Firefox is a very popular web browser among Ubuntu and Linux users and rightly so. It is well known for its add-ons that take your web browsing experience to another level. There are thousands of add-ons available for Firefox browser and we all know that too many add-ons can slow down your browser.
So we have picked 10 of the best Firefox add-ons and will have a look at these cool add-ons one by one.
HTTPS Everywhere
HTTPS Everywhere is a very useful add-on available for various browsers like Firefox, Opera and Chrome which secures your browsing by encrypting your connection with websites. Electronic Frontier Foundation designs it in collaboration with The Tor Project. Many websites offer very limited encryption over HTTPS, which makes browsing those websites vulnerable, and could compromise user data over normal HTTP connection. The HTTPS Everywhere add-on fixes these problems and encrypts the website traffic through HTTPS connections by rewriting all site requests to HTTPS.
(Image Source: EFF)
Many of us are not aware of the fact that HTTP is insecure because data sent over a HTTP connection is unencrypted hence data can be read or modified by anyone. Still some websites are slow to adopt HTTPS because serving a website over a HTTPS connection takes additional efforts.
HTTPS provides three major securities to users, which are as follows:
- Data Integrity: It protects the user data transferred between user’s browser to website server from external attacker who can damage or alter data.
- Server Authentication: This technique ensures the user is interacting with a genuine server.
- Data Confidentiality: This technique encrypts the data communicated between browser and website server so that an intruder cannot understand the content of communication.
HTTPS Everywhere supports various major websites like Paypal, Wikipedia, Google Search and various social networking websites like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and blogging websites like WordPress and Blogger.
It is always a good choice to use a HTTPS connection, regardless of which website you are accessing because HTTPS provides all the necessary securities to Internet users without any performance issues or cost. Therefore there is no point in sticking to a HTTP connection and always having a risk of important data being compromised.
Awesome Screenshot Plus
Awesome Screenshot Plus is a Firefox add-on published by Diigo Inc. that takes screenshot of a webpage and saves it in your computer on demand. The user interface is simple and easy to understand. Awesome Screenshot Plus comes in handy for a web developer or a YouTube Creator as you can directly take screenshots while working on a project.
As we can see in picture below, the Awesome Screenshot Plus user interface is very simple and clean. Everything is placed perfectly so that you find it very easy to use.
As we can see in above screenshot we can edit a picture as soon as we take the screenshot.
How to Use Awesome Screenshot Plus
Follow the below steps to get started with Easy Screenshot.
Step01: Open the webpage you want to take a screenshot of and click on Awesome Screenshot Plus icon in the Firefox toolbar.
Step02: Now select the particular area of the webpage or complete webpage to take a screen shot and click OK.
Step03: Now Awesome Screenshot Plus will open screenshot in new tab where you can add Text, Circle and Rectangle and also draw plain lines on the screenshot.
Step04: Once you complete editing click on the Save icon to save the screenshot on your computer.
So this is how we can get started with this amazing Firefox add-on. Very simple isn’t it?
Tile Tabs
Tile Tabs is another Firefox add-on, which is developed by DW-dev team. Using this tool you can view different tabs in tiled layout that can help you in multitasking. Tile Tabs lets you arrange tiles vertically, horizontally or in a grid format. We can also drag and drop tabs and links in other tiles.
A user can create his/her own layout and can tile it individually in left/right or above/below active tile. Tiles with the same width or height can be arranged in groups and splitters separate all the tiles in a group. You can also save, open, delete or set default individual layout. Tiling can be performed using Menu Commands, Keyboard Shortcuts or simple Drag and Drop of tabs and links.
How to use Tile Tabs
- Click on Tile Tabs button or press the F12 key on the keyboard to create a layout
- To switch between browser view and tiled view you can either click on the Tile Tabs button or press the F9 key on keyboard.
- To close the layouts double click on the Tile Tabs button or press the F12 key on keyboard.
- For faster tiling try Drag and Drop tiling tabs by just clicking Shift + Drag a tab or link.
