6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers

July 20th, 2007 (11:14am) Mike Gunderloy 84 Comments

I can’t help it. Even though Safari has a nicer looking UI, and the most recent Windows update is leaking memory like a sieve, I keep running Firefox as my primary Web browser. Why? Because no other browser has managed to give me anything like the extensibility story that Firefox extensions bring to my daily web working experience. With thousands of extensions out there, your list may vary, but here’s my own selection of half a dozen essentials:

Faviconize Tab – If you’re like me, you run with a lot of browser tabs open (I try to make time for a cleanup session when I get to 40 or 50 open tabs) and the first eight or ten are always the same. Why waste real estate on titles for those tabs? Faviconize shrinks those tabs down to just the width of the favicon.

Firebug – I feel silly even recommending this one. I don’t see how you could do modern web development without it. I turn to the JavaScript and CSS debugging tools here every time I’m working on a web page. Perhaps it’s less essential to people who write better JavaScript and CSS code than I do.

FoxClocks – This one makes it much easier to work with distributed teams. FoxClocks understands time zones, and can put as many little clocks as you like in your browser status bar, so you can see at a glance what time it is for team members in Bangkok, Bolivia, and Berlin. A great aid to scheduling and figuring out who’s likely to be online.

MenuX – If you’re a fan of maximizing your actual web site real estate, take a look at this one; it gives you toolbar buttons for a raft of things. It’s sort of like running Firefox in fullscreen mode but with access to your toolbars. You can also just grab individual buttons from it to have on your main toolbar; I use it to give me one-click access to “View Source” because I’m too lazy to memorize keyboard shortcuts.

Nightly Tester Tools – Don’t let the name scare you. There’s one good reason to grab this even if you don’t test alpha and beta versions of Firefox. Too many other extensions are coded to assume a maximum version number even though they don’t break on higher versions of Firefox. The Nightly Tester Tools adds a “Make all compatible” button to the Add-Ons dialog box that will tell all of your extensions to ignore version checks. If you’ve ever lost a much-loved extension due to a Firefox upgrade, this may get it back for you.

View Source Chart – A great little extension for understanding the structure of a complex web page through a nested, collapsible chart using color and graphics. If you use a framework that generates complex HTML (and who doesn’t, these days?) this is another indispensable debugging aid.

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84 Comments Post your own comment

Brad says: July 20th, 2007 11:43am

Session Fix is a must have for me. You know how when your browser crashes, it will automatically restore the windows you had open before the crash? Session Fix will let you do that every time you close Firefox. When you hit the close button, it adds a menu between the Close tabs and Cancel buttons that says Save Session.

Zee says: July 20th, 2007 11:53am

Does anybody know of a faviconize type extension for Safari…it’s the only thing i really really want…and i just can’t find anything…

6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers » Feel Firefox says: July 20th, 2007 12:14pm

[...] WebWorkerDaily.com wrote: [...]

Swapnonil Mukherjee says: July 20th, 2007 12:33pm

Thanks for MenuX.

I am loving it already.

AskTheAdmiN says: July 20th, 2007 12:41pm

Awesome collection I couldn’t live without the first two! Firebug is amazing and now I have a few more to check out. Thanks from your friends @ AskTheAdmin.Com

George Mandis says: July 20th, 2007 12:53pm

I’m also a big fan of the fireFTP extension. Some days it seems a little overkill having an FTP client in my browser, but other times it’s actually quite convenient.

View Source Chart is interesting – I’ll have to check that one out.

Alberto says: July 20th, 2007 1:37pm

I myself can’t live without FireFTP, BetterGmail, Gmail Manager, and FoxyTunes

Melanie says: July 20th, 2007 3:06pm

I can’t get through a working day without the Web Developer Toolbar or View Formatted Source.

I repress the memory of the bad old times before browser extensions!

W.B. McNamara says: July 20th, 2007 3:13pm

I don’t know how you can survive without Web Developer. The incredibly understated description is “[a]dds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools,” but I expect that’s just because it defies description. Just go install it now.

Zac Davis says: July 21st, 2007 12:26am

Thanks for this list, I especially enjoy the View Source Chart Add-On.

6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers | TechBurgh says: July 21st, 2007 8:18am

[...] read more | digg story [...]

6 Herramientas para desarrolladores Web « Carpe Diem says: July 21st, 2007 8:30am

[...] 6 Herramientas para desarrolladores Web Filed under: Como …( How to …), Tips y Consejos, Web/Internet/Technology, Programacion, firefox — alojeda81 @ 3:29 pm Firefox Extensions [Herramientas para desarroladores Web] [...]

waynep says: July 21st, 2007 10:58am

Can’t believe you didn’t include:
web developer tool bar
live http headers
and
colorzilla!

