Top Five Firefox Addons

Top Five

Firefox is the fastest growing Internet browser today. It’s the browser that everyone, myself included, seems to love. And why wouldn’t they? It’s open source, it fast, it’s customizable, and it’s got addons, among other qualities. My favorite has to be the addons. There are thousands out there, ranging from simple button fixes to complete website makeovers. And they’re simple to install – just click, download, and restart your browser! That’s why today I’m going to list my Top Five Firefox Addons.

#1: Adblock Plus with Adblock Filterset.G Updater
I’ve talked about Adblock Plus before. It’s an excellent addon which blocks most ads on a website. It’s sort of like a popup blocker except it blocks the ads on the page. With this, you can right-click and select “Adblock Image” and the image will no longer show up, getting rid of annoying ads all over the internet.

The second part of this entry is the Filterset.G Updater, which adds entries to your filterset so you don’t have to manually add a new advertisement every time. Overall they work really well together, but on a site which you may want to disable it for whatever reason it’s easy to do. I have my Adblock icon set in my status bar so I just have to right click it and select “Disable on This page only” or uncheck “Enable Adblock Plus”.

#2: Customize Google
Customize Google is a really great addon which adds functionality and ease of use in Google. My favorite feature is that it can rewrite links in Google Image Search to point directly to the image instead of having to go through the page with the top panel and clicking through.

Aside from that, there are a lot of other useful features such as removing all the ads from Google, logging into GMail, Calendar, etc in secure mode, links to the Internet Archive’s WayBackMachine for that page, and other useful features. If you use Google a lot (and I’m sure that most people do) this is a must.

#3: OpenSearchFox
OpenSearchFox makes adding any and all search engines to your search bar a snap. Instead of going to the default MyCroft Project site and searching for the addon, or even making one yourself manually, all you have to do is right click in the search bar of the site you’re on and select “Add Opensearch Plugin”. After that you can search your favorite sites without actually visiting it’s homepage, which obviously saves time.

#4: Add Bookmark Here 2
Add Bookmark Here 2 does pretty much what the name implies: it adds a menu option to your right-click menu and inside your bookmark folders to add a bookmark to that folder. Personally, I must have over 50 folders, possibly more when I consider that I have a lot of video game FAQs/game-related sites organized within the game’s folder and/or genre. This addon has saved me many clicks.

There are some variable options as well, such as the option to add the menu item to the top or bottom of the menu or add the bookmark itself to the top or bottom of the menu. Overall, I consider this an extremely invaluable addon and really wish it was built into the browser.

#5: Fasterfox
And finally, Fasterfox is a utility to speed up your surfing by expanding the amount of data which is transfered at a time. I have found that this does make a noticeable difference in surfing. While there are four settings (including the default) I use a custom build. This works best for me I’ve found. It may or may not work for you, but here are my settings:

Preset
Custom

Fasterfox
[Unchecked] Enabled Enhanced Prefetching
[Checked] Enable Page Load Timer (Not important, I just like to have it on.)

Cache
Memory Cache Capacity: 65536
Disk Cache Capacity: 76800
DNS Cache Expiration: 3600
DNS Cache Entries: 512

Connection
Max Connections: 64
Max Connections Per Server: 48
Max Persistent Connections Per Server: 16
Max Persistent Connections Per Proxy: 32

Pipelining
[Checked] Enable Pipelining
[Checked] Enable Pipelining of First Request
[Checked] Enable Proxy Pipelining
Max Pipelining Requests: 16

Rendering
[Checked] Enable Fastback
Pages in Memory: 5
Inital Paint Delay: 0
Submenu Delay: 50

Popups
[Checked] Disable Popups from Plugins

Note: You are putting these options in at your own risk. While I very seriously doubt anything could be messed up with these settings, if anything does actually happens to your browser/computer/life/cat from these settings I cannot be held responsible.

Well, that’s it. I hope you can use this information in making your time surfing the web more enjoyable!

World of Addons!

Top Five

I’m a World of Warcraft player. I have a 55 Dwarf Priest and a 34 (soon to be 35) Draenei Hunter (which I am currently leveling), among other, lower-level characters across a few servers. I’ve been playing for about a year and have found a few addons that are, in my opinion, absolutely a necessity. And some are just helpful and nice to have. I’m going to list a few of my favorites here.

Most of these Addons can be found at The Unofficial World of Warcraft Mods site. In fact, I would recommend getting their Mod management tool to make downloading and installing (and uninstalling) any addons listed on their site a snap!

