I use Firefox as my default browser on all of my computers. Google Chrome is more popular nowadays, but Firefox has a solid extension library and I never had any problems with it. The extension library is one of the reasons I use it over any other browser. Here are some to the extensions that I have found most helpful.
The most popular Firefox extension (it is available for Google Chrome as well), Adblocck Plus blocks advertizements. You can create whitelists so that you can support the websites you love, without getting bombarded with excessive ads on other sites. Ads have their place; but if a website has five ads per page or has some improper ads, then it is good to save your bandwidth and block the ads. Ads help keep the sites you love online, so please consider whitelisting them.
Have you ever wished that you could add a new search engine to Firefox with a few clicks? This little extension allows you to. I use a lot of different websites and need to search them easily. I could use a custom Google search, but that adds more steps than necessary. There are other ways to add custom search engines, but I find that this does it the best.
Firebug is a web development console for web developers. You can quickly view and test HTML and CSS code. This is a must have for web developers and is a fun toy for anyone who would like to play with the source of web pages. For kids it is a great way to show off your fake “hacking” skills.
This is not the most popular or lightweight translator for Firefox, but it is rich in features that would be helpful to anyone working internationally. It had built-in support for many online translators and has instant dictionary look up for words you do not know. The only problems with it is that it is by no means lightweight and it attempts to get you to install other extensions along with it.
With more websites offering HTTPS you would think that the web would be safer, however most websites connect you to HTTP automatically. HTTPS-Everywhere connects you to HTTPS whenever it is available. There are other extensions that do this, but they can be slow or even prevent you from connecting to websites that only provide HTTP. Unlike extensions that search each website for HTTPS, HTTPS-Everywhere has a whitelist full of websites that offer HTTPS. This white list allows you to connect to websites that only offer HTTP and keeps you from having to scanning each site you go to.
I hate having to use Facebook. It would be a simple mater of not logging in if not for the fact that most of my contacts use Facebook for their main form of communication. Social Fixer gets rid of many of the annoying things in Facebook while adding in some useful features of it’s own. It can help filter your news feed, reorganize the look of Facebook, and many other optimizing features. If you use Facebook, it is strongly recommended that you use this extension