I suppose that I am still a PC girl at heart because one of the first pieces of software I loaded on my MacBook Pro was Firefox. Safari may be a great browser but there are Firefox add-ons I use that I feel I can’t live without for my daily web browsing. In order of importance those add-ons are
- feedly – A magazine-like start page that pulls information from Google Reader and Twitter. I hate using Goggle Reader now, I love opening Firefox to feedly where I can see in a quick glimpse what is going on in the world of technology, gadgets and general news I follow. Then I go into my Shopping section and look at everything that is on sale today. I can browse by section or my all my feeds in a Digest view. If you are looking for a different way to deal with reading news feeds on a daily basis I suggest giving feedly a try.
- Enter Selects – A very simple add-on that when you start typing in a web address in the “AwesomeBar” you don’t need to scroll down to the first item in the list to select it, just press enter and the first item is selected. Neat!
- keyconfig – I am left-handed and it is easier for me to use the keys on the left to move back and forth between browser windows rather than using Command-arrow back and forward on the right side of the keyboard. keyconfig lets me rebind the keys in Firefox so I can use Command-z to go back and Command-x to go forward. Normally Command-x is used to cut but in Firefox I don’t find a need for that combination so I used keyconfig to rebind it. EDIT: I just learned that three-finger swiping back and forth on track pad will go back and forth browsing. Now I can rebind those keys to do somthing else!
- Easy DragToGo – I use this add-on all the time. I’ll be browsing a page and come across a term I want to search in Google and I highlight the term and drag it up and it opens Google in a new tab with the search. If it is a link I click on it, drag it and it opens in a new tab. If I want to read an item later I click on the link and drag down and the tab opens in the background. Same for images. I rely on this add-on constantly.
- Site Launcher – This add-on lets me quickly open websites that I use often with a combination of keys. I go to Amazon a lot and all I need to do is press Shift-Control-a and Amazon opens in a new screen. Site Launcher comes with websites already pre-programmed for sites like Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia and more but those sites are easily changed as well as the hotkey to launch the application.
- LastPass – This add-on goes with LastPass, a password manager program for storing all your Internet passwords (read my post here). What’s nice about this add-on is that it doubles for me as a bookmark manager too for any site that needs a password since I can organize into folders like Finance, Forums, Blogs and so on.
- Linkification – Converts text links into clickable links. Nothing more needs to be said except that I always have clickable links on a webpage. Sweet!
- Download Statusbar – Replaces the download window in Firefox with a status bar on the bottom of the window. Very easy to open and clear downloads.
- ScribeFire – Since switching over to my MacBook I have been trying to find something like Windows Live Writer for writing my blog posts. So far I haven’t found a stand-alone application that I like but the ScribeFire Blog Editor that is a Firefox add-on works fine. I still miss the ease of WLW but I can live with ScribeFire, it is what I am using to write this post.
- FireFTP – Last but certainly not least is a FTP client that is accessed through Firefox, easy to configure and a breeze when I am uploading a new blog theme or want to make an easy change to a website.
If I could get Safari to work with Feedly, had a function like Easy DragToGo, be able to rebind my keys so I can have left-handed control over going back and forth in my browser and had something like ScribeFire I could see myself giving Safari a try but as of now I am Forever Firefox!
Which web browser do you use on your computer(s)? Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, Opera or something else? Why?










