Firefox add-ons I can’t live without
With the recent upgrade to Firefox 3, a couple of my add-ons were incompatible so I had to spend sometime waiting for a few of them to play catch-up. Despite the fact that alphas, betas, and release candidates had been out for months at a time, developers still failed to update their add-ons on time. That’s another issue entirely, so I digress. During the short period that I had to wait for a few of the add-ons to be updated, I ended discovering just how dependent on several of them I had become. As of now, here are some of the add-ons that I can’t live without.
Firebug
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1843
If I was ever in a situation where I had pick one and only one add-on to keep, this would be it. If you do any form of web application development, Firebug will be your new best friend - it provides DOM inspection, JavaScript debugging, the ability to change CSS on the fly, load-time analyzers, AJAX monitoring, etc, etc, etc. It’s hard to imaging building sites without it.
Web Developer Toolbar
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/60
This is another extremely useful add-on if you’re developing web sites. Web Developer Toolbar provides you with the ability to disable cookies, completely strip out any-and-all CSS (inline, linked, or embedded), various form manipulation tools, toggling of images, outlining page elements, resizing the browser window, code validation, and so on. For anyone that is mindful of various screens, resolutions, and accessibility standards, Web Developer Toolbar helps immensely when attempting to meet then all.
ColorZilla
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271
This is possibly the simplest add-on I have installed. Essentially, ColorZilla provides an eyedropper tool that allows you to grab the color of any element on a web page. It will then allow you to copy that color’s RGB or hex values to your clipboard in a multitude of formats typically used in CSS or image editors. It’s great when you’re working with color themes or trying to match a similar color on an existing web site. In addition to the eye dropper feature, ColorZilla also provides the ability to zoom in on a page and measure the distances between elements.
Foxmarks
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2410
If you do a lot of work from within a web browser, you’ve likely accumulated a set of bookmarks that you visit daily. If you’ve got multiple machines, then you’re apt to want those bookmarks replicated across your machines. Since Google Browser Sync is now defunct, I’ve ended up going with Foxmarks. Similarly to Google Browser Sync, Foxmarks allows you to securely synchronize your bookmarks across all instances of Firefox permitting the local copy has Foxmarks installed.
There are more add-ons I use, but these are the ones that I can’t live without. I’m sure I’ll eventually have a few new ones to add to the mix over time, so I may end up doing a follow-up post. Do you have any add-ons that you can’t live without? If so, let me know - I’d hate to be missing out on something.