Firefox Add-Ons
This section of Astroblahhh.Com contains links to add-ons I use, an add-on I modified, and other useful stuff related to add-ons, like tips.
You might have the impression that Firefox add-ons are just extra frills you can easily do without - and many are. But NoScript is so extremely useful, since it eliminates so many potential security hazards, that I'm unwilling to browse the web without it (unless I have JavaScript, Flash, Java, etc. all turned off). So, I highly recommend at least getting NoScript.
As of 9/27/2011 - in Windows XP, I use Firefox 3.6.20, and in the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux, I use a slightly earlier version of Firefox, maybe 3.6.13. (I dislike upgrading, so I might stick with these versions of Firefox for a long time.)
So, the add-ons mentioned here are compatible with at least those versions of Firefox.
Firefox Add-Ons I Use
All except the one I modified are downloadable at the official Firefox add-ons site.
In most cases, I haven't really explored these add-ons in tremendous depth, so, there's a lot of stuff I don't know about them.
So, my descriptions and off-hand tips should usually not be regarded as comprehensive or complete.
Thank you to all the authors of these wonderful, useful add-ons!
Appearance
Home Page: https://urandom.ca/nosquint/
I use this more for the zoom features rather than the text/background color-changing features.
For the latter, I usually prefer Stylish, since it's more flexible, more effective in universally eliminating abhorrent backgrounds (if you use the right CSS code), quicker to turn on if you have some custom styles already made (or downloaded) and ready to use, and Stylish doesn't lose your settings if you temporarily turn them off.
Home Page: http://userstyles.org/ Help Pages: http://userstyles.org/help
The web is blighted with way too many web pages with horrible bright white backgrounds or other excessively bright colors - and thanks to Stylish, I don't have to look at them.
Apollia's Favorite Stylish Style v1.0
New, 12/15/2011: Here's my Stylish style for rescuing my eyes from the annoying brightness of way too many web pages.
It makes all backgrounds black, removes all background images, and makes all text other than links a shade of yellowish green - #90D500, to be precise.
Unvisited links are lime green, visited links are grey, links you hover over with your mouse are made sea green, and active links are made purple.
Downloading and Saving
- Use Page Title As File Name + Change Unusual Chars To Dashes 1.4 ApMod 1.0 - More details below.
An add-on that shouldn't be necessary, but is, because without it, Firefox often gives web pages you save very undescriptive file names.
- Video DownloadHelper - Enables you to easily save YouTube videos, among many other things (which I haven't used it for).
Home Page: http://www.downloadhelper.net/
Much more convenient than saving videos by scrounging them up from your Firefox cache. When you go to a YouTube video, this add-on makes a couple images appear in the page at the upper left of the video - the Video DownloadHelper logo (which, when clicked, starts a quick download of the video) and, just to the right of that logo, a small, sort of hard to see or click triangle pointing downward, which, when clicked, gives you a menu of options.
In my experience, this add-on has gotten temporarily broken at least once when something changed on YouTube, and a new version of the add-on had to be released to fix it. So, if you install the add-on and it seems not to work for you, rather than giving up entirely on this add-on, you might want to try a newer version at some point in the future.
Etext Reading
- EPUBReader 1.4.1.0 - Enables you to read ePub files in Firefox.
Home Page: http://www.epubread.com/en/
Once you get this add-on, a convenient way of opening ePub files is to drag and drop them into your Firefox window (but you can also open them the typical way you'd open any other file - by going to the File menu and choosing Open File).
You can customize their appearance with the Stylish add-on.
- CHM Reader 0.23 - Enables you to read Compiled HTML (.chm) files in Firefox.
Home Page: http://sourceforge.net/projects/chmreader/
With the Stylish add-on, you can even customize the .CHM files' appearance - making this a much nicer way of reading .CHM files than opening them in Microsoft HTML Help in Windows, or going to the trouble of decompiling a CHM file simply so you can add a CSS stylesheet so you don't have to read black text on a horrible white background.
However, if you want to search a CHM file, you might still have to use Microsoft HTML Help or something, because, at least for me, the search feature in this add-on doesn't work. (It's in the sidebar when you click the Index tab.)
You might be a little confused at first about how to open CHM files with this add-on, since going to the File menu and choosing Open Files or dragging and dropping a CHM file into your web browser won't work as expected. (Doing those things just makes Firefox ask me if I want to save the file, despite the fact that it's already on my hard drive).Here are some ways you can open CHM files with this add-on:
- You can use the File menu item Open CHM Files.
