15 Firefox Add-Ons to Tame Social Media Addicts
Posted April 23, 2009 in Productivity, Tools/Resources 21 Comments »
Freelancers and web workers have it really hard. People think it’s all fun and games sitting on a chair and working at home all day, but man, do we have to keep ourselves focused.
It’s easy to get side tracked quite a bit with a social media or news addiction, and not to mention the urge to check email every twenty minutes or so. To keep my mind from wandering excessively on the web I use quite a few Firefox add-ons. Below are fifteen that I use on a regular basis which have helped me maintain my productivity while still feeding my web addiction.
- Badges On Favicon : Adds a badge to the favicons which shows numeric snippets of information from the page, for example your unread mails from Gmail or the stock quotes from Yahoo Finance.
- ScribeFire : A full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog. If you are looking to quick update your blog, this can save quite a bit of time and increase productivity.
- Cool Previews : Allows you to preview links and images without leaving your current page or tab. Mouse over any link, and a separate preview window immediately appears to show you the content. An extremely useful Firefox add-on that will save a ton of time.
- Update Scanner : Monitors web pages for updates. It is extremely useful and allows you to track updates for sites that don’t provide Atom or RSS feeds. You can select how often each sites are scanned for updates, and any changes to the page are highlighted so you can see the recent updates without really having to search on the page.
- Read It Later : If you are looking for an easy way to save pages that you want to read later, this Firefox add-on is the answer. Read It Later eliminates cluttering of bookmarks with sites that are merely of a one-time interest.
- Fireshot : As a web worker there is a constant need to take screen shots. Fireshot allows you to capture the entire screen or only the area that is visible. The plugin also provides tools to modify web captures and insert text annotations and graphical annotations.
- Hyperwords : Adds an option to the mouse right click that will allow you to find more information related to a particular word. For example, if you are reading an article and you would like to see Wikipedia entry for a word, highlight the word and right click, go to references and click on Wikipedia.
- Firefox Tab Manager : If you are like me, you probably have 20 tabs open at the same time. Managing tabs will certainly help your productivity and that’s where Vertigo comes in. Vertigo moves all your tabs to the left of the browser and stacks vertically for easy access.
- Down Them All : This is one of those add-ons that you don’t really know you need it until you use it. It allows you to download all the links or images contained in a webpage and much more.
- Twitter Bar : There is no denying that twitter is both an essential tool and a productivity killer. If you use twitter mostly to share interesting links, this add-on is a huge time saver. You can share links to articles that you are reading straight from your browser address bar.
- Autocopy : An extremely useful plugin for anyone who uses copy/paste function quite a bit. As soon as you select texts this add-on automatically add the selected text to the clipboard.
- Colorzilla : Adds a small eyedropper tool to the status bar. When clicked you can hover your mouse over any part of a web page to view the color (code) that is being used.
- URL Fixer : Sometimes we all end up typing the URL wrong simply cause we are in a hurry to get there. If that’s the case, URL Fixer will come to the rescue. This handy add-on fixes typos in URLs.
- Googlepedia : Allows you to find relevant Wikipedia articles along with your search results on google. Now you can have the best search engine and the best encyclopedia on the web help you get the information you need with a click.
- Capture Fox : This tool lets you capture a Firefox window or the entire screen. Since it allows you to record your voice it’s one of the easiest and cheapest (free) ways to create tutorials and such.
More Online Resources from FreelanceFolder
If you liked this list of Firefox add-ons, you might also enjoy these other resource posts from FreelanceFolder:
- 5 Game-Changing Project Management Tools
- 15 Useful Twitter Tools For Web Workers
- 10 Essential Plugins Every Modern Wordpress Site Should Have
- 15 Applications No Online Business Can Live Without
Add Your Thoughts…
Those were some of my favorite add-ons that make Firefox my choice of browser, not to mention help me tame my addiction and boost productivity. What about you? What are your favorite Firefox add-ons that help boost your productivity?
About the author: Ritu is a freelance writer who has been involved in social media for several years. At the moment he is working on a variety of projects, but is always open to new ideas. Contact him at email(at)ritubpant(dot)com or follow @ritubpant on twitter.
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21 Comments
Writer Dad
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:54 amThose all sound awesome, but Download Them All, Read it Later, and Twitter Bar all sound off the hook. Thanks.
Eric Barb
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 amJust installed URL fixer. Seems pretty sweet so far with all my typos!
Colin Wright
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 amAh, I LOVE DownThemAll, my Evernote WebClipper, Greasemonkey (and the Better-series of scripts), Inquisitor, my Web Developer toolbar and Xmarks (formally Foxmarks)!
Ritu
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:42 am@Writer dad @Eric @Colin : Glad you are finding these plugins useful. I really can’t think of using the web without plugins anymore. It has made life so much manageable, at least online.
Blog Expert
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:10 pmI use read it later all the time. It is one of the best add-ons that I have come across. And we all know there are thousands of them.
Nate
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:52 pmThis one is more about security but nevertheless extremely important these days to thwart hackers that take you to sites using tiny url. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8636
Long url displays the full url in a small pop-up when you hover your mouse over a TinyURL or any shortened url. Yeah its a no brainer — you should always know where a link takes you before clicking on it. When you do end up at a site check its credentials .. thru extended validation ssl its simply looking for the green glow in the navi bar.
Thanks for the list — I will share with all my friends.
Nikhil
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:36 pmGreat tools,
Thanks for sharing……
Elizebeth
April 24th, 2009 at 6:29 amFireshot is just what I’ve been looking for. Thanks! I use Zotero a lot for my research.
Adam Wilson
April 28th, 2009 at 2:23 amShareaholic – https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/5457 is another one.
Shareaholic is a Firefox add-on that enables users to quickly, and very easily share, bookmark, and e-mail web pages via a wide array of their favorite social networking, bookmarking, blogging, and e-mail services. It’s been downloaded over 800,000 times.
Helen
May 7th, 2009 at 5:30 amThe selection of addons is perfect, I like them all. But the title of the post made me think that I will find here something closer to social media like digg toolbar, share this etc.
Mike
May 20th, 2009 at 5:08 pmHey, thanks for the tips, I am finding distractions always take away from productivity, these look like some good ideas to keep more focused on the tasks at hand. Cheers Mike
No_limits41
October 22nd, 2009 at 4:50 pmIn traditional evaluation, goals reflect the mission of the library. ,
Merlin98
October 23rd, 2009 at 5:51 amTime to hire a professional. ,
White Sox blog
November 23rd, 2009 at 1:35 amFireshot is pretty cool. I use it all the time, good for saving information. Regards!
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