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A few days ago who uses IE6 will see a nice box on top of the site with the suggestion of switch browsers. Choosing a modern browser is definitely advisable, also and especially as regards safety on the web.

This is also why today we talk of the web browser safest, fast and customizable of all time: Firefox.

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Firefox is a browser-derived Mozilla, the manufacturer of the American Mozilla suite (whose last update was on 2006). The suite included a browser, a program for e-mail (from which it is derived Thunderbird), a chat client for IRC channels, a newsreader, a’editor html WYSIWYG. The old project was divided into several parts, and (aside from SeaMonkey, the current full suite) born Firefox for web and Thunderbird per the email. Both new born to house Mozilla had the characteristic of being extensible with third-party plugins. A very interesting choice, and at that time very innovative Mozilla. Finally a modular program, with basic functionality for the base packages, but infinitely extensible with third-party add-on for those who need other features added.

And of these add-ons are talking about today. Depending on the end user's needs there are add-on specific. Following a broken foot list of what I believe the most useful.

1. Download Statusbar

One of the most useful components, of which I am much use on all computers that advertise it willingly. The extension “Download Statusbar” It inhibits the opening the download window in Firefox and integrated lists the download in a bar at bottom of page. Without opening pop-ups you always have an eye on the download speed, the remaining time, the percentage already downloaded. Passing over to the downloads with the mouse you can check the copy the url source. Personally I have always found annoying Firefox download popup, this extension is definitely right for me.

2. SearchPreview (ex Google Preview)

This add-on more than useful for a practical matter, changes the face of the results of Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other. With SearchPreview on the results page will be displayed next to each result a small site preview in which the individual result refers. If the site had not yet a preview will be shown a gray image with the inscription “no preview available“. You can report application developers the affected site, in a few days will have its premiere.

3. gTranslate

Did you happen to read online text blocks in English (o in other language)? Especially if what we are reading is a part of a technical nature, we are not always able to decipher all terms (or get there with intuition). Google Translate is a great service provided by Google itself for the translation of the text, but if we needed just a term? After installing GTranslate highlight the text (a short sentence, the a few words), click with the Right and select from the menu “Translation“. The extension will automatically connect to Google Translate, and another pull-down will show the translation, saving us valuable time.

4. Hide GUI Bars (for small screens)

The component “Hide GUI Bars” choice (via a convenient menu “Preferences” hides some GUI components (menubar, navigationbar, Blunders, bookmarksbar and statusbar). By pressing a key combination (di default “Ctrl” – “Shift” – “a“) return all the bars disabled. Recommended for use on small screens (netbook e simili).

Also for small screens (netbook e simili) I would advise to use navigation icons small. By clicking on the navigation buttons to the right to choose “Customize” and apply the check mark “Use small icons“. Spare a few pixels in height.