Using the above steps a user can create and manage a number of different layouts and save them for future use.
Users can do a lot of things with this cool Firefox add-on. This tool can be very useful at workplaces or for individual users.
Google Translator
Nobzol group develops Google Translator for Firefox. Using this Firefox add-on you can translate any text to any language you can understand with one click or hot-key. This tool gives an option to translate the selected text or a complete web page.
The Google Translator add-on by default sets the detected language for translation into. Translation will be slower if you select a large number amount of text so it is recommended to select limited text to translate. Also pictures and tables shouldn’t be selected while translating for smother translation.
How to use Google Translator
Step01: First open a website or search something on Google you want to translate.
Step02: Now select the text you want translate in one of the following ways:
- Click on the Google Translate icon on the toolbar.
- Right-click with the mouse and click on “Translate this text with Google Translate”
- Press the hot-key.
Step03: Now translation will finish in a few seconds and the selected text will be automatically replaced with translated text.
You can follow same steps listed above to translate the full webpage.
This translation tool supports all the languages that you can find on http://translate.google.com. The user interface is also available in a majority of languages like English, French, German, Spanish, Turkish, Chinese, Russian, etc.
Imagus
Imagus is very unique Firefox extension published by Deathamns. This tool lets a user enlarge thumbnails and view images or videos in a pop-up window by just hovering the mouse over links. We normally open images in new tabs to view larger image or to take screenshot but when you install this add-on you just need to hover your cursor to view image in new pop-up.
There are no additional steps required to configure Imagus. You can start using this cool add-on as soon as you integrate Imagus with your Firefox browser.
StartHQ
StartHQ is a tab launcher published by StartHQ. We often get bored of same old tab layout of Firefox browser. StartHQ add-on replaces these tabs with its own customized tabs with some additional features.
Features
- You can store your StartHQ settings on the cloud and access it from any device such as mobile phones and tablets.
- Access to various services like Gmail, Docs and Dropbox and various social media sites directly from launcher home page.
- Multiple screens to group various apps according to categories.
Download Plan
Download Plan is a download manager published by Abraham. If you manage lots of downloads on daily basis then Download Plan could be a very useful tool for you. This tool allows a user to schedule and organize downloads. Also a user can set where to save the downloaded files.
Users can schedule downloads depending upon availability of internet speeds, peak hours, available bandwidth etc. The downloading will start at particular time automatically and pause itself as specified in download schedule.
Adblock Plus
Adblock Plus is published by Wladimir Palant and helps you block all the annoying video ads on YouTube and various social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Adblock Plus comes by default with a set of preferences that block almost all the ads on various websites. You can also add your new set of preferences to block ads on particular sites.
As shown in the above image Adblock Plus provides features like ad blocking, block tracking, block malware and block social media buttons. Adblock Plus blocks ads on for various websites based on criteria. The ads that don’t satisfy various Adblock Plus criteria are blocked by this add-on.
Rescue Time
Rescue Time is another cool Firefox add-on published by RescueTime the organization. It is a cool add-on that helps you keep track of activity on Firefox web browser. It shows all the data such as amount of time you spent on a particular website using graph charts.
Users can also rate various websites based on different parameters. At the end of the day this tool gives you a score about how productive your day was. Rescue Time also categorizes the sites you visit on a scale of very distracting to very productive.
Pushbullet
Pushbullet is a very useful Firefox add-on developed and published by Pushbullet. This tool pushes notifications like calls and text messages from phones directly to the home screen of your browser. This tool can be very useful for those who hate constantly switching between mobile phones and computer.
Pushbullet also supports some additional features like sharing links, files pictures, etc. between the connected devices. Users can also read or reply to text messages even if their phone is not with them.
So these are the best 10 Firefox useful add-ons you should try. Firefox has many add-ons but above 10 add-ons can be useful for any type of user. Try these add-ons on you Firefox and don’t forget to share your thoughts in comments section below.
