is quite intuitive. On the left you will see list of files on your computer and on the right once connected to the server you will see the files on the server. When you start the files upload or download you will see the how the process flows in the bottom area, the connection errors will show up there as well. You can choose the mode for files transfer (binary, ASCII and automatic) and whether to show or not to show the hidden files.

I started using FireFtp after my website files on the server were infected. Before that I was using Total Commander for years which I had to reinstall as well and since I didn’t want to get used to any other similar programs I decided to give a try to Fire FTP.

It’s not perfect and the websites in the other tabs and windows start working slower when FireFtp is working and there are now usual hot keys but it’s not bad at all. I like the error reports and I like when the program says ZZZZ when it’s connected to the server but not command is performed. This can be actually the only reason why I’m using it :)

2. HTTP Fox

HttpFox monitors and analyzes all incoming and outgoing HTTP traffic between the browser and the web servers. In simple words it shows you how the website interacts with the server and if any errors occur you can get the details of the error without having to check the server log files. I used to work for the company who developed a cool CMS system running on php and flex. Working with the customers, uploading files to their servers and helping them to actually manage the website I was facing some php or flex errors pretty often but the problem was that these were the errors the admin area was showing and I had no idea how to handle that. I’m neither a programmer nor a flash developer and this was a real nightmare for me. One of my friends recommended me to install the HTTP Fox plugin and there hasn’t been a single problem I couldn’t fix on my own.

I guess things would still work for me much easier if I had a better php knowledge. The way it works now- I start HTTP Fox (toogle HTTP Fox as they call it in the application), get the error description, go to google to type it there and then check for solutions how the error can be fixed on the php and flash forums :) With the HTTP Fox add-on you can also check whether some website will save a cookie on your computer as well as get some other useful info.

3. Fire Bug

Fire Bug is a great add-on that will be of a great help not just for a project manager but an advanced develop as well. The number of features is enormous but in my daily work I use just a few. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. I used Firebug multiple times to customize and make small changes on the WordPress themes, to get info on the images and embedded videos and flash files and get info about properties of the page elements. You can call the application from the Tools section of the browser or just right clicking on some elements on the page.

4. SeoQuake SEO extension

SeoQuake extension is a must if you perform any type of work related to SEO, links exchange, online advertising etc. It gives you a profound info about the website, helps you study your competitors and potential partners. At one glance you can see the page PageRank, the number of pages from the domain name indexed in Google, Yahoo and Bing, Alexa Rank, the age of the domain name and the direct link to the whois info. There’s information about internal and external links on the page as well as the information on the keywords density ( you can check what main keywords your competitors use and how often and where on page).

The SeoQuake extension has another cool feature- so called Yahoo links- showing the number (and the list) of external URLs pointing to the page and domain name. Extremely useful when you need to check who’s linking to your competitors.

5. Search Status

That’s a good alternative to SeoQuake but I prefer using them both. By default the Search Status add-on options will show up in the bottom right corner of the browser alone with the traffic stats from Alexa (alexa rank), Compete and mozRank by SeoMoz. Earlier I was using Alexa stats from the SeoQuake and had a separate Compete add-on installed and now I have them all in one place. Some of the other features Search Status add-on include: no follow links analysis, general page’s link report, stats about indexed pages and keywords density, whois info etc. There’s almost the same features as in SeoQuake and some additional ones but they are not convenient to use. I prefer clicking on an icon in the toolbar rather than going to the footer, clicking on the icon and only then getting the list of options available. It would be perfect is someone could combine these two.

That’s it, I’ve listed all the add-ons that I use daily. I’ll be glad to hear what add-ons you use and how they help you in your work. I still have a place for two or three until my browser stops working so do let me know :)

Mozilla Firefox is becoming more and more powerful tool in these days. Using right add-ons it will start to become a tool, You can`t live without as web-developer! Each of these plugins can make certain things easier and that`s especially important for web-developers, because searching for errors and optimizing your pages can be pretty painful and time-consuming process. And that`s the reason, why I looked over 100+ pages, to get overview which add-ons are used and recommended by amateurs.

