Set Firefox on fire

By Jeremy Roche, Alex Kidman, Jason Parker and Peter Butler on 13 July 2006

Information and Entertainment

ForecastFox
Are you a weather nut? Even if you're not, this add-on comes in handy, letting you see the weekly forecast in Firefox's menu bar. If the sunny, cloudy, and rainy icons aren't enough, simply mouse over them for a more complete forecast.		 FoxyTunes
FoxyTunes is an essential add-on if you're in the mood for music while you browse the Web. It integrates a simple set of player controls into the toolbar (which can be dragged anywhere you choose), and integrates with just about every music player known to man, letting you skip and sort songs without ever having to leave your browser.
Dictionary Tooltip
When surfing the Web, sometimes you'll come across words you don't know the meaning of. Instead of reaching for a dictionary or heading to its online equivalent, use Dictionary Tooltip. With this extension you only need to double-click a word to bring up a window with pronunciations, definitions, and thesaurus entries.		 Grocery List Generator
More a standalone application that lives inside Firefox, this full-featured extension lets you add recipes and ingredients to a customisable database, then create grocery lists based on what's next for dinner. Save lists as Web pages, or print them out for your next shopping trip.
Bandwidth Tester
Bandwidth Tester's own interface warns that it might not be reliable outside the US, but in our experience it's a solid little utility to check your current connection speed -- especially to sites in the States. It's also great for comparative testing of your connection. With the option to pick your download files for testing, it also works well in a local Australian context.		 DictionarySearch
With this add-on, all you need to do is select a word, right-click and choose "Dictionary Search for … " and a new tab opens up with the Dictionary.com definition. This extension is especially useful when researching unfamiliar topics online or simply to help brush up on your vocabulary as you surf.
Translate
A useful extension that translates entire Web pages (by clicking a button on the toolbar) or highlighted text (by right-clicking and selecting "Translate from … ") to English from different languages including French, German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portugese and Russian. Translate uses AltaVista's BabelFish Translator for context translations and Google's translation engine for Web pages.

Topics: browser, add-on, translate, tester, extensions, googlepreview, tabbrowser, dictionarysearch, googlebar, foxytunes, firefox, bandwidth, mouse, gestures

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Comments (11)

  • ruby commented on 18/07/2009 16:30

    all the extensions aside, the best thing is that it's skinnable and looks great with firefox personas

    and it's just gonna keep getting better

  • jku27201 commented on 12/05/2008 13:48

    How can I remove the weather it is Australia plains S A and is not relevant to me it takes a while to load Thanks Jan

  • DD commented on 18/09/2006 10:53

    I use SessionSaver. Great extension!

  • Tim commented on 30/08/2006 16:44

    I use Sage to read the RSS feeds from CNET in Firefox "AWESOME". This is a great news tool for Firefox. I also use the firefox faststart to speed it up. Provided I keep the updates updated I have no problems at all and prefer it although I use both IE and 1.5 Firefox.

  • Kurt Suma commented on 21/02/2005 18:24

    I like the ADBLOCKER extension, super-kewl !
    I use it to block banners and gifs from frequently visited sites. Pages load faster and I no longer need to look at unwanted images.
    100% success, foolproof and free.

    I want to have FireFox's baby!

  • Tim Koop commented on 16/02/2005 06:17

    These are the Firefox Extensions I use the most:
    Adblock
    googlebar
    Web Developer
    Live HTTP Headers
    ieview
    SpellBound

  • pvb commented on 06/02/2005 14:36

    Firefox crashes for white or yellowpages.com.au if on my computer, yet IE has no problem?

  • esky commented on 01/02/2005 11:48

    Why does Firefox take so long to load cnet.com.au and zdnet.com.au pages? And when it is finished it only loads half the page. IE is slow but faster than Firefox in loading your pages and it loads the whole page completely. Your sites are the only websites I have found to have this problem.

  • anotherkjb@yahoo.com.au commented on 17/01/2005 20:58

    Kidman and Roche say: "it's not unknown for Tabbrowser Extensions to cause a few bug issues here and there..."

    Heaven help us -- TBE will cause a few more than just "a few" bugs!

    TBE *used* to be an excellent extension, and if you intend installing no others, then possibly it's still ok.

    However, piro (the author) insisted on bloating it with every option under the sun, and consequently it now has so many bugs and compatibility problems with other extensions it's a nightmare.

    But a silent nightmare -- the worst part about TBE is that you will not realise it's TBE actually causing the problem. Such as with Java apps, something TBE should not be touching. Oh, but it does, it does.

    Do yourself a favour and avoid TBE like the plague. Even the author himself has a warning on the download page: Use at own risk!

  • Osden commented on 14/01/2005 17:26

    Cool .. this is my project for the weekend ... gonna try all of those ...

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