David Rodrigues says: July 21st, 2007 11:37am

RSS Editor, a very nice extension to create and manage off line RSS feeds. That why Firefox Rules for me…

Firefox Extensions for Web Workers | JJjunk says: July 21st, 2007 12:03pm

[...] 21st, 2007 by Josh Web Worker Daily has written a post on 6 Firefox extensions for web workers. I found this post useful for me, so I [...]

Micahville » Blog Archive » Firefox List says: July 21st, 2007 12:05pm

[...] the authors description, he is exactly like me. If you’re like me, you run with a lot of browser tabs open (I try to [...]

Micahville says: July 21st, 2007 12:11pm

Thanks for the list. I really enjoy the “tab faviconizing plugin” that you recommended. I liked it so much that I wrote a <a href=”http://www.micahville.com/2007/07/21/firefox-list/” post just for you.

mnemetica » Blog Archive » links for 2007-07-21 says: July 21st, 2007 12:17pm

[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers « “With thousands of extensions out there, your list may vary, but here’s my own selection of half a dozen essentials:” (tags: plugins tools webdesign firefox) [...]

Pp says: July 21st, 2007 12:42pm

Do not forget about FoxyTunes I know this does not have anything to do with web development but having the comfort of controlling your music from your browser is a plus!!!

meneame.net says: July 21st, 2007 12:49pm

Extesiones imprescindibles para firefox

Son muchas las extenciones que existen para firefox pero esta es una lista de las imprescindibles.

Ankur Patwa says: July 21st, 2007 12:51pm

Colorpicker is a nice one to grab colours you like

Alphomega says: July 21st, 2007 1:25pm

Don’t forget the screengrab extension which allows you to take a screenshot of the page so you can show otheres what you are seeing eg display errors

tophchurch says: July 21st, 2007 1:40pm

FxIF allows additional properties to pick up EXIF information when right click on pictures (and only a minor development hack to go before pick up IPTC and geo as well)

Matty says: July 21st, 2007 2:33pm

Great stuff mate, thanks for this list, there are some very handy extensions.

Emused says: July 21st, 2007 2:42pm

Hey thanks for the tips,Faviconize is a great extension, snatched right away, works fine.PS IE SUX, long live FireFox!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Zia says: July 21st, 2007 2:55pm

Check out my favorites:

http://zia.blogspot.com/2007/07/7-months-later-15-firefox-extensions-i.html

Michael Harrison says: July 21st, 2007 3:37pm

You sure that it’s Firefox that’s leaking? I’m not using those extensions and am using the latest update 2.0.0.5 and I’ve not seen any leaks.

Elizabeth Thomsen says: July 21st, 2007 3:37pm

There are two by Kevin Freitas that I use all the time.

Linkchecker runs quickly down the page, colorcoding links to help find problems with either internal or external links. I not only use it on pages I’m working on, I use it on pages that I link to or am just looking at. If I link to a page that’s mostly a list of links, running this will often quickly reveal whether or not that page is being maintained or if it’s now just a list of mostly dead stuff.

Measure It pops up a little ruler that you can use to measure in pixels any element on a page.

Miles says: July 21st, 2007 3:41pm

Firebug is also a beautiful thing if you’re writing an AJAX-based webapp, with the ability to track all the back and forth communication.

That, and it’s really quite useful when your site makes use of some complicated formatting, since it lets you fiddle with css, etc. on the fly

blackroses » 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers says: July 21st, 2007 5:07pm

[...] extensions out there, your list may vary, but here’s my own selection of half a dozen essentials.read more | digg story [...]

John says: July 21st, 2007 5:11pm

How about these?
MeasureIt https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/539
ColorZilla https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271

Sherif says: July 21st, 2007 5:24pm

I’ve put together a good list for web developers as well: http://blog.sherifmansour.com/?p=34 top 10 firefox extensions for web developers.

I’m surprised you haven’t got listed the Web Developer toolbar!

Judi Sohn says: July 21st, 2007 6:57pm

Keep in mind that Mike wrote a post about Firefox extensions for web workers, which doesn’t always mean workers of the web…as in not every web worker is a web developer. :-)

PandaCube - A Digital Notebook » Blog Archive » Aki’s Weekly Favourites vol.10 says: July 21st, 2007 8:42pm

[...] 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers [...]

swlrich says: July 21st, 2007 8:50pm

This is an interesting article and worth reading !

Tyler says: July 21st, 2007 10:48pm

I am sad to see you have not included Web Developer. If you are building websites of any sort the three most useful extensions you could add are Web Developer, Firebug and thirdly probably FireFTP.

@Brad, Firefox 2.0 already has an option for that, why would you download an extension for that?

@WayneP, Why do you have colorzilla when you can use information on Web Developer for color information?

