# Enhance my browsing experience. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 27, 2008, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693 "2008-11-27T12:16:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 7\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/1 "2008-11-27T12:16:45Z")
Call me unadventurous, but I’ve been using Firefox for a year now and I have never bothered installing any add-ons. Any suggestions for features I might be missing out on? ---
**Author:** ![gladtobeblazed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85f322/32.png) [@gladtobeblazed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gladtobeblazed)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/2 "2008-11-27T13:09:11Z")
Here’s what I have installed for FF: - Adblock Plus (blocks ads) - All-in-One Gestures (executes common commands using mouse gestures and scroll wheel navigation) - NoScript (allows JavaScript and other plugins only for trusted domains of your choice) - Paste and Go (paste text/URL and search/load immediately) - Flashgot (enables single and massive downloading using the download manager of your choice) ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/3 "2008-11-27T13:10:48Z")
Here are some of the basic add-ons I use. I highly recommend the first three adblock a cookie manager (there are several) no script (controls javascript) fasterfox flashblock go up (adds a up button to navigate up the domain) clearURLbutton (adds a button to clear the address bar so you can type in an address), image zoom menu editor remove it permanently (removes anything from a webpage) tab mix plus (controls the looks and behavior of tabs) ---
**Author:** ![Dragwyr](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dragwyr/32/2855_2.png) [@Dragwyr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dragwyr)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/4 "2008-11-27T15:09:58Z")
Here is my list of FF addons: - Adblock Plus - Customize Google - Enhances Google searches and removes ads and spam. Also enhances other Google Services - DownloadHelper - Helps you download media from sites like YouTube etc. - DownThemAll! - A mass download manager - Gmail Manager - Notifies me of incoming email to my Gmail account - IE Tab - Lets you use the embedded IE engine within FF. Great if a page won’t render correctly in FF. - Linkification - Converts text links into genuine clickable links. - NoScript - Allows you to determine which sites are allowed to run scripting automatically - Redirect Remover - Removes redirects from links and images - Tab Mix Plus. - Enhanced FF Tab management. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/5 "2008-11-27T15:19:03Z")
**flashblock** is the most important because if you have multiple tabs open, all the ones with flash content steal a bit of your CPU to keep updating, whether the tab is active or not. **flashblock** stops the content loading until you tell it to load. It is surprising just how much automated flash content is out there. ---
**Author:** ![ftg](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ftg/32/2801_2.png) [@ftg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ftg)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/6 "2008-11-27T16:50:35Z")
Does anybody know a way to add tab minimization to FF? The tab managers I have looked at don’t do this. This is by far the biggest reason I don’t use FF and stick with Opera. (Which has turned off tab minimization buttons by default in the lastest versions. Yikes.) ---
**Author:** ![capybara](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/capybara/32/202_2.png) [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)\ **Post date:** [November 27, 2008, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/enhance-my-browsing-experience/474693/7 "2008-11-27T17:19:54Z")
There’s a tab thingie called tab faviconize or something which makes inactive tabs as wide as/marked by the favicons-- is that close? Otherwise I’ve gone into about:config and just made all inactive tabs pretty narrow to begin with. Other add-ons I use: Morning Coffee: opens up your usual morning sites or usual obsessively checked ones with a menu bar button. Fission: makes the address bar shift color as the page loads, like in Safari. I don’t know if this is the same add-on that makes it so that when I mouse over a link the address shows up in the address bar as preview. Leechblock: I can set particular hours of the day where I can’t access the straightdope, say, and attempts to do so redirect me to the hypnotoad. TinyURLcreator: what it says. Colorful Tabs: lets me differentiate tabs easier. I’m simple that way. A couple of nerdy ones for research: Researchword: a control/right click on a word gives a drop down menu set of options like “look up word in google”/dictionary/etc. Unofficial Google Translate Firefox Extension: same thing, but for translating selected text from/into a number of languages. It is my friend. SplitBrowser: takes two or more tabs and splits the window side by side for, say, simultaneous comparison.