A web browser is an integral part of experiencing the Internet. Using a feature rich web browser increases our online productivity exponentially whereas, using a featureless browser restricts us from exploring innumerable possibilities.
Though, the million dollar question is, “How do we estimate a feature rich browser”? It can be defined by the presence of in-built support for common features or support for adding new features. In built features are present in browsers like Internet Explorer and Opera. These features include feed readers, download managers and in-page editing. However, this model of features imposes a huge restriction on the user.
The second model that is widely popular and is the topic of my discussion consists of features extensible through add-ons. Currently, this feature is supported only on two browsers: Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
In this article, we will talk about Mozilla Firefox as it is a widely popular browser and has a richer set of extensible features through add-ons. Many of the add-ons mentioned here are available for Google Chrome as well. This will make it easier for users to switch between Chrome and Firefox as and when needed.
I will not talk about some commonly known add-ons here. They are out there and are in use extensively. These include Greasemonkey, Firebug, Ubiquity and Web Developer. These are classic add-ons and are known to all. However, some lesser-known add-ons lose their thunder to these giants but are equally good. Let us have a look at them.
Grid Fox
This is an extremely useful add-on for estimating screen real-estate usage of websites. We can trace the web page using a grid layout and then checking for inconsistencies of anomalies in design. This add-on comes in extremely handy for debugging design aspects.
Dummy Lipsum
Often times, we need to fill in text into a box to check how it looks finally. What can be better than the classical Lorem Ipsum? Here is an add-on to create a quick paragraph of mock text. The add-on goes by the name of Dummy Lipsum and comes in handy at times.
Chrome users can look at: Lorem Ipsum Generator
A large part of web development includes satisfying different web browsers according to the different rules they use to render pages. This can create a nightmare as a huge section of this world still uses Internet Explorer 6. This makes it necessary for developers to support IE6 in their design. This can cause many backporting and unsupported feature issues. The best way to check these is using the IE Tab add-on. This will create a tab with Internet Explorer properties within Firefox.
Chrome users can look at: IE Tab
URL Fixer
No matter how proficient you are in typing, at some point of time in your life, you have made a mistake in typing you still wish you had not. Well, here is an add-on to auto-correct your URLs. Therefore, if you type in yaho.com, it will automatically take you to yahoo. This helps a lot in case of slow internet connections and saves you from landing on one of those parked domains.
FEBE
FEBE is an awesome add-on that can recompile your installed add-ons into Firefox add-ons. This eliminates the need to remember their names and the need to install them time and over again. FEBE backups are very portable and can be shared across users. We can restore apps either selectively or completely. This add-on is the best backup solution for add-ons.
View Source Chart
This add-on allows us to see the DOM of any website in a use-friendly and comprehensive as well as easy to understand way. This makes it easy to read the DOM attributes of a website and carry out further plans. It has a very smooth learning curve with ample learning resources.
Now that you have a basic idea of how far can Mozilla can be extended, you will amazed to see that this is only one of the few things you can do. I am sure you can take it from here.
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