1.Web developer`s toolbar

Web Developer`s tool bar probably will become one of the best plugins You`ve ever seen. It comes with his own tool bar that gives many useful tools for analyzing, validating and optimizing web-pages. The great thing about this plugin is that it’s on a few different browsers, so if you switch between them you will be able to use the same plugin on all.

2.Firebug

Firebug is pretty similar as web developer, but it comes across with few different powerful options. You have an ability to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript right in any web page.

3.ColorZilla

ColorZilla offers You an advanced eyedropper, colorPicker, page Zoomer and other colorful goodies.

4.MeasureIt

Little Firefox extension that enables you to draw a ruler across any webpage to check the width or height of a element.

5.HTML Validator

This plugin displays the number of found errors of the site you are viewing. It adds HTML validation inside Firefox and Mozilla.

6.IE Tab

Pretty handy extension to see how your site is displayed at Internet Explorer.

7.YSlow

YSlow, a Yahoo product, analyzes web pages and tells you why they’re slow based on the rules for high performance web sites. YSlow is a Firefox add-on integrated with the popular Firebug web development tool.

This plugin completes FireBug functionality to make Firefox an unbeatable web development tool.

8.Greasemonkey

Allows you to customize the way a web page displays using small bits of JavaScript;

9.FireFTP

FireFTP is simply an FTP client built into the Firefox browser. Important thing it is free and you can flip to it just like any tab in your browser.

10.Live HTTP Headers

It allows you to view and analyze HTTP headers (requests and responses) in web-browser with several useful features built-in. It’s great tool for watching a series of HTTP requests and their result codes.

11.ScreenGrab!

Screengrab saves entire web pages as images. This tool will allow You to take screenshots of what is currently on your screen – you can even choose the portion of the screen you want to “grab”!

12.StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon helps you to find new sites very easy.If you are a web-developer, StumbleUpon can drive a huge amount of visitors to your website.

13.SEO for Firefox

Excellent plugin for all those, who like to watch statistics right into Google and Yahoo search results. You can get Alexa, Google PageRank, Tehnorati rankings and many other useful data. Plugin You can`t live without!

14.Adblock Plus

Adblock is an adblocker and really helps to get rid of unnecessary ads and banners, to browse web pages much faster.

15.Delicious Bookmarks

Delicious bookmarks is official Firefox addon for del.icio.us. It integrates your browser bookmarks and tags, to keep them in order and “easy to find” way.

16.X-Ray

Not supported at Firefox 3.0

You can check out all the HTML tags right on the page without using the view page source option. Unfortunately not yet supported at Firefox 3.0

17.CSSViewer

With this extension you can view CSS properties of related page elements. Very handy, when You got large CSS file with styles overlapping each other, to analyze why something is not displayed in the way You wanted.

18.Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer

If you use Firefox on more than one computer, you’ll want Foxmarks. Install Foxmarks on each computer, and it will work silently in the background to keep your bookmarks synchronized. Similar as del.icio.us.

19.Aardvark

This tool can be used to clean page from unwanted banners and ads, especially prior to printing a page. Pretty useful for web developers for analyzing the structure of a page.

20.Tab Mix Plus

If You always have many Firefox tabs opened at the same time, then you need to have this plugin. This plugin provides better management of these tabs.

21.NoScript

Winner of the “2006 PC World World Class Award”, good choice for blocking JavaScript, Java and other executable content in certain pages You don’t trust.

22.Unhide Passwords

Unhide Passwords is a tool for everyone who is bad at remembering or typing passwords correctly. It’s good for using at home, but shouldn’t be used at public accessible PC!

23.Image Zoom

If you have ever had an image that was too large to fit on your screen or too small to see the finer detail in your browser or email, then image zoom can help. Image zoom gives you complete control of the size of most images displayed in mozilla based software. Both individual images or whole pages of images can be zoomed.

24.JavaScript Debugger

A powerful JavaScript debugging environment for Mozilla based browsers.

25.FireShot

FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of web pages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations.

26.IE View

Lets you load pages in IE with a single right-click, or mark certain sites to *always* load in IE.

27.Dummy Lipsum

This interesting add-on generates automatically “Lorem Ipsum” dummy text. I found it to be pretty useful as web designer.

