My current set of Firefox extensions

I've been using a lot of different machines lately and thus customizing Firefox on them, which means I've been playing around with Firefox extensions a bunch more than usual (new environments are both a good way to find out what I find essential and to play with things I'm not sure about in an expendable setting). This makes it a good time to write down my current set of them for future (and current) reference.

Essential extensions that I turn out to install everywhere:

All-In-One Gestures

I installed this a while back on a whim and then discovered I can't live without it, because it means I can often browse without having to take my hand off the mouse.

NoScript

I browse with Javascript off, but some sites really need it (like Google Maps). NoScript lets me selectively enable JS only for such sites (instead of having to turn it on globally), and it's convenient and unobtrusive (with the right settings; I recommend turning off all of the noisy notifications).

Additional extensions I have installed on my core machines:

PrefBar

This used to be the best way of enabling Javascript when I needed it, but has been supplanted in my affections by NoScript. I keep it around mostly to have a quick way of disabling and enabling my filtering proxy. (Oddly it is not on addons.mozilla.org.)

Nightly Tester Tools

I need this so I can force extensions to be enabled in my personal, compiled from the bleeding edge CVS trunk Firefox builds. If you don't run CVS trunk or nightly builds you probably have no use for this.

Extensions that I am experimenting with:

Stylish

My current solution to the Slashdot problem. I'm not sure that browsing Slashdot justifies an entire extension, but it works, with the drawback that you have to be able to write CSS.

CookieSafe

My latest attempt to find an extension that deals with cookies like NoScript deals with Javascript. It's OK so far, and as a bonus it's a good way to see basic information about the cookies I've allowed a website to dump on me.

(My usual way to deal with cookies is to let my filtering proxy eat them, but this doesn't work when the cookies are being thrown at me by Javascript on a site where I've temporarily enabled Javascript. Yet I haven't wanted to just drop all unapproved cookies, because sometimes a JS-using site turns out to need them too.)

And finally, popular extensions that I don't (currently) use for various reasons:

• Flashblock: My Linux version of Flash doesn't work without Javascript turned on, so I get the effects for free.
• AdBlock: I solve this problem with a filtering proxy.
• GreaseMonkey: I haven't found a need so far, since I tend to just avoid sites that require random mangling in order to be acceptable.
• SessionSaver: Firefox almost never crashes on me (despite running bleeding edge CVS versions), and current trunk Firefox builds have this built in.

Note that my tastes in extensions are pretty minimal, much like my tastes in the rest of my Firefox setup. There are any number of nice extensions that I don't have installed just because I don't work in the their area often enough to make it worthwhile (this is why there are no web development extensions here, for example).