Firefox collections are groups of related add-ons assembled for easier sharing. This idea was launched from the Firefox Add-ons site several months ago. Since some time has passed, I thought it might be interesting to check back in with this online Mozilla feature to see which collections are the most popular out there.
Here are the most popular add-on collections for the Firefox browser:
32430 subscribers – This collection of add-ons were gathered to help you make Firefox 3 more seamless in the Windows 7 operating system. Not only do you get the nice theme and tweaking add-ons, but you also get some great time conserving tools too!
All in all, 2009 was a great year for Firefox. It grew by leaps and bounds, and continues to be the best alternative browser out there. Firefox Facts did pretty well in it’s own right too – surpassing the 7,000+ RSS subscriber mark. So with today being the last day of 2009, let us all sit back and revisit some of the best posts of the year.
Here are 10 of the most read stories, tips, tutorials and reviews I have posted here in 2009. Hope you check out some classics you might have missed, or revisit a favorite post or two.
Love it, or hate it – Firefox got one more addition to it’s browser that seems to have gotten a mixed reaction from the fans. The open new tab button rests at the end of your tab bar in Firefox 3.5 giving you an easier user interface to open a new tab.
One big complaint about search engines is they are all rather vanilla with their visual representation. Wouldn’t it be better if you could color code things a ‘bit more? One Greasemonkey script that does a great job at this is Colorful Search.
Want to hide all the stuff you do not really need on your personalized iGoogle homepage? Thanks Super iGoogle, a handy Greasemonkey script, you can simplify iGoogle to only show you the content you need to see.
Since Facebook is the king of the hill when it comes to social networks, there have been a lot of add-ons dedicated to making it better. Facebook is great, but is not without flaws. Thankfully, these Firefox add-on developers have worked out some of the kinks and have masterminded some of the best add-ons for Firefox to date.
Here are my top five Facebook add-ons you can add to Firefox.
Thanks to a popular Greasemonkey script turned Firefox add-on you can now rip videos from Facebook to watch whenever and where ever you want to. The simply named Facebook Video add-on for Firefox will help you get the job done.
How Does It Work?
This extension adds the functionality to download, convert or embed videos posted on Facebook. When you click the download video link, the video will open as a .mp4 file. You can then select, “Save Page As” from the File option in your menu bar to choose where to save the file on your PC.
The convert video link will take the video to the Zamzar free file conversion web site, where you can convert the file to .flv, .wmv, .avi, or the audio formats .mp3, .flac, or .wav.
Start Downloading Facebook Videos! – You can pick up the Facebook Video add-on from the Firefox Add-ons web site. So there you have it, now you can grab those Facebook videos you have been wanting to save to watch later. (Kudos goes to ZeroPaid.com for finding this tip!)
You might not know the name Anthony Lieuallen, but I bet you have heard of Greasemonkey before. It is the Firefox extension that allows you to extend or customize your favorite web sites in a number of different ways.
Anthony is one of the driving forces behind that project, so I thought it would be fun to pick his brain to find out what his part in the project is, and what advice he might have for other hopeful Greasemonkey script writers or Firefox add-on developers.
What all have you done in development for the Firefox Greasemonkey extension?
I’ve definitely lost track of when and how exactly I first learned about Greasemonkey, and when I got involved. Luckily, I can look up enough old records to get a pretty good idea of what the right answer here is.
I first interacted with Greasemonkey as a user. Quickly though I graduated to User Script author. My earliest blog post about a script I authored was in March of 2005. I wrote a few scripts, some quite popular, for a while. By June, Mark Pilgrim contacted me about being included in the “Greasemonkey Hacks” book, essentially a cookbook-like collection of existing User Scripts, with discussion about what they were and how they worked. I was included as a contributor when that book was published.
It is no secret I am a big fan of Gina Trapani’s line of “better” add-ons for Firefox, so I can tell you I was more than excited to see that they had been rolled together as an add-on collection, so you can grab them all at once.
Which extensions make the list?
Better Gmail 2 – Add useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, an unread message icon on your browser tab, file attachment icons, and more.
Better Amazon - Highlight Amazon listings with free shipping, automatically enlarge product images, clean up book pages, shorten URLs and more on Amazon.com. Enhances Amazon.com with a compilation of user scripts and styles. All scripts copyright their original authors. Click on the script homepage in the Help tab for more information.
Better Flickr - Adds collapsible header and sidebar, event title text wrap, colored weekend days, week numbers, and skins to Google Calendar.
Better GReader - Preview web pages inline in Google Reader, collapse the header and sidebar for more reading area, add favicons to feed subscriptions and more with Better GReader.
Better YouTube – A compilation of some of the best Greasemonkey user scripts for YouTube in one interface.
Go pick up the Better Pack of Firefox Add-ons and find out what is so great about them yourself.
Ever wanted to write your own Firefox extension, but thought the process was too drawn out or difficult to do? Jetpack is looking to use open Web technologies to enhance the browser. The idea here is that if you can make a web page, you will be able to build an add-on for Firefox.
This video does a great job at giving you a basic walk-though of what Jetpack development looks like thus far:
Overall, I am really excited about this! I always love to tweak away at Firefox using tools like Greasemonkey and Stylish (which Jetpack reminds me of, in a sense of being simple ways to extend the browser).
Word of warning, this is an extremely early release of the software, that is still being designed and developed. This version that is out now is pretty much just for the developers and testers who want to start getting their hands dirty.
Grab Jetpack, and play around with it yourself. It might not be for everybody, however should really help to inspire those of us who like to tweak around with our browser to make it work for us.
Tired of finding mp3 files on the Web, that have no inline player so you can simply check them out as you find them? Well, thanks to the Lifehacker team you can now use Google’s inline mp3 player to stream any mp3 on any web site.
For those you have Greasemonkey installed, the Google Inline MP3 Player script inserts the Google flash mp3 player next to any linked MP3 file. Want to give it a shot? Go check out the Lifehacker page on the topic, and click there to get it installed.
As a bonus, for those of you who might want the opposite of this, we have the Give me the MP3 user script. Once you install this into Greasemonkey, you can pull the mp3 link out instead of using a flash player that is embedded on the web site you are browsing.
So to play, or not to play – you now have the option to do both!
Firefox collections are groups of related add-ons assembled for easier sharing. This idea was launched from the Firefox Add-ons site several months ago. Since some time has passed, I thought it might be interesting to check back in with this online Mozilla feature to see which collections are the most popular out there.
Windows 7 Theme for Firefox 3.5 
You might not know the name Anthony Lieuallen, but I bet you have heard of 
