--Re (Tech): Best of Firefox add-ons (Part 2)

This will be the second installment of the add-ons that everyone should be using on the internet right now with their Firefox web browser. These add-ons protect your privacy, guard you from those annoying (and potentially dangerous) advertisements, and keep you all in all in good shape when surfing the internets. Plus, they add a little functionality to the way you approach web surfing and web browsing.

   

    6)     DownloadHelper

This add-on allows you to download videos from virtually any site you visit. It also gives you the capacity to convert the video to the format that best suits your needs before you download it. In addition, it also allows you to extract a myriad of other content from a website much more easily. I mostly use this nifty add-on to extract video from you tube.com, then use the media player “VLC” to play the movies on my desktop. 

   7) Xmarks

Simple bookmark synchronization, both on the same computer and on multiple other computers. Use this to backup all your hard researched bookmarks, and even be able to sync them to other computers. The next time your installation of Firefox needs to be removed, you won’t have to worry about losing your information.

    8) BetterPrivacy

Apparently, many corporations have recognized that users have become more vigilant about the way their data is stored. Most computer users are more privy to the existence of cookies, and are more likely to remove them at the end of a session. But did you know there is already a thing as a “Super-Cookie”? Super-cookies cannot be removed by simply pressing the CTRL+SHIFT+DELETE command and wiping all your history off. These cookies are stored in a different area of your computer, and are usually stored there INDEFINETLY. Fortunately, this add-on does all the work of removing these nuances for you, and can even be customized to remove super-cookies at set time intervals. This add-on is a MUST for all those who are privacy conscientious.

   9)      Collusion

An incredible tool which visualizes which sites are tracking you at any given moment in REAL TIME. Allows you to see cross-site cookie tracking at any given moment. Check it out, and be creped out.

  10)   Web Developer (1.1.9)

I only use this add-on solely to counter the tracking by websites. There is an option provided by this add-on (named “disable referees”) which allows you to stop the tracking of you across websites. By enabling this add-on’s feature, you might trigger leech protection on some sites, however. In other words, you might not render one or two sites correctly because the protection for this webserver is on. The only site that I saw had not worked properly was 4chan.org when I tried to post some content, but that is about it.