The 13 addons on this page are for content consumers (readers) and producers (writers, bloggers, social media users, etc).
- Top 42 Most Useful Firefox Addons (Table of Contents)
- 14 Addons for All Internet Users
- 13 Addons for Content Consumers and Producers (Social Media Mavens, Bloggers)
- Social Media -- Discovering and Sharing Content (4 addons)
- Consuming Content -- Managing and Reading RSS Feeds (4)
- Blogging (1)
- Microblogging (1)
- Managing Lots of Tabs (3)
- 15 Addons for Web Workers (Web Designers, Web Developers, Ecommerce Merchants)
Social Media -- Discovering and Sharing Content
What do you do when you want to share a webpage with someone? Do you Digg it, submit to StumbleUpon, or email it to your friends? This group of extensions makes it easy to share and find interesting Web content.
15. Shareaholic
If you use multiple social media services to share Web content, Shareaholic lets you post to several services from within an new dropdown menu (screenshot).
Supported services include: Digg, Del.icio.us, Facebook, Friendfeed, Google Reader, Myspace, Pownce, reddit, StumbleUpon, Tumblr, Twitter, and more.
16. StumbleUpon
The heart and soul of StumbleUpon is in the first three buttons of this toolbar -- Stumble!, Vote Up, and Vote Down. (screenshot)
When you click the Stumble! button, your browser is sent to a new "random" webpage. Where you are sent is determined by the categories you said you were interested in when you signed up, how you vote (up or down) for each webpage StumbleUpon sends you to, and how others voted for that page. The SU algorithm tries to send you to webpages it thinks you will find interesting based on your previous votes.
When I first installed the StumbleUpon toolbar, I spent a good 2-3 hours "channel surfing" the Web. I must have clicked the Stumble! button a hundred times, and I found many obscure but super cool sites.
This extension shows Digg information for the webpage you're on, including how many Diggs it has and recent comments. (screenshot)
This extension is for users who use Digg a lot. If you only submit a story occassionaly, you may find the Shareaholic extension a better fit. If you mostly consume Digg stories passively -- mostly reading and almost never submitting or commenting -- you might like the next extension.
18. Digg Sidebar
The Digg Sidebar extension adds a sidebar to Firefox displaying the latest, most popular stories. Saves you a trip to the Digg front page. (screenshot)
Consuming Content -- Managing and Reading RSS Feeds
You can use Firefox to subscribe to RSS feeds, and read them via the live bookmark feature. If you subscribe to a lot of feeds, however, you may want the additional functionality the following addons provide for managing and reading your feeds.
19. Feed Sidebar
Puts your live bookmark feeds into the sidebar. (screenshot)
20. Brief
Full featured feeds manager. Displays feed headlines in a sidebar. In the main window, you can see individual feed items or a stream of new items from all your feeds or just one folder. (screenshot).
If you're like me and you use Google Reader to read feeds, this addon will notify you of new unread messages. (screenshot)
22. Better GReader
Lets you preview webpages inline within Google Reader so you don't have to open a new tab or window to view that article/webpage. Additionally, this addon collapses the header and sidebar for more reading room, adds favicons to feeds, and lets you change how Google Reader looks with skins.
Better GReader is written by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker. She also wrote Better Gmail 2, Better Flickr, and Better YouTube.
Requires Greasemonkey.
Blogging
26. ScribeFire
A blog editor embedded in Firefox. You can right-click on a webpage to "blog this page". A new Scribfire entry is opened with the current page inserted as a link in the body. You can also hit F8 to bring up the ScribeFire interface. (screenshot)
Scribefire allows you to save drafts of entries locally or on your blog server. It supports hosted blogging services like WordPress.com, LiveJournal, Blogger, and others. Platforms supported include WordPress, Drupal, Movable Type, and anything that implements the MetaWeblog API.
You can post to multiple blogging accounts. It also has integration with various social bookmarking services, so that when you find an interesting webpage or article, you can submit to your favorite social media sites and blog about it all within Firefox.
Microblogging
27. TwitterFox
Displays tweets of Twitter users you are following. Also has an input box for you to update your status. (screenshot)
Managing Lots of Tabs
I tend to have a lot of tabs open at the same time. The following extensions make managing lots of tabs a piece of cake.
23. Aging Tabs
This is perfect for people who open a lot of tabs. Unused tabs fade with age, which makes it a whole lot easier to see the two or three that you're actively working with.
24. Tabs Mix Plus
Adds a whole bunch of options to customize how tabs look and act. (screenshot of options)
A few reasons why I love this addon:
- Hover the mouse over your tabs, then use the scroll wheel to scroll through your tabs.
- Open links that would have opened a new window in a new tab instead.
- Go to the last tab you were on when you click on the current tab. (Very handy when you have two dozen tabs open.)
- Context menus (like when you right-click on a webpage or a tab) to easily manage tabs and webpage. (screenshot of context menu items)
There isn't an official Firefox 3 release yet, but you can download the beta version at the developer's website. Click on the "Dev-Build" link.
Adds a button to re-open the last closed tab. You can also see a dropdown list of the last 10 closed tabs. (screenshot)