Advanced Apathy

If you haven’t already, you should get the best browser around, Firefox. It has many features that are nice, with not the least of them being the addons you can use. Here is a list of the top 10 I use.

1) Adblock Plus

Adblock is easily one of the most downloaded, and liked addons for FF. Once downloaded, it blocks virtually all ads you see on web pages. Annoying flash ads, gone. Fake warning messages, gone. Banners trying to get you to think they’ll give you a PS3, gone!

2) All-In-One Sidebar

AIOS is an organizing tool that puts all addon controls, history, downloads, and favorites into a convenient and discreet sidebar that can easily be configured to your standards. Getting this allows for much easier content control.

3) Better YouTube

A very simple collection of Greasemonkey scripts in the form of an addon. Allows for easy downloads of YouTube videos, a clean theater mode for watching, and the option of making it so videos don’t start until you actually press the play button (instead of auto playing when you open the video link).

4) Download Statusbar

There are many things to love about FF, one of them not being the download manager. It opens a window when you download, and makes it inconvienient to see the status of a download. Download Statusbar gives a very nice and out-of-the-way status bar in the corner with controls for downloading a file.

5) Google Preview

When your googling, wouldn’t it be nice to see a preview before loading the site? That’s what Google preview gives you. Every time you do a Google search, a thumbnail of the site appears to the left of all the search results. Trust me, it’s incredibly helpful.

6) Lazarus

Ever been filling out a large form or registration page on the internet, and pressed submit only to have it come back saying you didn’t do so and so right and you end up having to fill it all in again? Well, Lazarus solves this problem. If you ever have to go back to a page you just filled with text that is now gone, just right click on the field, and you can restore the entire entry!

7) StumbleUpon

This addon changed my life. Where before I would spend meaningless time looking for something to occupy my time, I now stumble. Stumbleupon has a community of over 5 million, and if you’re one of them, you know why that is. When you get the addon, it will prompt you to get an account, do it. When you do, you fill out a form of things your interested on the internet, and then it lets you “stumble” pages it thinks you like. The more you use it, the more it knows what you like. Its incredably addictive.

8) Undo Closed Tabs

Many times have I too hastily started closing tabs, only to accidentally close that one tab with a page on it I wanted. Your history is too full for you to wade through it to find, so what do you do? Undo it of course. Undo Closed Tabs gives you a button to the left of your tabs to allow easy recovery of any closed mistake. Also, the sunglasses guy is there because wordpress automatically makes all 8 with a bracket this 8)

9) Session Manager

Too often have I been researching something in the wee hours of the night and had to hastily head off to bed only to realize I need to exit my browser for one reason or another. Session Manager allows for easy saving, and recovery of any session of tabs you may have at that moment. You can even save multiple sessions for different reasons.

10) Aero Fox

Choosing a theme for your FF is a very personal thing, one which I suggest you don’t take lightly. Aero Fox is (in my humble opinion) one of the most good looking of themes. It also has never interfered with any of my addons, and shows little to no strain on the browser speed. A good choice overall.

What are your favorite addons? Leave a comment below.

-Trenton Stahl

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.