Going crazy with add ons.

As of late, I have been getting so many add-ons for firefox in attempts to be secure or convenient. Many are probably not needed, but I have found them to be immensely useful, so I figured I would share some of them, even though I'm sure many of you already have at least one or two of them.

First up, one everyone should ALWAYS be familiar with is AdBlock Plus. Never has it been easier to navigate the internet without this valuable add-on. I don't have to worry about annoying advertisements suddenly appearing on my screen while playing neopets (and these ads have been containing viruses lately). I don't have to worry about those REALLY FRUSTRATING pretimed flash ads on blogTV. No more pop-ups  on just about all sites, though on a rare occasion one might appear. I believe ads are getting smarter because of all the precautions out there, which helps to keep the ad blocker up to date. Sometimes it blocks things that should not be blocked though, but it is not too hard to whitelist certain sites as needed.

The next add-on that goes hand-in-hand with AdBlock Plus would be NoScript. This one starts off as a bit of a pain in the ass, but is such an important thing to have! You will have no worries about a website trying to install something in the background, or playing annoying music, or what have you. The beauty of this add-on (as well as a bit of a pain) is it blocks EVERYTHING excluding its own website and google pages. What this means is you will have to manually choose which sites you want scripts to be running which can be annoying as it can become trial and error. For instance, a blog I follow changed their comment structure and NoScript blocked it. I didn't know which site it was that was blocking it, so had to unblock each script one by one until it worked. This also happens when checking bills or ordering things, unfortunately... so I had some trouble with filling out information. I cannot tell you how frustrating it was for me when I had everything filled out on a page and tried to submit only for it to not work. I backed up what I could but still had to go line by line to fill things out again.I find it a small price to keep me safe however.

This next add on acts more like a medium for other add-ons. It's called GreaseMonkey and it is best described as a webpage customizer. If you are handy with scripts, you can make your own customization to a website and this tool enables it. However, if you are like me and know shit about writing or making scripts, you go to http://userscripts.org/ and find scripts based on what you want. The downside of using the website is you have to check its source codes for bad scripts... There are often people sneaking in things like cookie grabbers (google mostly defines this for neopets only, in which people can steal your account information, but its possible to affect you on other websites), links to bad websites or otherwise to spam you, and other such bad things. Usually there are reviews and comments on the site that will let you know but not everyone makes the effort to say something. Usually you can tell when it is a bad script by glancing over the source code, but when it doubt, don't download it. Still, this customizer has been great for me with making websites more manageable. One code I have makes it so you don't have to wait for rapidshare or megaupload times for downloading (the initial wait, not inbetween downloads waiting time). There are also a ton for neopets, but most involve cheating which I rather not do. Instead, I just make clicking easier on certain games by rearranging the way the buttons are laid out, and putting ads on the bottom in case they get through adblocker or no script. Use the search function to find and make some websites more easy to navigate.

Ever see a video on youtube you liked so much you wanted to download it? Or perhaps uh... a porn video you wanted to keep for... later. Download Helper is here for you! It has worked on so many sites... though it does not promote piracy, and thus doesn't work on some online episodes of TV shows. At least that I know of. I totally do not endorse using this for anything illegal, so use it for your own discretion. This sometimes becomes a bit of a turkey shoot as it also looks at image files or other media on webpages, be warned of that.

There might be another add-on that works better, but I became comfortable with Aviary for taking screen captures of websites or parts of websites. It's great when say a whole page on the site is interesting or useful and you want to save it for future sharing or just as a reminder. Printscreen can't everything afterall, so this becomes extremely handy. You like a fellow blogger's post? Use this to capture the moment, and perhaps repost it for the future! (Though be nice and credit them

This add-on I just recently got and has been just incredible. WebNotifier gives you alerts on all your designated e-mail accounts. I have a gmail account separate from this blog, which also uses google log in. Now I don't have to log out of blog to check my e-mail or vice-versa. I also don't have to continually go to the e-mail websites to check my mail, which is really helpful considering all the e-mail addresses I have accumulated. For e-mails not supported by this, forwarding filters help.

Lastly, this add-on is for forgetful folks like myself. ReminderFox helps alert you of things you need to do or be aware of every time you start up your browser. not good at remembering birthdays? Set a reminder on the day of a birthday and set it to a yearly setting so it reminds you every year! It also reminds you of upcoming reminders so you won't be last minute shopping for them either. It works also on daily, monthly, and other sorts of settings in case you have a bill to pay, or have to check something daily such as a contest going on. You probably could use your Operating System's designated remind tools (if any), but I never could get into using those. it just seems easier to have a browser reminder.

Feel free to share some of your favorite add-ons, but i will edit out any that seems it could be used maliciously. I do not wish to promote piracy, hacking, or otherwise illegal actions. As it is, Greasemonkey is borderlining all of that.