I’ve been using Firefox for years and I’m still loving it, even though there are other free browsers like Opera, Flock, etc..I still prefer using Firefox (sorry, not IE). Other than it’s browsing speed, a very good reason to use Firefox is because of the add-ons. As a blogger, I depend a lot on Firefox add-ons during my blogging process.
There are many Firefox add-ons to enhance your browsing as well as blogging experience. Here is a list of 8 useful Firefox add-ons which I think every blogger should have them installed in their Firefox browser.
One of the important elements in the blogging world is social bookmarks. You can promote your blog posts through social networking sites, share your interest, as well as getting information from others (blog authors), and also it’s one of the source for you to get blogging inspiration. Among all those many social bookmarking sites, I would love to introduce StumbleUpon and Del.icio.us.
So, you must not miss out these social bookmarking Firefox extensions.
[1] StumbleUpon
This is not a stranger in the Web 2.0 world. Sign up a StumbleUpon account and start stumble good blog posts that you think worth sharing or bookmarking. Registration is FREE. It’s a great site for you to wider your blog network, make new friends, stumble similar interest articles. If your article is being stumbled by someone, it means higher chance for you to gain more blog traffic. Isn’t it just nice?
After installing the StumbleUpon extension, you can customize where to locate it in your Firefox browser. If you like a site, just click on the blue thumb up icon (to rate it, bookmark it) and vice versa. Notice the number in red? That means someone in my contact list is recommending me an article which he or she finds interesting and would love to share with me. So, by using the same method, you can also recommend your own blog post to your StumbleUpon contact. There are many more features to be discovered by using the StumbleUpon add-on.
If you happen to have a StumbleUpon account, please feel free to add me to your contact as well.
[2] Del.icio.us
Del.icio.us is another bookmarking site. Among all the social bookmarking site, I find that Del.icio.us is the best tool to bookmark anything I found useful from the Internet; easy to use, nothing fancy about the interface, straight to the point. You can find out more on why I like to use Del.icio.us as my bookmarking tools.
After installing the Del.icio.us Firefox add-on, you can customize your toolbar to show your Del.icio.us short cut, so that whenever you see an interesting article, you can easily bookmark it by clicking the TAG icon. Oh, in order to use Del.icoi.us, you need to sign up for an account, it’s FREE.
[3] Wizz RSS
It’s a web base RSS reader. I always encourage people around me to use RSS reader to read their favorite blogs. Some argue that they prefer blog hopping, but when your network expand, you may really want to switch to a feed reader. You can really get benefits from using a feed/RSS reader to get any updates from your favorite blogs. If you dislike installing extra feed reader application or sign up for an RSS account like Google Reader, you can try this Wizz RSS Firefox plugin. No registration needed, just subscribe to any feed you like. However, if you read blogs in different computer most of the time, it’s better to stick with a registered RSS reader account like Google Reader.
After installing this add-on, the Wizz RSS will appear on the left panel without disturbing what you are currently browsing. You can make your feed subscription more organized by creating categories by right clicking any where within the Wizz RSS tab and choose “Add Category“.
To add a feed, do the same thing by choose “Add Feed“, make sure you get your favorite blog’s feed URL. You can do that by searching the feed subscription link and right click on it and choose “Copy Link Location“. Next paste the link to the Feed URL field.
At the end you will have something that looks like this. You get a list of feed updates. If you click on any post, you see a summary of the post, for further reading, double click on it, and the content will show on the right panel.
[4] ScribeFire
Say, you want to have something all-in-one. ScribeFire is just for you. With ScribeFire, you can blog anything you find interesting right away within a few clicks. You can also add blogs/articles to your Del.icio.us bookmark. Or even share what you found in social networking sites like Propeller, Reddit, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon, etc…. ScribeFire integrates with several blogging platform, check out a list of supported services to find out more.
[5] FireFTP
This add-on is one of my favorites which I think it is an essential Firefox extension for bloggers who have their own domain. It’s very useful when you need to upload files to your host. You do not have to install extra FTP client, FireFTP work the same way like almost any FTP client. Learn how to use FireFTP to upload files to your host.
[6] Web Developer
Very often, when I need to customize my blog theme or helping friends to mod a little here and there on their blog theme, I will depend a lot on this Web Developer extension. Most of the time I use this to view the source code. This plugin is for intermediate user who at least knows more on web development like HTML, CSS, etc.. It’s a great tool for all web developers.
“The Web Developer extension adds a menu and a toolbar to the browser with various web developer tools. It is designed for Firefox, Flock and Seamonkey, and will run on any platform that these browsers support including Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.”
[7] Screengrab
Sometimes it’s tedious to take a full screenshot of a page by just using the PrintScreen key on your keyboard. Screengrab can do all the job for you. Who and why need this extension? It’s an essential toolfor those who always make tutorials on the web, when you need to take lots of screenshots to show your reader. I often do that too. Find out more about Screengrab.
[8] ColorZilla
When it comes to customizing the theme color of your blog, you must be digging a list of colors available, searching for it’s 6 digits hexadecimal codes. You can install some free color picker software, but won’t it be nice if you can do it just within your browser? ColorZilla is the answer. After installation, there will be a tiny icon on the bottom left of your browser, click on it to activate and click on any color on the screen that you want, in order to get the 6 digits hexadecimal codes. Click that icon again to deactivate, just as easy as that. Find out more here.
So, that’s the 8 Firefox add-ons which I think is really useful for bloggers. Hope you can benefit from this list.
Happy blogging.
By Blog for Beginners on Aug 23, 2008
Nice recommendation! ColorZilla is exactly what I have been looking for and for the rest of the addons, they are just as great tools to have.
By Center Parted on Sep 11, 2008
I’ve been using Scribefire for a while and find it very useful. Its not perfect — there are posting errors at times — but its far better than using my blog’s editor.Thanks for recommending the other tools.. I’ll want to have a closer look at Web Developer. Have been meaning to tweak my current template but dared not do it!
