Jatecblog

One of the primary strengths of Firefox is its extensions. Sure if they aren't programmed well they can end up draining memory from your system and such, but they can still be rather useful. Here are a few extensions that I consider to help my productivity greatly.

1. Read it Later (Home)
When I came across an article that I wanted to read later, I never used a consistent solution. Sometimes I would drag the link onto my bookmarks toolbar, sometimes I'd make a text file with the URL… half the time I would never end up reading the article in question. When I came across the Read it Later extension, it was a life saver. This simple extension creates a looped reading list using your bookmarks that is quite simple to use. Since it uses your bookmarks, you can sync the reading list between different Firefox installs using an extension such as Google Browser Sync. and Foxmarks.

2. FaviconizeTab (Home | Mozilla Addons)
Having dozens of tabs can be overwhelming. Now that web applications are so plentiful, you probably have a couple of applications that you always keep open. For me, this depending on where I am, is usually Google Reader, iGoogle, and G-Mail. Faviconize Tabs allows you to shrink tabs to only their favicon (the small graphic that represents web pages). You can set websites to be faviconized automatically upon visiting them. I personally have it set so that I can double click on a tab to faviconize them.

3. Adblock Plus (Home | Mozilla Addons | Add-ons Mirror)
As I am surfing, I hate having to wait for irrelevant objects to load. This mostly applies to advertisements. Adblock Plus is a great ad blocking extension that can speed up your web browsing drastically. It comes with several filters already. However, if you are like Computerworld and prefer to let most ads load and only block the most annoying ones, you can create your own filters to match this. You don't have to ditch the extension entirely.

4. Copy Plain Text (Home | Mozilla Addons | Add-ons Mirror)
Unfortunately, copying text usually means copying the formatting along with it. When I want to copy plain text, I would usually copy the text to the clipboard, paste it to the Firefox search bar, and then cut that text to the clipboard. This simple extension cuts out several steps, making it much easier. You can also configure Copy Plain Text to be your default copy shortcut if you wish.

5. Greasemonkey (Home | Mozilla Addons | Add-ons Mirror)
Greasemonkey is an extension that allows you to install other javascript files called greasemonkey scripts. Many of these can be great for your productivity. I sugggest checking out the Top 10 Greasemonkey Scripts to Improve Your Productivity from Lifehack. Also, Lifehacker's Greasemonkey category usually has a lot of great articles.

There you are! Let me know what other extensions are good for your productivity. Also, some extensions work on similar browsers such as Seamonkey, K-Meleon, Flock, and Netscape, so be sure to check into that as well if you use one of those browsers.