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Firefox is the browser for any occasion.

As a platform for developers it has shown that one browser can really be for everyone. Whether music is your thing, SEO is your calling or Photos are your soup de jour, Firefox can be sculpted to be the perfect web browser using its rich library of plugins and extensions. This guide will show you how to squeeze the most juice out of your Firefox experience from the bottom up.

Speeding Up The Fox

The absolutely first thing you should do before making any serious commitment to Firefox is to plug a few glaring holes, namely the fact that Firefox is a massive memory hog. Especially if you start adding extensions you’ll want to get the most speed out of the browser as you can. Here are a few things you can do on the backend to do just that.

Start by typing about:config into the address bar, click OK (or hit enter).

Right click, from the menu select “New” then “Integer”.

When the dialog box appears, enter the following string: browser.cache.memory.capacity

You will be treated to yet another dialog box, enter: 16384

Why 16384?

To your computer, which uses a different number system than us mere mortals, this is the exact number that represents 16MBs of RAM. Close all instances of Firefox and restart. Between now and your next reboot you should notice a substantial increase in speed.

While we are hacking around, here are a few more tips to give your Firefox a speed bump.

Enable Pipelining

For broadband users, this will substantially increase the speed that pages load. In order to do it, follow these steps.

Type about:config in the address bar, click OK (or hit Enter).

You will be treated with a screen very similar to this one:

On the line that says “Filter” type: network.http.pipelining

Double click on the variable so that it turns from “false” to “true”.

Finally,

Increase Max Requests

On the line that says “Filter” type: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Change the variable from “4″ to “8″

If all of this seems like too much work, there is a faster method — install the extension FasterFox. This extension streamlines the process of tweaking Firefox and gives you a clean interface to access all the tweaks I mentioned and many more. Just a caveat before I continue, read the reviews before installing this extension. There are some good points which you should keep in mind.

Productivity

Now that we have Firefox running at its fastest, lets turn it into a productivity machine.

Greasemonkey is the tool that will become the platform for your new, more productive life. It allows you to rescript the behavior of Firefox, and gain a lot of really great functionality. Greasemonkey is pretty useless by itself, once you have it installed you have to “add on” to the addon with scripts. I’ve simplified the task, so click here and then here — once you’re done installing those come back to the article and try out these scripts.

Time To Go

Time to Go. This is for those willing to quit procrastinating Cold Turkey. Install the script and then the timer starts. When your time runs out, you are redirected to a blank page. If you absolutely, positively must finish that article on the latest Microsoft rumor you can click on the timer and give yourself another ten seconds.

This is the shotgun of productivity tools. Install this, and you simply can’t waste time cruising your favorite news portals because you are giving your browser the willpower the you don’t possess.

Look It Up

Look It Up. Highlight a word, right click on it and this script will allow you to look it up in the information source of your choice. A fantastic little addon for anyone who has ever wondered what syzygy was.

Gmail Conversation Preview

Gmail Conversation Preview. This is incredibly cool. Right click on a message in Gmail and this script allows you to see a preview. This is for anyone who receives a lot of “almost junk” email in a day. Give it a quick read, and then junk it without having to click around.

Google Reader Integration

Google Reader / Gmail Integration. Just like the title says, this script allows you to integrate your Google reader feeds with your Gmail, so while you’re reading the latest memo about how your department’s productivity has decreased by 24% this quarter, you can be enjoying your favorite RSS feeds.

RSS Quick Subscribe

RSS Quick Subscribe. Never go to the silly “subscribe to feed” page again. Using this script, all of your subscription options will appear on the page itself. When you click to add, it will automatically appear in your feed reader. No muss, no fuss, no problems.

Productivity Extensions

Now that we have Greasemonkey squared away, next on the list are a few more Firefox extensions that might come in handy on your journey to greater productivity. Extensions are a snap to install — follow the links, reset Firefox, and then come back here for more.