28.Font Finder

Just highlight and right click to see all of the styling information you could require including font-size, font-family, color (in both hex and RGB), line-height, letter-spacing, and much much more..

29.Opera View

Extension based on IE View. If you want quick view in opera, just right click somewhere on page and choose “View This Page In Opera”.

30.Total Validator

Provides true HTML validation (HTML 2.0 to XHTML 1.1) using the official DTDs, plus added attribute checking. So you no longer have to put up with the limitations of the W3C validator (no type checking) and tools like HTML Tidy which interpret the standards incorrectly (they don’t use the official DTDs).

Also performs accessibility validation (WCAG, US-508), broken link checking, spell checking (5 languages), and takes screenshots using 32 browsers on Windows, Linux, and OS/X.

31.Poster

A developer tool for interacting with web services and other web resources that lets you make HTTP requests, set the entity body, and content type.

32.EditCSS

Truly a time saver if You’re experimenting with the CSS style of your site. Avoids the modify,save,upload,refresh,repeat cycle.

33.PicLens

Full-Screen, 3D – PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for finding and viewing online photos and videos.

Work on : YouTube, Google Images, Flickr, FaceBook, Myspace, Photobucket and more..

34.RSS Validator

Validates a page using the W3C RSS Validator.

35.CSS Validator

Validates a page using the W3C CSS Validator. Adds an option to the right-click context menu and to the Tools menu to allow for easy validation of the CSS of the current page. Opens the results in a new tab.

36.MinimizeToTray

Not supported in Firefox 3.0

A powerful extension to minimize Windows versions of Firefox, Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite, and Nvu to the system tray.

37.Tab Scope

Shows a popup on tabs and enables you to preview and navigate tab contents through popup. Very useful to help navigate between many tabs.

38.FasterFox

Not supported in Firefox 3.0

Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.

39.Server Switcher

Server Switcher is a navigational help tool for web developers. It allows you to easily switch between sites on your development (hosting the temporary version you are currently working on) and live servers, so that you can immediately see the differences.

40.Smart Bookmarks Bar

Smart Bookmarks Bar modifies the bookmarks bar to show bookmarks icons only.

Bookmark names will be displayed on mouse over. This feature can be disactivated if you just want icons without the rollover effect.

41.Favicon Picker

Not supported in Firefox 3.0

Tired of that boring default icon next to your bookmarks? This extension adds a interface allowing you to pick the icon for each of your bookmarks.

42.Download Statusbar

View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar – without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.

43.Stylish

Stylish is a Firefox, Thunderbird, Flock, SeaMonkey, Mozilla Suite, and Songbird extension that allows easy management of user styles. Stylish is to CSS what Greasemonkey is to JavaScript.

44.Selenium IDE

Selenium IDE is an integrated development environment for Selenium tests. It is implemented as a Firefox extension, and allows you to record, edit, and debug tests.

Guide for Selenium IDE

45.ScrapBook

ScrapBook is a Firefox extension, which helps you to save Web pages and easily manage collections. Key features are lightness, speed, accuracy and multi-language support. My personal one of favorites.

46.Platypus

Platypus is a Firefox extension which lets you modify a website from your browser. In addition to that you can save your modifications as a Greasemonkey script to make them “permanent”!

47.ColorfulTabs

Very beautiful addon – automatically changes firefox tab color and makes easy to distinguish one from another.

48.Window Resizer

The Browser Window Resizer is useful for testing different screen sizes.

Supports the 640×480, 800×600, 1024×768, 1280×800, 1280×1024, 1600×1200 resolutions.

49.Autofill Forms

Autofill Forms enables you to fill out web forms with one click or a keyboard shortcut.

50.Clippings

Saves and manages frequently-entered text for later pasting into Web page forms in Firefox or email and newsgroup messages in Thunderbird. Pasting a clipping is accomplished with just two mouse clicks, eliminating the hassle of retyping or repetitive copying and pasting.

So that`s all folks! I hope You will find those links useful, personally I did!

If someone is interested I got hot plugins for SEO marketing too. Give me a message if you want em` too!

Here is continuous collection of hot plugins for SEO marketing too – enjoy!