I love the Firefox browser for a variety of reasons including how much better I think my site looks using it :) Not only that but from what I understand not all of my pictures show up on some of my posts using Internet Explorer but they do with Firefox. Yay Firefox!
I also love that I never lose my open tabs. If something happens to my computer and it shuts down unexpectedly then the next time Firefox opens, it remembers and re-opens the tabs I had in place before the crash. Brilliant!
My all time favorite reason for loving Firefox though is the add-ons that you can download and install with it. There are many to choose from and three of them in particular have become favorites of mine.
StumbleUpon Toolbar ~ I love being able to stumble through posts with a click of a button on the top of my screen. I can also very easily stumble a post that I’ve read and liked as well as visit and select from my favorite categories.
Xmarks ~ this one is a lifesaver. I love bookmarking sites of interest including recipes upon recipes. It would be a shame to lose those twice (yes I learned my lesson the hard way) and now I don’t need to worry about that anymore. Xmarks allows me to synchronize my bookmarks via a web based application so I never have to fear losing them…again. Plus I just recently purchased a new laptop and all I had to do was download the Xmarks add-on to it and voila all my bookmarks were there making it extremely easy to jump from one computer to the next without missing a beat. So great!
Time Tracker ~ this one I found not that long ago and it has changed my life, literally. This beautiful add-on installs a little counter on the bottom right hand corner of your screen that tracks the amount of time you have been on the internet throughout the whole day. Ouch, talk about an eye opener. This one little tool keeps me focused like no other because at a glance I can instantly see when I’ve been on for much too long. No more convincing myself that I’d only been on the computer for an hour over the course of the day as I pop on here and there for 10-15 minutes at a time. Let me tell you those 10-15 minutes add up! If Xmarks doesn’t sense any action in a 60 second slot (I think you can adjust this to what suits you) it turns itself off until you come back online. At the end of the day the counter resets itself and starts all over again the next. I highly recommend it!
Finally, another toolbar add-on that I just started using (also available in IE and Safari) and am enjoying very much already is the new Christian Women’s Toolbar. Check it out!
What are your favorite add-ons?
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wow i didn’t even know you could use add ons. I have fire fox (it came with my laptop)
Does that time tracker keep track of it even when you have the computer/internet on but are not actually ON it?
No Ter, if it doesn’t sense any action in a 60 second slot (I think you can adjust this to what suits you) it turns itself off until you come back online.
Xmarks sounds neat.
I also like to bookmark but find it really simple to do with springpad (http://www.springpadit.com/). It’s not an add-on.
One of my favorite add-ons recently is colorzilla (http://www.colorzilla.com/firefox/). I found out how to change my blog font titles to a font of my choosing and I use colorzilla to pick out the color codes quickly.
I may regret this but time tracker is now installed. Of course I’m having a baby friday, so my normal time will likely dramatically decrease making me look way better in the time wasting department than I actually have been recently.
these sound great. I’m going to go check them out !! i’m a bit scared of the time tracker one though ! that must mean i need to use it !!
I just downloaded the time tracker although I’m not sure I really want to know! LOL
Thanks for the links!
Hugs.
Kim
Thank you SO much for the time-tracker! It will save me – and my working-efficiency! I am really having a hard time staying focused on the things that I ACTUALLY wanted to look up on the internet, I get distracted so easily…
Thankyouthankyouthankyou!
Reminderfox to remind me of all important dates, such as birthdays and meetings.
I’m almost lost without Reminderfox these days.
AdBlock Plus is my favorite Firefox addon. It keeps the annoying facebook and gmail ads from ever showing up on my computer.
Thank you for sharing about Time Tracker. I am spending way too much time on the Internet, so I am heading there now to download it.
My favorite add on is adblock. It takes away all those annoying ads! It works all over the internet, and I love it!!
One day it needed to be updated (actually I think it is when firefox was working on the recent update) and it wasn’t working, I saw tons of ads and was very disgusted, I’m so used to my “clean” viewing.
One I love is FoxReplace. You can use it to remove or replace words you don’t want to see. I have it set to replace or *** most swear words. I also like InstaClick, with it you open links in a new tab just by right clicking them.
I don’t know if I could install the Time Tracker add-on….I am afraid to know the truth. Haha.
My fave add ons are:
– Linkification: Converts text links into genuine, clickable link.
–Delicious for my bookmarks
–Page Addict: shows how much time you spent on each website, and you can categorize them like shopping, blogs, etc. and restrict how much time you spend on them each day!
Thanks for the add ons. I’m a bookmarking junkie and I lost my bookmarks about a year ago and I just about cried my eyes out. I think the time trackers will be a nice but rude awakening at home much time I waste online.
I love Xmarks. I am afraid to add the time tracker. LOL
Ones I also love are FasterFox, AdBlock and IE Tab. IE Tab is a lifesaver since I had school pages that could only be viewed in IE.
