--Re (Tech): Best of Firefox add-ons (Part 1)

    FireFox has steadily been taking over the internet browser wars simply by word of mouth alone. The real quality that allows Firefox to outshine all other browsers is all the customization that it offers. In this post, I will list some of the add-ons/extensions that we simply cannot live without. 

       1)   AdBlock Plus

     With over 13 million users, and its ease of use, AdBlock Plus is easily a must for every firefox user out there. Simply download the add-on, click a couple subscriptions (don’t worry, they are all free), and you have got a vastly faster internet experience. Blocking of ads happens in conjunction with an updating filter list (which blocks adverts from a myriad of countries), so you can rest assured that you will not be bombarded with ads no matter which website you visit! In addition, you can manually hide any elements on the page you do not like with this addon. The “Element Hiding Helper for AdBlock Plus” add-on makes it much more user friendly to shape the way you see the web to your own liking. 

            2)     HTTPS-Everywhere

Ever wish that the website you visited would automatically take you to the more secure version of itself, especially when pertaining to your sensitive information? There is an add-on for that concern aptly named HTTPS-Everywhere. This add-on forces a numerous amount of popular (and some not so popular) websites out there to force encryption if that website has such an option available. Sites such as google and facebook are included in the rule set, and if a site you frequent is not supported, you can write your own.

https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere 

     3)     Flagfox

An extension which seamlessly determines which country the server location of the site you are visiting, and displays it by putting a little clickable flag in the address bar. Clicking the flag gives you the IP address of the country, and will even map out a best estimate to its location. It also includes things such as the LAT and LONG of the server location. This add-on could be key if you ever wanted to determine if a site you are visiting is actually fake. Being routed to another website which looks almost exactly the same as the legitimate version you are trying to access can happen significantly less if you pay attention to this little guy. Here is a great example of how I managed to figure out (before the news confirmed it) that the article written by a faux Keller (of the NYTimes) was illegitimate. The server hosting the fake New York Times was (and is not) even being hosted in America!

  

           4)    Search By Image for google

Taking usability one step further is this add-on. It allows the user to right click on any image, and instantly search that image against google images to find similar ones. So, instead of having to save the image and then upload it to google to be searched, this removes that time wasting step and allows for seamless image checking of whatever it is you are searching for…

         5) Webmail Ad Blocker

The web is fraught with annoying and potentially dangerous advertisements, and your inbox is no exception. Take the protection of ad blocking and spam one step further with this seamless add-on. This extension blocks those annoying ads placed on the right side of your inbox in Hotmail, Gmail, and Ymail.