- You can open the CHM Reader sidebar by going to the View menu, going to the Sidebar menu item and selecting CHM Reader from the sub-menu. (There's a keyboard shortcut, Ctrl-E, but in my Firefox, it opens the Edit CSS feature of the Web Developer plug-in instead, while Ctrl-e highlights the text in my search engine search box.)
If you don't have a CHM file open already, the sidebar will contain an Open CHM Files button. Otherwise, it will contain a convenient, clickable list of contents for the CHM file you're looking at in the Contents tab. (There's also an Index tab with a search box, but I've never gotten it to work.)
- You can paste a file path like
chm:file://C:\_Library\Book.chminto your address bar. (And yes, in Windows XP, using backslashes (\) in the CHM filepath is required). - You can make a Firefox bookmark while browsing a section of a CHM file, and return to it later with that bookmark.
- You can use the File menu item Open CHM Files.
Memory
- Memory Fox - Capable not only of controlling Firefox's memory usage, but also the memory usage of all other programs on your computer. New, 12/15/2011
Home Page: BrowserMemory.com
If you don't have much RAM on your computer, you might find this add-on handy.
In Windows XP, you can look at the difference in memory usage by opening your Windows Task Manager by pressing Ctrl-Alt-Delete on your keyboard and clicking the Processes tab.
Once you install Memory Fox in Firefox, it won't start running automatically - you'll need to either go to the Tools menu's new Memory Fox menu item, or click the button that Memory Fox automatically added to your navigation toolbar (a circle containing a black or grey M) to open Memory Fox's menu, which will allow to you configure Memory Fox, activate and deactivate it.
I ran into an odd glitch while using NoteTab Light at the same time as using Memory Fox to control the memory of all process - but fortunately I found a solution. The glitch was: every minute while I was typing in NoteTab Light, somehow the file path of the document I was typing in got automatically inserted.The solution was to go to Memory Fox's menu, open the Blacklist menu item, and put in the full path to NoteTab.exe - "P:\Smithy\NoteTab Light\NoteTab.exe" in my case. (I had to put in the full path because just putting in "NoteTab.exe" made no difference.)
Other than that, I haven't noticed any obvious problems from using Memory Fox to control all processes' memory. But, given the above, I recommend caution. Maybe it would be best to use Memory Fox to only control Firefox's memory rather than all processes.
Privacy
- Web Developer - Lots of handy tools, most of which aren't privacy-related. For more details, see the Web Development section.
Home Page: http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/
This add-on's primary purpose is assisting in web development, but, it has some features that might be helpful if you want to protect your privacy.
I only regularly use one of those features, though - this add-on can block Firefox from providing HTTP referrers to websites you visit.
Security
- NoScript - Among other features, blocks JavaScript, Flash, Java, Silverlight and other plug-ins except from sites you allow to run them.
Home Page: http://noscript.net/
Ever since I learned that JavaScript is way more insecure and potentially dangerous than I originally thought, I've considered this add-on absolutely indispensable. It's why I now use Firefox more frequently than the Opera web browser, even though there are still things about Opera I like more.
In addition to JavaScript, I don't trust things like Flash, Java, or Silverlight either, so it's nice having those blocked as well until I permit them.
I also love being able to pick and choose amongst which sites I want to allow to run that stuff, so I'm not stuck with a choice between letting all the JavaScript, etc. on a page run, or none of it.
And it's nice missing out on a lot of web ads because of usually having JavaScript, Flash, etc. blocked. Not that I really mind ads that much, if they help support websites I like (which is why I don't use any add-ons which are specifically for ad blocking). But, one of my relative's computers got infected by a virus that probably came from an ad - so, I don't mind missing out on ads which could possibly infect my computer with something.
Another benefit of blocking JavaScript, Flash, Java, etc. is, it seems to make many web pages load faster.
Web Development
- Firebug - Helpful tools to assist you in inspecting web pages' HTML, CSS, and JavaScript source code.
Home Page: http://getfirebug.com/
I find Firebug kind of complicated, and have scarcely scratched the surface of what it's capable of. I mainly have used it while making custom Stylish styles, just to try to track down the names, class names, or IDs of web page elements.
I've noticed that Firebug can be rather slow (especially on older computers), and if I recall correctly, it's also slow while I'm using the Lucid Puppy 5.2 variety of Puppy Linux on a Live DVD on my best computer (2.21 GHz with about 1 GB of RAM).
Though I'm not sure if Firebug slows things down at all while it's not on screen, I prefer to keep the Firebug add-on disabled (not just off-screen) until I really need it to use it. You can disable it or reenable it by going to the Tools menu, choosing Add-ons, clicking Firebug in your list of add-ons, and clicking the Disable or Enable button.