@John, Web Developer has tools to find colors and a ruler to find distances, I used to always take screenshots and use colorpicker and the selection tool in Photoshop, but I don’t need to anymore.

Hope this can help some people, I feel like a salesman for Web Developer but it has saved me countless hours. The greatest tool I ever picked up, hands down.

links for 2007-07-22 at James A. Arconati says: July 21st, 2007 11:21pm

[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers « I can’t help it. Even though Safari has a nicer looking UI, and the most recent Windows update is leaking memory like a sieve, I keep running Firefox as my primary Web browser. Why? Because no other browser has managed to give me anything like the exten (tags: web-developer web-developer/tools firefox firefox/tools tips internet articles blogs) Search [...]

Free Nature Photography Wallpaper says: July 22nd, 2007 12:05am

I love the adsense notifier…

web design manchester says: July 22nd, 2007 2:11am

Nice Collection!
Personal must have’s for me are MeasureIt
“Draw out a ruler to get the pixel width and height of any elements on a webpage”.
& ColorZilla
Advanced Eyedropper, ColorPicker, Page Zoomer and other colorful goodies….

Kane says: July 22nd, 2007 6:19am

CoReap is another nifty tool: http://www.coreap.com
Besides its usual social bookmarking bits, I love its social search capability!

merovingian says: July 22nd, 2007 7:12am

good job.
tnx!

Felix says: July 22nd, 2007 10:42am

I completely agree!

Tellerrand says: July 22nd, 2007 10:46am

Ode an den Firefox

Einfach nur so, weil er doch der Beste ist!
…

smoove says: July 22nd, 2007 1:06pm

Hey, i really liked your list, great collection of Extensions i didn’t know about!

You can find my favorite Firefox extensions here:
http://nicht.untergeord.net/wordpress/index.php/2007/07/22/8-firefox-add-ons-every-web-developer-should-know-about/

keep up the good work!

Mike Gunderloy says: July 22nd, 2007 4:36pm

Thanks for all the extra suggestions, folks.

The reason I didn’t mention the Web Developer toolbar is simple: I always install it as part of the default Firefox setup, so my brain thinks of it as part of the base install rather than an extension. Silly of me, I know. I agree, it belongs on the essentials list.

Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers « « Hell’s Kitchen says: July 22nd, 2007 5:07pm

[...] Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers « 23 07 2007 Web Worker Daily » Blog Archive 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers « [...]

ah! » 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers says: July 22nd, 2007 10:43pm

[...] extensions out there, your list may vary, but here’s my own selection of half a dozen essentials.read more | digg [...]

Funky Penguin News » Blog Archive » 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers says: July 22nd, 2007 11:29pm

[...] Link to 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers [...]

Seo Красавчег says: July 23rd, 2007 1:11am

There are many usefull Firefox Extensions not listed here… I use Extensions search to find…

Rory Haddon says: July 23rd, 2007 6:40am

One I love is Poster. You can basically send any type of HTTP request and customise it. Supports GET, PUT, POST, DELETE

Great for testing Web Services or ATOM feeds etc…

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links for 2007-07-23 « toonz says: July 23rd, 2007 4:27pm

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links for 2007-07-24 « Where Is All This Leading To? says: July 23rd, 2007 5:31pm

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tech.twomadgeeks.com » Blog Archive » 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers says: July 24th, 2007 3:28am

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nay min thu says: July 24th, 2007 5:54am

I absolutely love firebug and web developer.

Thanks for sharing.

SeoGenetic Blogs » 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers says: July 25th, 2007 4:45am

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Sourav says: July 25th, 2007 7:22am

nice plugins…..

Anand says: July 25th, 2007 3:01pm

I have to agree that Firebug is a god send. I wrote a post about my top five: http://anand.biz/?p=44

Anshuman says: July 26th, 2007 9:25am

CSS Viewer and the IE Tab I find essential… I use them all the time to see what a page looks like across browsers and to see what colours and picture sizes I’m using.

I also use Server Spy and ColorZilla.

Friday's Links - Volume IX :: Jatecblog says: July 26th, 2007 9:25pm

[...] 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers -Web Workers Daily [...]

Juniperus says: July 27th, 2007 10:17am

The most useful is of course Firebug….

Speedlinking - 22 July 2007 : Opportunities for Life says: July 28th, 2007 10:22am

[...] Worker Daily has a useful post for Firefox users with 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers. There’s a couple there that I’m going to [...]

Jordan West says: July 30th, 2007 11:13am

Some i feel you left out that are really important.

Firebug – which allows you to see errors that appear in the error console, navigate the dom, and many other useful developer features.

YSlow – an extension for firebug that grades the speed of your web page

HTML Validator – Validates your HTML on the spot, sits on the status bar and has an icon. 3 different types of validation. Very helpful for a web standards conscious developer.

