This is an ongoing list of add-ons for Firefox I find that I feel are particularly good at what they aim to do, and that I feel more people should be aware of.
Feel free to make an Issue if you feel there's a phenomenal add-on missing from this list!
A note: there's a Firefox fork called Floorp that actually has a lot of QoL improvements added by default. Silly name aside, it's worth looking into if you're interested in "enhancing" the way you use Firefox.
- Quality-of-Life Improvements
- For Students
- Utilities
- Productivity
- Customization
- Extensions not included
- License
Extensions that make the overall Firefox browsing experience better in ways that benefit just about everyone. May also have the added benefit of improving your privacy.
- uBlock Origin: The most reputable tracker/ad/content blocker available for browsers to date.
- Bypass Paywalls Clean: Get rid of all paywalls on nearly any news/article website. For obvious reasons, this extension gets taken down somewhat frequently, so here's an alternate link. It's a little more complex to install it this way, but a lot more reliable.
- Return YouTube Dislike: Re-enable dislike statistics on YouTube. Works well with Enhancer for YouTube.
- CleanURLs: Skim off the automatically-appended user tracking parts of URLs, leaving behind nothing but what you wanted to click.
- BetterViewer: Gives the in-browser image browser a total glow-up, providing easy zooming, cropping, editing, and more.
- Facebook Container: Stop Facebook from tracking your every move by completely isolating it from the rest of your browser.
- Terms of Service; Didn't Read: Get immediate feedback on the terms of service of all websites you visit, and what that actually means for you and you rights, in the form of an easy-to-understand A-E grade.
- Flagfox: Shows you the country and IP address for every website you visit with a simple, clickable flag icon.
- I still don't care about cookies Gets rid of that intrusive "Allow cookies" banner on all websites. NOTE: if this is a necessary popup in order to use the website, the extension will automatically accept cookies, which sometimes includes accepting all of them. If privacy is important to you, please look into this extension and make sure it's right for you.
Extensions that are particularly well-suited for high-school/college students. They might also fit elsewhere on this list, but I'm a student, so this category holds some personal relevance!
- Simplify: Will automatically fill out job applications with pre-set information you provide. The company also maintains a GitHub page where they host a repo listing hundreds of software internships for summer of the relevant year.
- Better Canvas: Complete customization over your Canvas portal. Works well with Tasks for Canvas™.
- Tasks for Canvas™: Renders Canvas tasks in a much more aesthetically pleasing and functional way. Works well with Better Canvas.
Extensions that add some helpful tools to the Firefox browsing experience. Usually super useful for some people, and largely unnecessary for others; it all depends on you!
- Indie Wiki Buddy: Provides a direct link to an independently-maintained alternative to nearly all Fandom wikis you might visit.
- Swift Selection Search: Access a fully customizable list of search engines directly from a highlighted portion of text.
- Progressive Web Apps: Turns websites into stand-alone applications when requested - only available for websites that support the PWA format. Particularly useful for apps that might not need an active internet connection to function (i.e. Excalidraw)
- Web Archives: Allows you to quickly access archives of the website you're currently on, from a variety of archive services.
- Sidebery Highly customizable tab manager, including tools such as grouping tabs by container, organizing bookmarks in different formats, custom rules for offloading tabs, and plenty more.
- Firefox Multi-Account Containers: Improve the already-existing "containers" feature of Firefox by introducing custom containers, allowing you to isolate tabs from one another so you can log into multiple accounts on the same website, avoid cookie troubles, and more.
- SingleFile: Download any webpages you visit to a single, portable HTML file.
- De-Troll YouTube: Permanently remove spam and troll accounts from comment sections.
- LibRedirect: Automatically redirects you from privacy-disrespecting websites to more reasonably-behaving frontends - same content, better experience. And, yes, you can pick and choose what gets redirected and to where!
- LanguageTool: A writing assistant to improve your grammar, spelling, and prose across all the websites in which you type; pretty much an free and open-source alternative to Grammarly.
- Snowflake: Allow individuals in internet-censored countries to leverage your browser connection as an entrypoint to the uncensorable TOR network (you can read more on their add-on page to understand why this is secure).
