In my previous post about Firefox, I wrote about useful Firefox addons for web-developers. Considering the fact that previously written posts dealt with a specific set of users, I decided to let everyone know how useful and flexible this browser can be. Before I start, let’s have a look at some of its drawbacks.
- Memory leaks and sluggish start:
The biggest drawback for Firefox running on the Windows platform is memory leaks and the ages it takes to start. Though Mozilla has done a lot to enhance it in the past, it still is its biggest woe. - Browsing Space:
Browsing on Firefox, especially on a netbook or a laptop, is troublesome, as it has much less space to view the page content as compared to Chrome or Opera. - Ominibar:
Firefox comes with separate search and address bars which makes it cluttered and look terrible. The reason that makes Chrome look supersede Firefox is its clean, simple interface. - Mouse Gestures:
Though most people don’t use mouse gestures, they still come as a package, as in the case of Opera. Opera purists have always given it to be a major reason for choosing Opera over Firefox. - Ability to run UserScripts:
Both Opera and Chrome inherently support UserScripts, and they can be installed without any hassle in them. Firefox lacks this major ability in its default build. - Browser Information sync:
The ability to synchronize bookmarks and user information has been a part of Opera (Opera Links) for quite some time; Chome also added this feature some time back. Even though the latest beta builds of Firefox have this feature, it still isn’t available for stable builds.
Now, let’s start with how we can solve most of the above-mentioned drawbacks and further enhance the browsing experience using Firefox addons or Firefox extensions.
- Memory Fox:
Firefox has much to take care of when it comes to Memory usage. Usually, while running Firefox on my system, I used to get an average memory usage of 400 MB. But after installing this addon, the usage lowered down to as low as 90-100 MB.
Before you install this addon, I would suggest you carefully note which processor or operating system you are using. This addon has mixed responses among users, but personally, it worked like a charm for me. Also, note that this addon is only for the Windows platform.
This extension should take care of the memory issue of Firefox on the Windows Platform. - Flex Bar & Hide Captions:
My second challenge was to take care of the browsing space that was hindered due to a separate navigation bar, title bar, bookmarks bar, and status bar. I don’t really need the navigation bar much often, and unless I wanted to type some specific address or refresh a page, navigation was of no use to me. The title bar was also much of a bloat. So I decided to get rid of them.
Flex Bar and Hide Captions just did what I wanted. Flex bar, when installed, gives an option of putting these navigation, status, or any other toolbar to auto-hide or completely remove. I put my address bar and status bar to auto-hide, and rest I disabled. For the back, forward home, and refresh, there are buttons that show up on the tab bar. The next step was to remove the title bar, which was done using Hide Captions addon. After these tweaks, my browser was much neater and had ample space for me to browse.
- Ominibar:
The next thing on my mind was to remove the bloat on the address bar. Why have two separate boxes for typing address and search? This only clutters the interface. The alternative was to use Omnibar Firefox addon, which does nothing but removes the search box and give users choices to use various search engines using keywords from the address bar. - FireGestures:
FireGestures should take care of the Mouse Gesture problem. One can use this addon to do a certain task with a specific mouse gesture and thus making the task of browsing much easier.
For instance, I use mouse gestures the most to move the pages back and forward. Just by holding right, clicking down, and dragging left and right makes, the pages go back and forward. - Greasemonkey & Stylish:
Often there are features on web pages that the user wants to enhance further. A simple example would be the ability to load the next page of search results automatically. This can be done using Javascript. There are numerous user-written scripts that perform certain tasks. It can be downloaded from userscripts.org and to run that those, one needs to install Greasemonkey addon for firefox. Another aspect is the beautification of the website. Often the way the website looks for you isn’t the way you want it to look. To make it better, people use custom CSS and some javascript to enhance its looks. That can be done using Stylish. - LastPass:
Lastpass has been my password manager for quite some time now, and I found no problem in managing my things and using it. It provides password syncing and auto-form fill-up. Also, one can sync encrypted notes across browsers and computers.
- Xmarks or Google Bookmarks:
Finally, we are left with the inability to synchronize bookmarks. One way to solve this is to use Google Bookmarks. Gmarks is an addon that adds a menu item that synchronizes itself with Google Bookmarks. Another thing that can be done is to use Xmarks. It synchronizes the bookmark items across browsers and computers.
By using the above-mentioned add-ons, we would be able to remove most of the drawbacks that Firefox has. Let’s now divulge further and find out if there is anything more to add to that list.
Add Block Plus:
This addon blocks the unwanted content of a page. The advertisements can often be trouble while browsing, and they can worsen the browsing experience.
Autopager:
There are plenty of userscripts that provide the same feature as in the case of this addon, but they are specific to the site. This addon maintains a list of sites where they are applicable. It automatically displays the next page of either the search result or any forum topic or anywhere the script is available in its database.
Flashblock:
This addon disables the auto-loading of flash content. Flash can be enabled by clicking on them and thus making it very useful when you want to save some bandwidth, or you have a slow connection.
Read it later:
Often while browsing, you would want to save some pages to read it later. So as the name suggests, it does the same by saving the page’s URL, and whenever you wish, you can open and read it.
Tab Mix Plus:
Tab Mix Plus provides extensive tab management and provides you with lots of features like organizing the look and feel of tabs, how to open and close tabs and where to do that etc.
Even this extensive list of add-ons is nowhere near the full-scale customization and personalization of Firefox. You can make Firefox look and feel as you want to. You can make this browser perform as you want to. Just think of a feature and look for it in Firefox addon gallery. You will be amazed by how much you can do.