Customize Google

Customize Google. CustomizeGoogle enhances Google search results by adding extra information (like links to Yahoo, Ask.com, MSN etc) and removing unwanted information (like ads and spam).

BugMeNot

BugMeNot. Tired of registering for every site that you run across, only to realize that you plan to go there maybe once or twice in your life. Well, BugMeNot takes away some of that hassle. By tapping into a database of pre-made registrations you can bypass almost all of those pesky login screens with a simple right click.

Auto-Fill Form

Auto Fill Form. Most of my non-productive hours are spent filling out the same tired data in registration forms. This little extension takes care of that for you. You can fill in the data that you wish your forms to default to, add custom rules and apply encryption for the security minded. If this doesn’t save you time then nothing will.

Photo Swap

Productivity is not your thing? Maybe you are a Flickr fanatic. In that case, here are some plugins that will help you convert Firefox into a powerful photo sharing engine.

Lets start with a few Greasemonkey tweaks that Flickr fans may find useful.

Flickr - Multi Group Sender

Flickr - Multi Group Sender. This script enables you to easily send your Flickr images to multiple groups at the same time. It works by overriding the normal “Send To Group” button on your flickr photo page.

Flickr Magnify

Flick Magnify. This script lets you magnify portions of an image. It uses the larger version of the image to build this magnification, so if a larger version is not available this script will not work.

EXIF Decorator

EXIF Decorator. Hover over a photo on Flickr to get an unobtrusive translucent overlay in the top left corner showing meta data including camera model, aperture and shutter speed.

Better Flickr Extension

In the spirit of simplifying the often annoying process of installing scripts, there is another option called the “Better Flickrt” extension. It was compiled by Gina Trapani of Lifehacker and it combines many of the available Flickr scripts into one easy install. If you have no time to customize, this is a great catch-all solution.

Music

With FoxyTunes, Firefox developers have given us the ability to control pretty much any media player that you can think of from right inside the browser. For you audiophiles, this next section is for you.

FoxyTunes

FoxyTunes lets you find lyrics, bios and videos related to songs that you are listening to on the in browser extension. Beyond that, it gives you access to all of your installed media players to play your music on demand. FoxyTunes also gives you the ability to easily preview and subscribe to Podcasts. It’s a great extension for anyone who wants more control over their music.

TwittyTunes

TwittyTunes. This is an addon to FoxyTunes that allows you to post the song you are currently listening to on your twitter account. Better yet, it also allows you to share the videos you’re watching and the websites that you are visiting with your twitter friends.

FoxyTunes Planet

FoxyTunes Planet. Finally, for those who are just interested in finding really cool music — take a look at FoxyTunes planet. It is a Firefox search addon which aggregates multiple music search engines to help you find even the most obscure artists right from the comfort of your browser window.

SEO

Te final transformation of the little Fox that I will discuss is for the more SEO minded. These are plugins that will help you get a deeper understanding on how websites are performing.

SEO For Firefox

SEO For Firefox. This is the single best SEO tool that I have found for Firefox. It allows you to look up a host of metrics from any website you are visiting from the right-click menu. It also adds a series of extra options to your Google search results page, to see how each site rates in regards to PageRank, Backlinks and Age amongst other things. Even more importantly, the plugin is extremely easy to run on and off.

Coming in a tie for second a third place are the Compete and Alexa toolbars. I hate to encourage installing toolbars to anyone, but if you are serious about SEO and don’t mind some of your screen real estate being eaten up then they are great efficiency boosters.

Web 2.0 Roundup

These are only samples of the type of customizations that you can make for Firefox. Explore the web and find the Fox that is right for you. Here is one more plugin to get you going, what’s your favorite Firefox extension? Leave me a comment.

GTDInbox

GTDInbox is a Firefox plugin that adds a full suite of GTD capabilities to Gmail. GTD is all about labeling, contexts and next actions so this is the perfect tool to attach to your catch all email box. Just install the plugin, head over to your Gmail account and follow the instructions in the side-bar. I had my entire mailbox reorganized in under an hour.

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