Extension Madness

Lately it seems like a lot of the people I know are switching to Firefox. I applaud the move and wish them luck with the best browser out there - in my opinion. I have noticed, however, that useful extensions can be tough to track down for the novice user. Therefore, I've decided I'd list a few of my favorite extensions to aid you in your surfing.

Sage
Sage is an RSS and Atom feed reader extension for Firefox. Sage allows you to add feeds to a list, discover feeds on a webpage, and check feeds for updates, quickly alerting the user to new content on their favorite websites. If you are familiar with sites like Engadget, Hackaday, Slashdot, Stereogum, or any other compatible sites, and haven't used a news reader this is your chance.

ForecastFox
ForecastFox is a handy little extension that adds the current weather to your status bar. Unlike WeatherBug and other desktop products, ForecastFox does not contain any kind of spyware/adware. It's extremely unobtrusive and easy to use. All you have to do is move the cursor over the icon and you can instantly find out the current temperature and other useful information.

Adblock & Adblock Filterset
Adblock, coupled with the filterset - which acts much like PeerGuardian or SafePeer for P2P programs - is a must have extension for any user of Firefox. The web has become a very scary place with pop ups and stupid flash banners, and other such web annoyances, but with Adblock those problems can be a thing of the past. Adblock allows you to easily filter the garbage out, and help you maintain your sanity for just a little longer.

Disable Targets for Download
A very common problem with Firefox is it's tendency to spawn a window or tab when the user is trying to download a file from the internet. This extension helps combat this problem by blocking extensions from spawning a new window or a tab.

Popup Blocker Hack
While this isn't exactly an extension it is still pretty handy in the added functionality offered to Firefox. When Firefox first emerged nearly no popup would escape the built in popup blocker, but now that's changed. It's quite common for a few to slip by and open up a new tab or an ugly window. With this quick hack Firefox will work just like before, and popups will be a thing of the past.