Pimp My Firefox

By now you've probably at least heard about Firefox. If you haven't started using it instead of Internet Explorer or Netscape you should.

It's safer and way cooler. For instance, you can open up several websites in one window using tabs rather than having to open up several windows.

But for those of you who have, the extensions you can get for Firefox are amazing.

Here are some that I really love:

1. COOLIRIS PREVIEW - Have you seen that monkey commercial for ask.com? Pretty cool that with ask.com you can preview a website before actually entering it. But come on, everybody knows nothing compares to Google, right? Guess what. With this extension Firefox you can now do this in Google.
   
   Check out the Cooliris Preview extension. After the next update come out you will also be able to use it for other sites like Ebay and Craigslist.
   
   
2. GOOGLE PREVIEW - Another cool Google tweak that simply allows you to see a thumbnail image of the websites in your search results.
   
   
3. GOOGLEBAR - Just like in IE but with more features. There are several versions of the Googlebar. This is the official one. I’m still trying to figure out which one is best.
   
   You may be thinking, I don't need this because there is a google search already built in to Firefox. This one just has a lot more features (Froogle, maps, search within site, etc.). While we're on the subject of the built in search bar - if you haven't noticed, you can add a lot of engines to search other websites with the handy built in search bar. It'll let you search Ebay, IMDB, and Dictionary.com among other.
   
   
4. CUSTOMIZE GOOGLE - This is a cool tool and you can do a lot of things with it. The best thing for me is the ability to get rid of the paid links and ads that pop up at the top of your Google search results.
   
   
5. MYSPACEBAR - For those of you like me who are addicted to MySpace (it's actually a HUGE part of my job as a musician these days), a tool like this is invaluable. You can go straight to your mail, blog, groups, music, search...anything you can imagine.
   
   
6. IE TAB - There are some websites and functions that just won't work without Internet Explorer (Microsoft Update/Windows Update, Panda's free virus scanner, etc.). This is a great tool to enable you to continue working in Firefox but pull up IE in a separate tab.
   
   
7. NOSCRIPT - This is a very important tool that can be a little annoying and hard to get used to at first. I love it now though.
   
   Don't you just hate all the ads in MySpace and other sites? You know, the flash animated things where if you can tell which actress is Angelina you'll win a new iPod every year for the rest of your life? They're not just annoying, they can be dangerous. If a company who pays a website like MySpace to put their ad up puts a cookie or two in their ad, they can get all sorts of info on you. The easiest is of course your email address because you entered it into the same page the ad is on!
   
   This is a great way to get rid of that junk without losing other java or flash elements you actually need on a page. Once you download it you have to right click on the page and click the no-script to allow java or flash or other scripts to be shown for that page (for instance if you're on MySpace you would click to allow myspace.com but not advertising.com and all the other garbage on there). You only need to do this once per website because NoScript remembers for you.
   
   The annoying thing when you start is remembering you have to do that. It takes a little getting used to and can be frustrating when you want to see the weather on WSMV.com and think, "now, why is that map not popping up? Oh yeah, I have to okay this site!" But it's a great tool.

So, there are some of the hundreds of great extensions for Firefox. I wonder what your favorites are.