The biggest pain, other than cosmetics, is having to re-teach yourself the way you browse.  You have to get used to having that ability at your fingertips to do searches inside a website and get used to the usefulness that an add-on like this brings.

What are some of the newest features?

• Customizable keyboard shortcut to call up Apture Search
• Performance improvements, contextual search results now even faster
• Secure: Automatically disabled on HTTPS (secure) websites to not interfere with your private information
• What’s that word? Dictionary definitions now included in search results

and that is only scratching the surface of what the amazing Apture Highlights add-on can do.

You can pick up the Apture Highlights add-on from the Firefox Add-ons website.

The fireNotes add-on for Firefox is unique. It allows you to setup your own customized RSS feed  links or embedded pages within the Firefox browsing window.  Think of it as a local alternative to the popular start pages like Netvibes or iGoogle.

I think the overall interface could still use some tweaking, but other than that – the functionality of this Firefox add-on makes it worthy of your time.  You can open fireNotes up at anytime by hitting Ctrl + y or by right clicking and selecting “Show fireNotes” from the context menu.

You, pretty much, create your note, copy in a URL and fireNotes will show you the possibilities.

• If you want to add a RSS feed, just enter the URL and let fireNotes automatically search for the feed or enter the direct URL to the feed.
• Whenever you see interesting content on a webpage, just right click on it and send it to fireNotes!

You can pick up fireNotes for Firefox on the Firefox Add-ons web site.

Once installed, all you have to do is hit the YouTube icon next to the search result link.  Instantly the video starts playing, without the need to open up a new tab or window.  Also, you can also download the video and view more information regarding the video (date added, views, rating, comments) directly from the search results.

The player can be configured to suit your needs too.  You can select player colors, player size and these additional options:

• Allow auto play
• Show player border
• Show tiny icon on the status bar
• Show download button
• Show more information button
• Choose where to show the video (next to link, under link, ect)

It is a simple extension that does a simple task very well. You can pick up GoogleTube on the Firefox Add-ons web site. 

Welcome! Subscribe to Firefox Facts by RSS feed or by e-mail!

The beauty of Greasemonkey is it can practically make anything better – even YouTube. Now it can’t make the idiots smacking themselves in the face with flaming bags of poo smarter, but it can give you a better way of viewing, downloading and sharing their misfortunes with your own crew of friends. Here is the Firefox Facts round up of some of the newest and the best Greasemonkey scripts to make YouTube really better.

1. Youtube Get FLV URL – Grab the URL for the .flv file so you can save the YouTube video to your desktop.

2. BetterTube – A number of hacks and fixes to try to make YouTube video (and other providers) better.

3. YouTube Relinker – This replaces YouTube embedded videos with a link to watch it on YouTube.com.

4. Videoembed – Auto adds the embed codes so you can watch videos in a screen right under the links.

5. YouTube Country Server Selector – Replaces YouTube embedded videos server with your country server or the one that you wish to use.

6. Video Focus v1.0.7 – Allows you to remove all the rest of the page content so you can focus right on the video you want to watch. You can also resize or maximize the video centered on the site.

7. Youtube Alternate Video Player – Replace the YouTube default player with the one from flowplayer.org.

8. YouTube Lyrics – Want to know the words to that video your watching? This script places a lyrics search link on the video’s page.

9. Pop YouTube Video Into Sidebar – Does exactly what you would think it does. Pushes your YouTube video to the sidebar in Firefox.

10. YousableTubeFix – Does a number of fixes such as removing ads, download links for videos, displaying all comments for a video and more.

As a side note, to try out any of these on Firefox you will need to make sure you have Greasemonkey installed. Know of any scripts that do the YouTube job better?

Enjoy this post? Subscribe to Firefox Facts by RSS feed or by e-mail!

+ Check out the sequel – 8 Fresher YouTube Scripts!