A run-down of my all time (so far) Top 10 Firefox Add-ons.

It seems everyone these days likes to tell everyone else what their own favourite all time (so far) top 10 of just about anything and everything is. So I figured this is one flock of sheep that would be good to follow. Everybody has their own favourites - I'm no different. I always like to find out how other people do the things i do. Customisation of my browser is something I have to do. Just like setting software and my desktop envornment up in a particular way. I think it's OCD but it's always good to have everything work in the best and most productive way possible.

I've split the list into two lots of five. One set for general usage, and one set for development. So, with no further avail and so on and so forth, here be the list ye be lookin' fer!

Development Extensions

1. Web Developer
   Where would I be without this baby. This is my all time most favouritestest ever extension for firefox. It's saved me so many hours of debugging and searching for problems. If you build websites, no matter how good or bad you may be, this beauty is the dogs big hairy balls.
2. HTML Validator
   Alongside the web developer toolbar, the HTML Validator is probably my second most used and loved extension. This tool saves a hell of a lot of messing reloading validating sites. It's all done in the browser, and all errors in your HTML can be seen in the page source, already highlighted. it even usually tells you exactly what you've done wrong. Great after a night out and a few too many beers when you're not thinking straight and miss off the occasional <div/> here and there while dreaming about a big cup of coffee.
3. Firebug
   This tool does plenty. You would need to probably visit their website to see more information than you're going to get from me. It's useful, it works well, it's sexy. Shows source, download times, script errors, css, just about everything to do with your pages.
4. Colorzilla
   The reason I use this so much is that I hate the rigmerole of having to take a screen shot, then open it in an art package, then sample the colour I want, and then use it. Colorzilla allows you to do it right in the browser on any bit of any page you're on. You beauty!
5. Alexa Sparky
   The one is only really handy for checking page rank, and other alexa stats. But handy for only that really. Not something most people would be bothered about, but an easy way to keep track of such things.

General Tools

1. Tab Mix Plus
   The default behaviour in Firefox for tabs just doesn't do it for me. Tab Mix Plus fixes all of my issues (so far!). Handy things such as being able to configure tab clicking options, how tabs open and their opening order when tabbing between them. Loads of things, and to top it off, a session saver for all those times you crash your browser with diong too much at once (or possibly loading a flash video - i think there's a bit of an issue with the flash plugin which causes firefox to crash. I could be wrong though.)
2. All In One Sidebar
   Another thing I really think should be a default in Firefox. I hate popup things unless I really need to have one. Things like add-ons and the download manager - I hate them being in a popup window. Yeah, sure, IE doesn't even have a manager for downloads, but Opera does by default, and guess what? It opens in a tab or the sidebar. Just what I want. Well now you can open your history, bookmarks, add-ons, page source, page info and others all in a handy side panel. Marvellous.
3. PDF Download
   If you're like me, and I'm sure you're not, you'll hate PDF integration in your browser. Not only is Adobe Acrobat reader slow as hell and getting slower with every new version as far as i can tell, I hate the fact that it grinds the browser to a halt when it tries to open things embedded in your browser window. Argh! I just want to see them in the Acrobat Reader stand alone app out of the way where it doesn't interfere with my shit. Hallelujah! And it was so. PDF download asks you what you want to do when you try to open a PDF hyperlink. Oh, the joy!
4. Fireshot
   Quite often, I need a screenshot of a page I'm on, either for a Portfolio image, or for an underlay to work from in Photoshop or some other random reason anyone would need a screen shot of something. This little extension takes screen shots in a number of ways and lets you jus save them or edit them in it's own little handy editor right before you save them out. As Bernard Matthews would say: "Bootifull".
5. Tab Scope
   This is more an asthetic extension that really useful one. The new version of opera (9.5) does this by default, and I quite like it. Although sometimes it can be really annoying too :). Hover over an inactive tab to get a little screenshot of whats in there without having to switch to it. Handy if you open lots of tabs all at once, and can't read the titles or easily recognise any titles you need at the time you need them.