GregHowley.com

Mozilla recently announced the 200 millionth download of the Firefox browser. That's pretty amazing. Finally, the news is getting out. But whether you're looking at switching to Firefox or you already have Firefox, there are some Firefox features and extensions you may not be using. So here are some of my favorites.

By default, if you have a mouse wheel, you can center-click a link and it will appear in a new tab. I use this constantly. You can also center-click the top of a tab to close it. You can also install the Tabbrowser preferences extension to ensure that clicking links won't open a new window.

The other Firefox feature I can't do without is mouse gestures. The All-in-One Gestures extension allows you to go forward and back with rocker navigation, or use other gestures. I can't think of the last time I've actually used that back button, and on the rare occasions I'm forced to use Internet Explorer, I hate having to do so.

The Adblock extension is amazing. Imagine being able to entirely remove advertising banners from any webpage. All it takes is a little learning about the basic nature of URLs and use of wildcard characters, and you'll almost never have to look at an ad again.

ForecastFox is a handy-dandy extension which will sit in your status bar (or elsewhere, should you choose) and give you a little, unobtrusive weather report. Very nice.

If you're familiar at all with RSS, you may already be using Firefox's built in Live Bookmark functionality for simple RSS feeds. I have drop-down Live Bookmarks in my links toolbar for my Netflix queue and my own site's RSS feed. But for all the other RSS feeds I subscribe to, I'm currently using Sage. It may not have as many features as the standalone RSS readers, but it's a good solid choice if you're looking for an in-browser option.

There are also a number of poorly designed websites which will only display properly in Internet Explorer. For example, Linda likes to play those MSN Gamezone games. For that, IEView is a great option. Just right click, and select Open in Internet Explorer.

I also use the download statusbar extension, which displays download progress in your status bar rather than in a pop-up window. Very convenient.

Ever accidentally close the browser, or wish you could return to the same page(s) you had open before? SessionSaver to the rescue! It's a standard option in Opera, and now Firefox users can take advantage too.

Many of you have likely not heard of BugMeNot. It's a site I use frequently. You know all those annoying sites that ask you to register before you can view or download their content? Sites like The New York Times or DriverGuide. Well, you can go to BugMeNot to grab a bogus ID which you can use. Or, you can just install the BugMeNot Extension.

I use the GMail Notifier Extension and Webmail Compose Extension to streamline my email use. The GMail Notifier puts a little icon in your statusbar which turns blue when you receive email at your GMail account. You can then click it to go to your GMail page. Webmail Compose just brings you to a webmail page when you click a mailto: link rather than opening your OS's default email program. Very handy, especially when you don't care about that never-used copy of Outlook Express that came with your copy of windows.

Those are my favorite Firefox extensions. I hope that I've introduced you to one or two that you can use.