My ‘Top Five’ most useful Firefox Add-Ons.

1. WikiLook

Description: Leading dictionary lookup add-on. Fast, light, open source tool that define words for you without need to open new tabs or windows. Wiktionary&Wikipedia.

Ctrl or Shift or Alt + RightMouseButton click. Now with thesaurus.

Comments: Great when you get lost for words! Very handy for bloggers.

2. Google Shortcuts

Description: Display all Google services as buttons or as a space-saving dropdown menu next to your address bar. Reach services like Gmail, Google reader, Google maps, Google calendar, and many more in a single click from your browser. Fully customisable.

Comments: Space saving customisation, replace your Firefox buttons with links to Google search, mail or YouTube. Add your most frequently visited sites (Pete’s Tech Blog!) to your Firefox browser and access them straight from your navigation menu.

3. Read It Later

Description: Save pages to read later.

Comments: With so much valuable and interesting content on the web (ahem!) it’s almost impossible to digest it all in one sitting. Sometimes you stumble upon (hmm choice of words) sites which you would like to read later or when you have more time. It works great and integrates well with a number of browsers and platforms meaning you can catch up on your reading list where ever you may be.

4. FlashGot

Description: FlashGot is the free add-on for Firefox and Thunderbird, meant to handle single and massive (“all” and “selection”) downloads with several external Download Managers.

Comments: It’s the most flexible download integration add-on for Firefox i have found. It makes downloading files and handling download links effortless, once set-up all you need do is click and forget. I use it in conjunction with SynoGet, my download manager of choice.

5. Adblock Plus

Description: Block all ads automatically, no distractions

Comments: Pretty much the most well known and universally trusted add-on for blocking online advertising and malware. Updated and maintained by subscribing to filter lists, or manually entered addresses or domains.

 

Didn’t make the cut but worth a mention:

1. Firefox Sync (No longer maintained)

Description: Access your history, passwords, bookmarks and even open tabs across all your devices.

Comments: Now integrated into Firefox 4 as standard. If your not using the latest version of Firefox (can’t image why you wouldn’t?) then you can install the add-on separately.

2. Property-Bee

Description: When you view a property listing on a site like rightmove.co.uk, the toolbar will show the changes to the price and details since the property was listed.

Comments: This one is obviously situational, but if your looking for a new house this add-on it’s the bee’s knee’s (sorry couldn’t help myself). Keeping track of the property market and house prices is difficult, this add-on keeps a history for you which means you can see property price trends in your local area, or in a area you might like to move to.

3. SynoGet

Description: Direct download tasks to your Synology download manager without the need to drag them into the drop zone, or queue them manually.

Comments: Already reviewed this nifty little tool back in June ’09. Perfect for Synology NAS owners.

 

What are your favourite Firefox Add-Ons? Leave a comment below and share your favourites.

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