Firefox is a great browser, version 2 seems a bit buggy and I have had several issues with it since it came out but the fact that Firefox allows you to extend it by using user built addons still sets it out above all the others.

So what kind of addons do I have? Well, as a developer most of them pretty much help me do just that.

ColorZilla is top of the list for no other reason than it begins with a ‘C’ so I will start with that one. This, as the name suggest is all about colour. It has a great eyedropper/ colour picker that tells you the colour underneath the cursor anywhere on a page in several formats.

del.icio.us allows me to bookmark sites of interest quickly and easily.

Firebug is absolutely fantastic if you are a developer. It allows you to edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page. I have mentioned it in a previous blog post here and since then it has always been installed and used.

Google Browser Sync is another great addon that not many people know about. I fortunately/ unfortunately have the use of many different machines but this used to be a real annoyance when I had to constantly make sure that all my bookmarks were up to date on every machine (this was before del.icio.us ). However I now just have to install Google browser sync to each machine and it will continuously synchronize my “browser settings – including bookmarks, history, persistent cookies, and saved passwords – across your computers.” fantastic!

HTML validator will show the number of errors that are on an HTML page and then allow you to go in and inspect each one in detail when viewing the source of the page. As well as allowing you to validate the HTML it will also check the 3 levels defined in WAI too.

IE tab embeds IE into Firefox allowing you to see how your web page displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.

Live HTTP header simply lets you view HTTP headers of a page while browsing which can be great for debugging.

VeriSign EV Green Bar Extension was covered a couple of post ago here which I suggest you read if you haven’t already to find out more.

Finally the Web Developer toolbar which adds a load of features – too many to list here. The developer of the extension has a website which is probably the best place to go find out more about this addon.

I’m sure other great addons will come along and as they do I’ll make sure they get a mention but hopefully this list will provide you with a good selection to start with.

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taken from mozillalinks.org

Among the list of mandatory requirements, read, what is the most likely to be included in Firefox 3 we have:

• Improved interaction with Add-ons: clearer, more coherent language; less steps to install; more visible way to configure add-ons, probably to be moved back to the general Options window, which I hope deeply; more noticeable alerts when updates are available; a permanent restart Firefox button.
• Support for remote bookmarks, bookmarks and history annotation.
• Files could be handled by web services. If I am reading this correctly, this could mean you would be able to click on an attached document and open it with something like Writely or Google Documents. And perhaps, as I asked Santa, the ability to redirect mailto: links to web email services.
• A much needed print support to prevent cut paragraphs and true WYSIWYG.
• The much requested MSI installer which will be a much welcomed improvement for IT administrators as it will ease deployment and updating of Firefox across a company.
• In the security front: support for Microsoft CardSpace and OpenID (check tomorrow’s article for more coverage on this). Smarter credentials handling.
• Airbag, the Google backed open source crash reporting tool will replace currently licensed TalkBack.

Among the highly desirable requirements:

• A private web browsing mode. I guess this would mean no cache, history, password or entered form information storage.
• Save web pages as PDF files, integrated with history. That would be just awesome.
• Support pause/resume downloads across sessions.
• Make Firefox help accessible only while online. Not sure how good and idea this is.
• Microformats support.

Nice to have:

• Unified bookmarks/history. Does this mean no Places?
• Support for Windows Vista parental controls. I really hope this one goes up in the priority list. This would be the first concrete downer for Firefox when confronted with Internet Explorer 7.
• Tab grouping and expose. This sounds like Internet Explorer 7 Quick Tabs or the foxPose extension.
• Windows Group Policy. Another blessing for IT administrators.
• Allow add-ons to be installed without rebooting Firefox.
• Simplified interface to manage downloads. Can it be simpler? Maybe exposing commands currently placed in the context menu.

Good heh? Well if you take out all the fixes and little changes here and there, again we see a release that barely constitutes a major release. Maybe if they had combined the stuff in version 2 with this we might be on 2.1 by now.

Anyway we will see how much of this makes it to the release date which at the moment appears to be the? third quarter this year.

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