Hey that time tracker would be a life saver!!! I so need to cut down on my internet use. Thanks for posting this.
I’m going to download and test out the time tracker. I’m a statistics geek and am really curious to see how much time I spend online.
Thanks for all the suggestions, I’ll have to check them out. Keep them coming!
Let me know if you are surprised by your computer time. I know I sure was!!!
I just downloaded adblock – I am loving it already!!! (I always get hung up by those pesky FB ads.)
I use these too except for the Time Tracker one, though it sounds like one I should definitely try. It will be an eye opener here too.
One of my goals is to limit my online time. So, I guess I’d better get serious about it and download the time tracker. Ouch!!!
I love Xmarks I found it about 3 months ago and it has already saved me.
My all time favorite is Speed dial. I can’t live without it.
I think I will try the Time tracker out but I already know my time is spent to long on the internet, but will be nice to know how much.
I would like to blog about this subject if you don’t mind me using your idea.
Time tracker that could be very scary. I like using sage through firefox to keep track of my blogs.
Hey Laura, Nice post. I really liked the time tracker tool. I would definitely try it out. Here’s another tool that I would suggest. It’s called Billeo and does a wonderful job with managing my finances. It enables easy bill pay, manages my passwords and also tracks my expenses that help me make a better budget every month. Very handy! http://www.billeo.com/features.jsp
I use Flock, which I love. However I would love to use Firefox but just can’t get the hang of it. I hear you can have colored tabs for different topics, and get it to open up certain pages on start up, but have never really got it going. Got a new laptop yesterday (yeah!) and would love to start with firefox there. Any suggestions?
Thank you for this post I always heard such great things about firefox but thought it did not have a back button so I never gave it a chance, thanks to your post I tried it out! I love it have 100 addons already, so Thank you very very much. BTW one of my favorites is the reminder one, I so need that one.
I love all my addons. Download Statusbar, Download helper (downloads youtube vids), Australian Dictionary (corrects spelling errors in forms), Fast Dial (multiple websites as my home page) FxIF (view exif data of pics online), Greasemonkey (runs user scripts), IE Tab (for those sites you can’t view in FF), No Script (like adblock), Tabmix Plus (extra tab things. Awesome),Xmarks and Visualizeus.
I’m so adding the timer one now though. It could be quite frightening.
AdBlocks is great – I started using Firefox at the recommendation of many people on twitter when I kept complaining about IE crashing and messing things up.
My favorite addon is Read It Later – instead of bookmarking a whole website – it just saves a page so if that’s all you want – you can go right to that page for a recipe or article.
I also downloaded Weather Bug on my husband’s firefox (he’s a weather junkie) and he loves that one.
As always thank you! What great resources!!
I use Delicious to bookmark my fav web pages of ideas to go back to.
I also love the universal wish list button from Amazon.com. It let’s you add an item from any site to your wish list on Amazon.
I just downloaded time tracker, adblock and linktastic and can’t wait to use them! Thanks for the ideas!
I just switched to firefox two weeks ago and had no clue about these! Thanks!
thanks i added on the timer wow! I never knew how much i was online
I just put Time Tracker on. This should be interesting. Thanks for the add on info.
Oh boy, I’m scared to try that time tracker. I spend far too much time online, yikes.
Ooh I am installing that Time Tracker one now! Thanks for sharing it!
I don’t know what it is called but I like the weather tracker add on. It displays current weather plus predicted weather for the next 2 days in the bottom right hand corner of your browser window.
Another good Firefox add-on is Morning Coffee
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2677
Whoa, I love the time-tracker ad-on but I bet I’m going to be shocked at how much time I spend on here!
Oh wow I have to jump on the “scared to know” wagon about time tracker!
I have added the Blank Canvas Gmail Signatures add on because I really wanted to be able to put a custom graphic in my email siggy in gmail and it worked brilliantly!
Also one of the main reasons we use firefox over IE now is Glubble. I had been looking for a family friendly internet safety thing that was free or cheap so I could approve and restrict things my kids do online and I really LOVE Glubble
I just installed the time tracker. Thanks for pointing that out although I might faint from shock when I see how much time I actually spend on here. Waiting in trepidation to see what today will show.
I just installed Firefox so I could utilize these tools & discovered that TimeTracker & PageAddict are both for use only w/ older versions of Firefox. I couldn’t find a current replacement for them. Am I doing something wrong?
I did install Adblock but haven’t figured out how it works or if I did the installation correctly b/c I logged back into Facebook to see if it blocked any ads there & didn’t notice a difference.
Also installed FoxReplace per suggestion above & haven’t figured it out yet either. :-S I’m too old for this?
Sarah I’m not sure why it isn’t working for you. I have the latest version of Firefox and it works for me. Very strange.