Plugins

15 December 2006

I've recently swapped one of my computers so I've been through re-installing the addons / extensions / plugins to Mozilla Firefox web browser and Mozilla Thunderbird Email Client.

Here is a list of the ones I've installed, which you may like to take a look at. This is not a comprehensive list, as there are hundreds, if not thousands of plugins / addons / extensions, but these are the ones I've found and like. If you have any other favourites please leave a comment and I'll take a look.

Buttons for Thunderbird

This allows you additional control on some of the toolbar buttons. The reason I use this is to add an Archive button that can be used to easily move emails from my active IMAP mailbox to a local archive folder.

chuonthis.com - Buttons! (Thunderbird)

Dictionaries for Firefox and Thunderbird

Whilst having a spell checking dictionary has been the standard in a mail client, the recent versions of Firefox now include a spell checker when filling out forms.

For those of us outside the US then you'll most likely want to look at installing your own local dictionary. In my case British (UK) English.

Thunderbird Dictionaries (Thunderbird)

British Dictionary (Firefox and Thunderbird)

Bookmarks with del.icio.us for Firefox

My bookmarks are stored on the del.icio.us web server. This means that I can access all my bookmarks from one location, but also means that others can view my bookmarks. This add on makes managing the bookmarks easier.

Del.icio.us (Firefox)

Google Search Bar for Firefox

Provides access to the Google Search Engine, separately to the Firefox search bar. I use this so that I've always got Google available, even though my Firefox search box is set to something else.

Webmasters may also find it useful that it shows the PageRank of the page you are viewing, so it's good for seeing at a glance how you're ranked by Google.

Google Toolbar (Firefox)

Webmaster / Web Design Extensions for Firefox

The following are useful for webmasters / web designers.

HTML validator shows quickly whether your site is compliant with the HTML standards.

HTML Validator (based on Tidy) (Firefox)

View formatted source, is useful to be able to view your nested tables, or CSS components.

View Formatted Source (Firefox)

The web developer toolbar adds some useful buttons to development related websites. This is a addon that has been around a long time which I find extremely useful.

Web Developer (Firefox)

Security Plugin for Firefox

The Netcraft toolbar gives each site you visit a rating which indicates how likely the site is to be a false / phishing web site. It ranks based on the age of the site (most bogus web sites only have a very short life), and the reputation of the network that it is based on. Those hosted over a broadband link, including my watkissonline site get a slightly lower rating, but generally it is good. Anyone launching a new web site may like to use this toolbar to make Netcraft aware of your web site, which will help get a reasonable rating quickly.

Netcraft (Firefox)

Adding Search Engines to Firefox

You may also want to add Search Engines to the Firefox search bar. If you visit www.watkissonline.co.uk, or some other sites, you can add the search feature by clicking on the pulldown menu on the search bar.

More search engines are available at:
Mozilla Addons Site or the Mozdev site.

Webmasters may also want to see my earlier blog entry on creating firefox search bar entries.