- Enhancer for YouTube: Take complete control over your YouTube viewing experience, from disabling those annoying cards that show up at the end of videos, to creating custom keyboard shortcuts. Works well with Return Youtube Dislike. Alternatives: Improve Youtube
- JustDeleteMe: Adds a little icon to your browser showing you how difficult it is to delete an account you might make on the current website.
- Netflix International: Allows you to select any of the available audio and subtitle tracks for whatever you're watching on Netflix from all the countries in which its available. English subtitles for your favorite foreign show are only available on the German version of Netflix? Not anymore!
- Improve YouTube: Fine-grained control over the entire YouTube experience. Alternatives: Enhancer for YouTube
- Auto Tab Discard: Offloads unused tabs from memory to save RAM (THIS DOES NOT DELETE TABS, the name is based on the underlying code used to build the add-on.)
- Chrome Mask: Allows you to "trick" certain websites into thinking you're on Chrome, which may improve functionality (looking at you, YouTube...)
- Gesturefy: Use mouse gestures to control your browsing experience, allocating things like a counterclockwise turn or a swipe right to do things like going back a page, opening a new tab, and more. Note: This only allows mouse gestures, not touchpad gestures.
- 600% Sound Volume: Take advantage of all your speakers' power by increasing the maximum sound output YouTube allows.
- Dark Reader: Automatically render any website in a dark mode theme.
- Copy PlainText: Copy website text without any of the formatting. No more unexpected changes in font or color when you add stuff to your documents.
- Clear Browsing Data: Quickly and conveniently delete cookies, history, and more from a single toolbar.
- Audio Equalizer: A convenient way to change browser-wide audio settings on-the-fly.
- SaveFrom.net helper all-in-1 / youtube downloader: Easily download any YouTube video. NOTE: If you're using a Linux computer, just get the Video Downloader Flatpak. It works for a huge number of video providers (which I don't think SaveFrom does) and doesn't bombard you with ads and then sometimes just not work like many online options do.
These extensions "quiet down" your browsing experience so you can get more work done, without as many of the endless distractions of the internet getting in your way.
- Limit tabs: Stop tab hoarding in its tracks by putting a hard limit on the number of tabs you can have open.
- Unhook: Eliminate YouTube's recommended videos, comments, and even more distracting things to take control of your viewing experience.
- Momentum: A sleek new tab page focused on improving productivity. Alternatives: HNTP, Tabliss, New Tab Override
- Adaptive Theme Creator: Creates on-the-fly themes to match the style off the current webpage; comes with plenty of settings to fine-tune the themes you get.
- Firefox GX: Turns the Firefox UX/UI into one similar to that of Opera GX, with directions on how to customize. Works well with Gx-mods and GX Theme Styles. Please, don't use Opera products.
- Stylus: Easily download, manage, and create community-created themes for any website imaginable.
- Tabliss: A calm new tab for productivity with rich customizability. Alternatives: Momentum, HNTP, New Tab Override
- Humble New Tab Page: A minimal yet customizable new tab page. Alternatives: Momentum, Tabliss, New Tab Override
- New Tab Override: Set custom URLs and settings for your new tab. Alternatives: Momentum, Tabliss, HNTP
- Tampermonkey: Apply custom scripts to websites for maximum customizability.
These extensions are ones I am aware of but don't particularly like, or I feel have a better alternative (included in parentheses if relevant). Feel free to peruse them at your leisure regardless.
- Video DownloadHelper
- DeArrow: I really want to like DeArrow, but the button to toggle crowdsourced vs original titles doesn't always work, and that you have to "re-register" for free trials every so and so amount of time is incredibly frustrating.
- OneTab (hasn't been updated in a while and some users are complaining about losing their tabs.)
- Tree Style Tab (everything TST can do, Sidebery seems to do better, all while using less memory.)
- Privacy Badger (With uBlock, it kind of becomes moot, and might even work against it in some ways. Better to just pick one [I've picked uBlock])
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Zero 1.0 International License.
