Must Have Firefox Extensions

These extensions are necessary in everyone's Firefox as it greatly enhances the "web-surfing" experience. By using these extensions, you'll be able to do things quicker and thus, be more efficient while doing whatever on the internet.

Download Statusbar
The Download Statusbar allows Firefox to show you how fast and far something has been downloaded. Downloads no longer open up the annoying extra window of Firefox's built-in download manager. Rather, a new status bar is displayed at the bottom clearly showing the time remaining or percentage completed or just about anything you want it to be. You can customize it how ever you want it to be. This extension may seem unnecessary due to the next extension; however, I frequently use this to download smaller applications so I can quickly double click the icon on the statusbar to open it up and use whatever I just downloaded.

DownThemAll
DownThemAll is a great download manager. It is by far the best download manager I know of; if you're plagued by random disconnects, then this is perfect. Even if you have perfect internet access, this will cut down on your download time since it splits up the file into parts and then combines them after finishing downloading. After the default installation, you'll be able to choose how to download a file, either with the built-in feature (thus enabling the Download Statusbar) or use this. Once again, I prefer to use the default for smaller applications while using this for files over 100 megabytes.

Colorful Tabs
Although this may seem purely for show, the tabs will be easier to click on. Although not many people will have twenty tabs open at once, I can assure you that having this makes it much easier to distinguish between one tab and the next. Sounds foolish, but the effects will be noticeable after use. Overall, this extension will help overall and will also be more pleasing for the eye.

IE Tab
Ironically, this extension will allow you to use another browser inside Firefox. However, after countless visits to the Microsoft site (and numerous other IE only sites), I have found this to be a far superior to opening Internet Explorer. It's like having Internet Explorer with a Firefox skin (which can also change!) and can be used at anytime; simply click on the Firefox icon near the bottom-right or right click on a link to open with this extension and you'll be downloading from Microsoft in no time.

GooglePreview
Unless you're the kind of person who does not use Google, which is highly unlikely since you're using Firefox (I think), this is invaluable. It gives every single found item on Google a preview of the site. You can quickly gauge the quality of a website or if you remember a site by the layout of a site, you can quickly find it through previews! Regardless of use, it will save valuable time in the long term.