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Extensions

Extensions are plug-ins that add new functionality to Firefox. I recommend the following extensions:

• Google Toolbar - Google's official GoogleBar now works in Firefox. The new version comes with a spell checker and AutoLink. GoogleBar is an excellent clone that works with Firefox.
• FlashBlock - This blocks a Flash files and replaces them with a button that you can click to load the Flash file. Flash animations are usually advertisements and sometimes they can be very nasty (ugly, distracting, or cover up useful information).
• BetterPrivacy -Deletes so-called super cookies - cookies from the Flash player or DOM objects that do not normally get deleted. BetterPrivacy helps you maintain your privacy and avoid being tracked on the Internet. It will silently and automatically delete these cookies so you will can just install this addon and forget it.
• BugMeNot - This plugin connects to the BugMeNot.com servers when you right-click on a log in box and will (hopefully) get a username and password for the site. This is great if you do not want to sign up on a site just to read the news or download a program.
• Redirect Remover - This removes redirects from links. This is when one site sends you to another, but does not link to it directly. This is usually only to keep track of how many people click the link, but can be used for evil.
  
• SyncPlaces - This lets you synchronize and sort your bookmarks and passwords to your website by using FTP or WebDAV. This is a great way to share bookmarks between different systems and keep a backup in case something bad happens.
  
• RetailMeNot - When you visit a site like Amazon.com, it pops up a notification bar that alerts you of current coupons. It downloads a list of coupons about once a week and does not send any information to RetailMeNot.com.
• Web Developer - This handy tool helps you work on your website by doing things like allowing you to edit HTML and CSS on the fly right within Firefox.

Miscellaneous Tweaks

These settings are for things like the user interface, etc.

Activate spell-checker in all fields

This will have spell-checking in single line textboxes as well as multi-line textareas.

    Type about:config in the address bar.
    Type spellcheckDefault in the filter bar.
    Double-click on layout.spellcheckDefault.
    Change the value to 2.

Customize double-click to select

These are just two settings that control what happens when you double click on a word to select it. These are probably not useful to anyone else, but I like to have control over things such as this.

    Type about:config in the address bar.
    Type layout.word_select.eat_space_to_next_word in the filter bar.
    Double click on layout.word_select.eat_space_to_next_word and change it to false.
    Type layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation in the filter bar.
    Double click on layout.word_select.stop_at_punctuation and change it to true.

Cut and paste more than one line

Allow input boxes to accept multiple lines instead of just a single line when using cut and paste.

    Type about:config in the address bar.
    Type singleline in the filter bar.
    Double-click on editor.singleLine.pasteNewlines.
    Change the value to 2.

Stop Firefox from automatically resizing images

I hate it when Firefox automatically makes an image smaller so it fits into the window without scrolling.

    Type about:config in the address bar.
    Type browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing into the filter bar.
    Double click on browser.enable_automatic_image_resizing to change the value to false.

Disable link prefetching

Link Prefetching is where Firefox will try to pull down the next logical page you will visit as instructed by the web server. Servers can specify <link rel="next" href="Page2.html"> and Firefox will download that page in the background while you are on Page1.html in anticipation of you going there. While this will shorten the time you have to wait when you click on the Page2.html link, it eats up bandwidth on pages you may never visit.

    Type about:config in the address bar.
    Type network.prefetch-next in the filter bar.
    Double click on network.prefetch-next and change it to false.

Want more tips? Check out some from the Firefox team.