- Web Developer - Lots of handy tools.
Home Page: http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/
Another add-on I've scarcely scratched the surface of what it's capable of. It can do a lot of cool, useful things, but I usually just use it for the following three things:
- I like the option to stop Firefox from providing HTTP referrers to websites you visit (since I think the fact that web browsers generally, by default, provide HTTP referrers to websites you visit is a privacy violation).
Referrers can be disabled by right-clicking on a page, going to the Web Developer menu item, going to the Disable menu item, and choosing Disable Referrers.
- Another great feature I can scarcely do without is, being able to view the current source code of the page by right-clicking on a page, going to the Web Developer menu item, going to the View Source submenu, and choosing "View Generated Source".
(In my opinion, that's the way Firefox's built-in View Source feature ought to work. If I recall correctly, it originally used to work that way, but at some point, maybe in early 2008, Firefox began to uselessly redownload the page, instead of showing you the source code of what's currently actually on your screen.
That's not as much of a problem with static, unchanging pages (just annoying and a waste of bandwidth, since I'd prefer Firefox to get the source code out of my browser cache rather than redownloading it), but it's terrible while trying to code and debug (for example) PHP scripts.
That's one reason why I dislike software updates - sometimes updates just ruin things that were working perfectly fine before. But, looking on the bright side, at least that nuisance may have been what inspired me to download the Web Developer add-on in the first place.
- I also sometimes use the View Image Information tool (in the Web Developer menu's Images submenu), which creates a page containing every image on a page (other than background images), along with their width, height, file size, and any text for that image in the ALT attribute of the image's IMG HTML tag.
I wish I had a way to make keyboard shortcuts to "View Generated Source" and "View Image Information", so I wouldn't have to navigate through as many menus to get to those.
But at least enabling the Web Developer toolbar (by going to the View menu, going to the Toolbars menu item, and choosing Web Developer Toolbar from the submenu) makes it so I don't have to dig as much to get to those features.
- I like the option to stop Firefox from providing HTTP referrers to websites you visit (since I think the fact that web browsers generally, by default, provide HTTP referrers to websites you visit is a privacy violation).
Firefox Add-On Modified by Apollia
I haven't made any Firefox add-ons from scratch yet, but so far, I've modified one Firefox add-on by someone else.
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Use Page Title As File Name + Change Unusual Chars To Dashes
1.4 ApMod 1.0 March 20, 2011This is a modified version of File Title 1.4. The original File Title 1.4 is by Pavel Cvrcek.
Like the original File Title 1.4, this makes it so when you save a page, the page's title is used as the file name (if possible), similar to the way things work in the Internet Explorer web browser or the Opera web browser.
The difference is, my version changes any file name characters other than A-Z, a-z, 0-9 and
- , _ . ( )to dashes.This add-on will be troublesome for anyone who actually wants other characters than those to be in the file names they save. But if you mostly save things with English titles, it might be useful to you.
Though the original File Title 1.4 is quite nice and almost exactly what I need, I made this modified version of File Title because:- In Linux, the original File Title 1.4 lets me save files with names containing characters that Windows XP (and probably other versions of Windows) can't deal with:
\ : * ? " < > |In Windows XP, it's impossible to do anything with files that contain those characters in their file name.
- In Linux, I noticed the original File Title 1.4 sometimes creates file names with odd characters like •. Then, when I try to save the file, I get an "Invalid file name" error and can't save until I edit out the character(s) Linux dislikes.
- Special characters in file names can annoyingly trip up Astroblahhh Desktop, so the fewer files like that I save, the better.
Because the original File Title 1.4 add-on is under the Mozilla Public License Version 1.1 (a boring, excessively long license written in legalese), I have no choice but to release this modified add-on under the same annoying license.Like the original add-on, my modified version is also open source. If you want to look at the source code, just change the file name extension from "xpi" to "zip", and then you can extract the files within using any program that can unzip files.
My modified version has a different GUID than the original, so, installing my modified version won't replace the original File Title 1.4, if you already have it.
However, since the original and modified add-ons can interfere with each other, you'll have to manually disable the original by going to the Tools menu, selecting Add-ons, clicking the Extensions tab, highlighting File Title 1.4, and clicking the Disable button.
I randomly generated the new GUID using this useful web page: http://extensions.roachfiend.com/cgi-bin/guid.pl
- In Linux, the original File Title 1.4 lets me save files with names containing characters that Windows XP (and probably other versions of Windows) can't deal with: