The Lonely Geek

Sometimes, you just have to do a fresh install.  Or perhaps you go help a friend with his or her latest virus or adware infection that of course could have been avoided by running Firefox.  In my case, I have 5 basic add-ons that I configure in my own or a new install for a friend.  I know most of you have seen these and probably use them for yourself already, but remember there are those of us out there who are just starting to use Firefox, and this article is really for them.

1)     Adblock Plus – This is usually the very first FireFox add-on that I install during a fresh setup on a friends machine.  Most of you old time users of Firefox know this application well, and I am sure that you have it installed on your machine already.  But, for those few of you that have not made the jump yet to Firefox, and are just getting ready to do so, please consider adding this to your Firefox install.  It will keep many ads and popups from aggravating you during your web browsing, as well as protecting you from the many exploits and adware attacks from the Ads that are presented on websites, this is a good first protective measure against virus and adware attacks.

2)     Add Bookmark Here 2 – I configure my Firefox to utilize the Bookmarks toolbar.  This gives me a toolbar that has pull down bookmarks for various categories that I have setup under the browser.  The Add Bookmark here tool, allows me to open up a bookmark folder or category and easily add the bookmark under the selected category or folder.  Very useful if you are trying to keep yourself organized.

3)     LastPass – A Relatively new entry in my personal top 5.  I used to use Roboform to keep and organize my passwords for all the different websites that I had an account on.  Unfortunately, I have several machines, and Roboform only supports a license for one machine at a time.  So, when LastPass came out, and allowed me to sync across all my machines and browsers, this allowed me easy yet secure access to all my site and password information for each machine.  So, now when I log into one of my machines, I just sign into Lastpass and it remembers my settings for all my websites no matter what machine I am now using.  It also allows you to exclude certain sites if needed for additional security, or you can assign an additional password for special sites that you want to make sure are well protected.

4)     Tab Mix Plus – Normally my second Add-On that I install on a fresh setup of Firefox.  I find this application useful just for the variety of features that it offers for tabs on the browser.  I know that over time, many features that it initially supported have been added into the current version of Firefox.  But, I enjoy the extra options for how links are handled from websites or bookmarks etc.  It also supports many options for mouse gestures and allows you to configure certain special click actions from the mouse to generate certain actions in tabs.  Every release it just keeps getting better.  I am always impressed with the new items that it can do, or that I find when I take a moment to experiment with some of the special functions.

5)     Xmarks Formerly FoxMarks – I would normally have placed IE Tab here, but I have had so little issues with all my primary sites, that I have found that I just don’t need IE Tab any longer.   So, I have replaced IE Tab with Xmarks, which actually does multiple duties now.  The primary reason I have used this add-on is for keeping all my bookmarks consistent from browser to browser.  When you update your bookmarks on one machine, all your machines that are connected to your Xmarks account are automatically updated as well.  This makes it very easy to keep all your favorite bookmarks in sync.   And now one of the newer features of the service is that it also shows other similar sites to the one you are either currently on, or it displays an alternate site next to a Google Search result.  I have found this to be very useful when I don’t have  clear direction for my web search.

I am sure everyone has a top 5 list of their favorite Firefox Add-on’s as well, please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.  I know that I will be very interested in what you all have found out there as well.

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