Notes from the Ridge says: August 4th, 2007 10:34am

[...] Miguel Guhlin for his post detailing several useful Firefox extensions by way of a Mike Gunderloy Web Worker Daily blog entry. I am a Firefox extension junkie – to the point where I end up adding and then deleting [...]

Tech Blog » Blog Archive » links says: August 8th, 2007 6:49am

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nerdybird.org » links says: August 9th, 2007 8:11am

6 noderīgi FireFox spraudņi web izstrādātājiem | blog.modit.lv says: August 12th, 2007 9:16pm

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Diddle says: August 15th, 2007 4:24am

Nice list! I was not aware of four of these extensions.

So far I only use Firebug and iMacros daily. iMacros is very useful for automating daily routine work. A good example is at http://wiki.imacros.net/Secure_Gmail_Login

Note that you can even embed such scripts in a blog (not sure if this useful…).

Three Ways to Get Much More Out of Firefox « Web Worker Daily says: September 3rd, 2007 4:00pm

[...] Extensions. This blog has done some excellent coverage of Firefox extensions. Firefox was designed from the ground up to work with extensions (mini applications that add new [...]

how to grab a web page says: September 5th, 2007 1:52am

I’d like to introduce FireShot.

FireShot is a Firefox extension that creates screenshots of webpages. Unlike other extensions, this plugin provides a set of editing and annotation tools, which let users quickly modify captures and insert text and graphical annotations. Such functionality will be especially useful for web designers, testers and content reviewers. Screenshots can be saved to disk (PNG, JPEG, BMP), copied to clipboard, e-mailed and sent to external editor for further processing.

It’s absolutely FREE, you can download it from: http://screenshot-program.com/fireshot/fireshot.xpi

To get it installed in firefox simply type this link in its address bar.

Screenshots are availabe at: https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/5648

Comments and reviews (at https://addons.mozilla.org/ru/firefox/addon/5648) will be appreciated!

Adido Web Design Agency says: September 14th, 2007 10:46am

I would recommend Colorzilla as well (it has also been mentioned) but I would also recommend IETab, to let you switch between IE and Firefox views when analysing pages for design

6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers « Programming News says: October 11th, 2007 2:01am

[...] read more | digg story [...]

I am just a programmer » 6 Firefox Extensions for Web Workers says: November 18th, 2007 6:24am

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Web Worker Daily » Archive Open Thread: What Did You Get This Year? « says: December 26th, 2007 11:00am

[...] things to make it perfect for you. Don’t forget our past tips on web worker standards like Firefox, Outlook, Gmail, iGoogle, and Google [...]

Web Worker Daily » Archive 7 Tips for More Firefox Efficiency « says: April 8th, 2008 4:00pm

[...] browser we live in for much of the day. We’ve done a lot of coverage on this site of Firefox extensions, tab managment and more, but the more I use Firefox the more on-the-fly navigational tips I pick [...]

On The Same Page » From Web Worker Daily and great new tip site. says: April 11th, 2008 10:30am

[...] the browser we live in for much of the day. We’ve done a lot of coverage on this site of Firefox extensions, tab management and more, but the more I use Firefox the more on-the-fly navigational tips I pick [...]

Barkhat says: April 18th, 2008 7:24am

I love Auto Copy. I often copy and paste articles I like into emails and using Auto Copy makes that one step easier. As soon as I select the text I want it is copied. I just paste it into the email. Anything to cut back an teensy bit on repetitive arm injury. LOL!

Some other favs which have been mentioned Better Gmail (ver 1, not 2), Nightly Tester Tools, Mr. Tech Local Install, Delicious Bookmarks, Clipmarks, and so many more!

I Heart Firefox | Lea Woodward says: April 19th, 2008 9:54am

[...] great list, helped me find these & more…If you spend a fair bit of time browing or using the [...]

Web Worker Daily » Archive Firebug 1.2 - Good News for Web Devs « says: May 23rd, 2008 10:00am

[...] already know about Firebug – the amazing web development add-in for Firefox. (It was one of our 6 recommended Firefox extensions for web workers). But if you haven’t been following its development blog, you may not know the latest news: [...]

Razvan Pandor » Blog Archive » Firebug 1.2 says: May 23rd, 2008 10:53am

Web Worker Daily » Archive Firefox Extensions Worth Checking Into « says: June 25th, 2008 6:39am

[...] this blog has done a good collection of extensions, and over on the OStatic blog, dedicated to open source, you can find more useful [...]

nbridges says: August 21st, 2008 3:34am

Very nice list indeed

Web Development India says: December 22nd, 2008 11:57pm

Great resources good collection of Extensions. Firefox have lots of extensions that’s why i like to use Firefox. Thanks for this information.

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