As far as Web browsers go, Firefox is arguably the best out there, that is my personal opinion and outright endorsement of an amazing product of Web technology. Firefox is fast, uncomplicated and customizable to your liking. According to these browser statistics, Firefox had 47.4% of the browser usage for the month of August, 2009, surpassing Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and all currently-supported versions of Internet Explorer.
However, by no chance is my preference for Firefox an attempt to downplay the remarkable features of these other excellent Web browsers. As a true Web addict, I am particularly fond of the most common Web browsers, except for Internet Explorer 6 which was released eight years ago – that’s like 40 years in the life of a Web browser. 
Yes, I have a bit of an issue with IE 6. When you design or develop for the Web and have to create specific codes for a certain version of a browser, it tends to be utterly tasking.
In a future post, I will deal extensively with Internet Explorer 6. Today, our focus is on Firefox. Besides being a great Web browser, it also packs an impressive number of excellent tools which Web professionals would find very practical. These add-ons and extensions “are small pieces of software, that provide additional functionality to your installation of Firefox”, and supplement the Web browser, considerably.
Listed below are some of these remarkable tools, along with a synopsis of their features.
- Abduction — This extension grants you the ability to take screenshots of a web page, either in its entirety or any part of it, and also allows you to save the screenshot as an image.
- Codeburner for Firebug seamlessly integrates with Firebug, extending it with reference material for HTML and CSS. It was created by the good fellas at SitePoint- one of my favorite places on the Web. There’s also a CodeBurner for Firefox, and currently in development are versions for Dreamweaver & Air.
- Colorzilla consists of an advanced eye dropper and color picker, this extension is recommended for all color related tasks. Once installed, it rests quietly at the bottom left of the Firefox browser window. and when in use, it displays both the RGB and Hex code values of any color on the web page being viewed.
- Firebug — This would be ‘numero uno’ on my list of recommended add-ons for Web professionals. With this tool, you can edit & debug CSS, HTML, and Javascript, while you are browsing a website. With the installation of other add-ons you can greatly extend the capabilities of this indispensable tool.
- FireFTP is a cross-platform, free, secure and dependable FTP client for Firefox. It also has a vast array of advanced features including SFTP, SSL encryption, integrity checks and much more.
- Firefinder for Firebug is an extension to Firebug which finds HTML elements that match chosen CSS selectors.
- GridFox — This add-on allows you to put a grid on top of any website. This, easy to customize tool, would come in handy for designs that are tailored towards grid-based layouts.
- Inline Code Finder for Firebug is an add-on to Firebug, would be very useful to most CSS / Javascript developers. It scans through a web page and highlights all HTML elements with any of the following:
- Inline Javascript events
- Inline style
- Javascript: links
- Measure it is an awesome tool that enables you the ablility to get the width, height or alignment of web page elements in pixel. This is definitely top on my list, although I would like to see a snap to object (e.g Photoshop) feature added to it but it still gets a five star rating.
- Pixel Perfect — This a Firebug extension that allows the overlay of a web composition over the developed HTML version. It enables a web designer to check the finished work of a web developer ensuring consistency with the original designs.
- Screengrab like Abduction, is an add-on that lets you save entire web pages or a selection of it as images. However, Screengrab also captures embedded Java and Flash in a page, as long as Java is installed in the browser.
- Web Developer is an extension that adds a menu and a toolbar of various web developer tools to the browser. This extension would be on the same level with Firebug, highly recommended. One feature I love is its validation tool, which helps you check if your work is in compliance with Web standards.
These are some of the few add-ons I have worked with so far. The list is definitely not exhaustive. If you know of any worthy add-on/extension that I overlooked and would like to add to the list, I exhort you to kindly do so.
All of the above-named add-ons/extensions are free to download and install, but some of the developers have websites where you can donate in support of their efforts. Remember that little thing called ‘good karma’? 
Peace, Love and Blessings,
Reme.
Tags: Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, Web browser, World Wide Web
This entry was posted
on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 AM and is filed under Technology, Web design, World Wide Web.
The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of its author.
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Firefox: A Web Professional’s tool kit.
As far as Web browsers go, Firefox is arguably the best out there, that is my personal opinion and outright endorsement of an amazing product of Web technology. Firefox is fast, uncomplicated and customizable to your liking. According to these browser statistics, Firefox had 47.4% of the browser usage for the month of August, 2009, surpassing Google Chrome, Safari, Opera and all currently-supported versions of Internet Explorer.
However, by no chance is my preference for Firefox an attempt to downplay the remarkable features of these other excellent Web browsers. As a true Web addict, I am particularly fond of the most common Web browsers, except for Internet Explorer 6 which was released eight years ago – that’s like 40 years in the life of a Web browser.
Yes, I have a bit of an issue with IE 6. When you design or develop for the Web and have to create specific codes for a certain version of a browser, it tends to be utterly tasking.
In a future post, I will deal extensively with Internet Explorer 6. Today, our focus is on Firefox. Besides being a great Web browser, it also packs an impressive number of excellent tools which Web professionals would find very practical. These add-ons and extensions “are small pieces of software, that provide additional functionality to your installation of Firefox”, and supplement the Web browser, considerably.
Listed below are some of these remarkable tools, along with a synopsis of their features.
These are some of the few add-ons I have worked with so far. The list is definitely not exhaustive. If you know of any worthy add-on/extension that I overlooked and would like to add to the list, I exhort you to kindly do so.
All of the above-named add-ons/extensions are free to download and install, but some of the developers have websites where you can donate in support of their efforts. Remember that little thing called ‘good karma’?
Peace, Love and Blessings,
Reme.
Tags: Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Safari, Web browser, World Wide Web
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 23rd, 2009 at 7:00 AM and is filed under Technology, Web design, World Wide Web. The views and opinions expressed in this blog post are those of its author. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.