To install them manually, all you have to do is go to your World of Warcraft directory (for example, C:\Program Files\World of Warcraft\Interface\AddOns) and unzip the addon in there.

And now, without further ado, five Addons which I think are great!

#1: Auctioneer
Probably my absolute favorite addon, for the simple fact that it makes me RICH RICH RICH! With the help of this addon, I am currently jumping between 100 and 200 gold on a level 15 bank alt. It also helped me get my first Level 40 mount (from about 10 Gold to 90 Gold) in less than five days.

The main feature of this addon is that it scans the Auction House and keeps it in a database. You can then search for items based on a buyout or bid price. If the item is below it’s actual sell value, it will list it and you can buy it, and either use it for yourself (pfft) or resell it at a better price.

For example, you can buyout a one handed axe, which goes for 25 Gold, but someone listed at 15. Even if you list it at 20-23 Gold for the buyout (which is something I usually do), you’re still making a handsome sum of Gold.

Auctioneer also allows you to see what the value of all items in your inventory for both the vendor and what you should list it on the Auction House.

#2: MapNotes
This, along with Titan Panel, is probably the most useful addon, and one of my most-used features. The premise is simple – so simple, in fact, that it should be built into the client – a way to mark things on your map.

For example, let’s say you’re doing a low-level quest which, in all likely hood, would be a quest that you will be doing again while leveling another character (or even helping a friend out). Go to the location of the quest, for example a chest, and mark it on your map, either through the main map, which MapNotes integrates into, or, to mark your exact location, through the command line – simply [ /mn -q (Note Name Here) ] (minus brackets). Now you have a mark on your map which will allow you to know exactly where that chest is no matter which character you’re on.

The real power of this addon, though, is the waypoint system. Before this mod I would memorize a location for something which I got off of a site like Thottbot (for example, 34, 57) and continually open my map to make sure I’m going in the correct direction. Now it’s only a matter of right clicking a MapNote already on the map and marking “Set as MiniNote”. Or, if you’re only looking for a quick location, just type [ /mntloc 34,57 ] and a temporary waypoint will appear. This is very handy for any number of things.

Hint: If you would like to clear that temporary waypoint from your minimap, type [ /mn -minioff ] and it’s gone. Though this won’t clear any MapNotes. Those you need to manually turn off by doing the same as before but selecting “Turn MiniNote Off”.

#3: Titan Panel
As stated, Titan Panel, along with MapNotes, are the most useful addons I have come across. Titan Panel gives you the option to have a bar which houses many useful and informative Mini-Addons (some are built in, but you can download many more by searching “Titan Panel” on WoWUI).

There is a lot of information that can be displayed in a number of different ways. Personally, I use one top bar, which is transparent and doesn’t shift the rest of the UI. You can have up to two different panels configured at the top or bottom, solid or not, etc. Some of the information that can be displayed include your XP and XP/Level gain rate, Gold and Gold gain rate, a percentage of your armor and weapon damage, what kind of loot rules your party currently uses and many other useful and informative things.

#4: Atlas
Atlas is a series of maps which the game doesn’t already provide you, the most notable being instances. Almost every instance in the game (including The Burning Crusade) is mapped and provides you with information such as where a boss or mini boss is or the order in which you have to activate something (such as the snake statues in Sunken Temple).

This information can help a lot. For example, if this is your party’s first time here, you can help guide everyone through with the information provided. It also prevents you from having to Alt-Tab out of the game at times to figure out where you must go next. Though Atlas does not mark your place in the current dungeon, it is still a life saver and a time saver.

There are a few other maps included aside from the instance maps, such as Outdoor Raid locations and flight path locations.

#5: Gatherer
And finally, Gatherer is for anyone who has a character which has a gathering profession – either Mining or Herbalism. What Gatherer does is marks the herbs, mine nodes and treasure on your main map and your mini map. This way, if you need to collect a number of a certain kind of herb or ore, you don’t have to blindly go somewhere and search, provided that you’ve already right-clicked on the node or herb before (and you don’t have to have that profession to be able to mark it on your map).

While it doesn’t take the place of the tracking skills which come with Mining and Herbalism, it enhances them so you can see where the nodes are further away than the tracking skill can track. You technically can use it in place of the tracking skills (for example, if you’re a Hunter and need to have Humanoids tracked at that time) but it’s not a guarantee that someone hasn’t already expelled that node within the past few minutes/hours.

So there you have it, five of my favorite World of Warcraft addons. I hope you find this information helpful in your adventures in Azeroth.