best guide to add-ons, themes and tips for Firefox
Once upon a time there was a tiny Twiter tool called, TinyTweet.
This littlest add-on of them all spread joy a harmony throughout the Internets by allowing all those in Twitter land to send tweets to their friend, families and that guy who keeps spamming affiliate deals. It didn’t do this by any normal means. Oh no. It did it’s work by simply highlighting text on any page.
Need to filter your Facebook information?
Have to many friends, or do you just not care that Bobby ranked up in Mafia Wars or Julie found a cat in FarmVille? Thanks to the Facebook Filter add-on for Firefox, you can customize the kind of content you see from your Facebook friends.
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!)
Facebook seems to quickly be outgrowing the other social networks by leaps and bounds. It is hard to find a friend that hasn’t switched over to it from the other social networks like MySpace and the like. So with that said, why not grab a toolbar that will help you get a little more out of your Facebook usage and help you stay connected with your friends even better?
Over the weekend I started checking out the newest project out of the Mozilla Labs, Raindrop. To some it might sound a little like Google Wave – however it offers much more, and is also much easier to wrap your mind around.
Here is more about the program, in a nutshell, from the developers:
When a friend’s link from YouTube or flickr arrives, your messaging client should be able to show the video or photos near or as part of the message, rather than rudely kicking you over to a separate browser tab. Notifications from computers and mailing lists should be organized for you, not clutter your Inbox or require tedious manual filter setup. It should be easy to smoothly integrate new web services into your conversation viewer entirely using open web technologies.
I am all about the “making things easier to manage” so I eagerly anticipate learning more about what Mozilla has planned for this service. If you want to learn more about the fundamentals of Raindrop, watch this video:
Raindrop UX Design and Demo from Mozilla Messaging on Vimeo.
What do you think? Are you excited, or does it look like another web trend that is doomed to trip over itself? Leave a comment and let me know how excited you are about Raindrop.
Since the release of collections of add-ons for Firefox, it seems like everywhere I turn I see somebody else offering ways to bring things together (although I am sure Opera would say they did it first). With that in mind though, I would like to introduce you to Cluster Tabs. This add-on for Firefox will let you easily cluster web pages together for easier sharing and saving.
Creating your own tab cluster is easy to do. Once you have installed the extension for Firefox, all you need to do is:
Be sure to check out the ClusterURL.com about page to find out the other two ways you can cluster your tabs together. Want to see what a cluster looks like?
Overall, very excited to see what all they do with this in the future. It is a very interesting idea – and the human aspect of it is something I really think has a good chance of taking off. You can pickup the Cluster Tabs add-on yourself from the Mozilla Add-ons site or get more information about the project from ClusterURL.com.
I have looked at Shareaholic, the super-charged link sharing tool for Firefox, before in the past, however, there have been many new features and renovations since the last time I checked out this power house of a Firefox extension.
I thought it would be worth the effort to re-introduce you to this fine add-on for Firefox.
What is so Special About Shareaholic?
The main idea behind Shareaholic, is to be the ultimate add-on for the link sharing addict. It works with Facebook, Twiter, MySpace, digg, Gmail, StumbleUpon and more; giving you instant access to reach for all your link submitting and sharing needs.
One nice feature new to me, since the last time I checked out this add-on is the ability to customize how the add-on is displayed in Firefox. You can have it show up in the URL bar, in your context menu, or as a button in the navigation panel.
By far, this is one of the best add-ons to get your hands on if you are a social network junkie, and need any easy way to submit to them all. With that said though, you can easily customize which social sites are viewable (or not) in the options too.
Any Firefox add-on that lets me customize how to use it, so that I can make it suit my own needs even more is a winner in my book. De-clutter your browser and pick up Shareaholic up on the official web site, Shareaholic.com or via the Firefox Add-ons site.
TwitterBar, which funny enough isn’t some geeky place to buy alcoholic beverages, is a simple Firefox add-on I know a lot of you who use Twitter will enjoy. What does it do? It turns your location bar in Firefox into a Twitter client.
The way it works is a small Twitter icon sits to the right of your location (or address) bar; clicking on it will post your tweet, and you can hover your mouse over it to see how many characters you have left.
Its short, simple and reeking of awesomeness.
If you give it a shot, remember to come tweet me up @mitchkeeler.
Foxmarks, one of my favorite Firefox add-on suggestions for bookmark syncing and backup, is changing names today. Foxmarks is becoming Xmarks. (Waits for the “X marks the spot jokes) The new Xmarks service looks to be more geared towards sharing links, ala Stumble Upon and Digg.
Why make the move? Well, one would guess that sharing links might be a more profitable business model, more so than bookmark syncing alone. Via the Xmarks blog, here are some FAQs for those of you who might have questions about the change:
So what new features will be brought on with the new business model?
Smarter Search – In your Google search results, Xmarks will highlight the top three sites based on bookmarking history. Put your mouse over the special icon to the side of the search results to learn more information such as reviews, and rankings.
Site Info Lookup – Clicking on the Xmarks logo in your location bar will bring up a detailed box letting you know more information about the site you are on, and help you discover other sites just like it.
Then of course, you have the bookmark and password backup and syncing capabilities that Foxmarks already brought to the table. The Xmarks browser add-on is Firefox only right now, but they promise to have Internet Explorer and Safari versions running soon. Firefox fans can grab the Xmarks add-on here to try it out. It is worth pointing out that you can install Xmarks even if you have the Foxmarks add-on installed on your computer. Xmarks will upgrade your current Foxmarks add-on and continue to sync and back up your bookmarks (and optionally passwords).
So what do you think about the change? Excited about the new features, or disappointed that an old Firefox friend is changing its ways?
Subscribe to our e-mail newsletter to receive updates.
Mitch Keeler is nothing more than your average Joe trying to leave his mark on the world though both his professional work and his online projects, articles, podcasts and more.
Reframe It in Firefox
Want to be able to comment on any web site out there on the Web, without the permission of the web site in question? Reframe It opens up a new portal of communication, by allowing you to communicate through specific comments next to the web site you are referencing.
Why just send a simple text-based note, when you can send that and the web site you are talking about all in one swift, easy to access movement? Here is the extension in action:
It also supports sharing via Facebook, Twitter, RSS, HTML, and direct email so you can quickly share your comments.
Reframe It allows you to simple say what you want to where you want to. This extension would be perfect (as an example) if you were working on a web site re-design, and wanted to show your boss the areas you wanted to work on. Another example, would be citing research, when working on an article.
You can learn more about Reframe It via the Reframeit.com web site and pick up the Firefox add-on for the service on the Firefox Add-ons site.