Sometime back I wrote about 5 useful add-ons for Mozilla Firefox, the we also talked about creating a Persona for FF besides some easy and free tools for the world’s most loved browser. Firefox is gaining ground. I have now made a list of some useful add-ons for sharing with you guys, gals included The vary in category from getting updates on weather to finding a websites original location etc. Read on for some rich web surfing experience.

 1-Click YouTube Video Download. This add-on does exactly what its name says, it downloads the YouTube video that you are viewing with a single click in FLV, 3GP modes and saves it to the desired location on PC. The best part is its simplicity and ease of use. Upon installation a small button will appear on the left bottom window of the YouTube video screen, all one has to do is click it and Presto! Try it out, it is available here oh and watch the screenshot below.

Simply Click the Red Download button

The Mozilla Firefox RC2 is now available for download. As usual it is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux in over 70 languages. The release notes can be accessed here and known issues are documented here. Some of the features of Firefox 3.6 RC2 are:

• Support for WOFF font format.
• Support for latest web technologies like DOM, CSS and HTML5.
• They say the browser performance has improved considerably at startup.
• Automatic alerts for out of date plug-ins.
• Off course Personas come supported and are just a click away.
• A lot of bug fixes and improvements in stability, security and performance.
• The usual add-ons are also supported.

By the way Mozilla Firefox just recently made available the release candidate of Firefox for Maemo. All those in possession of a Nokia N900 or N810 can also get it from the Mozilla website for Mobile devices.

We all love Firefox for its flexibility of doing all sort of browsing tasks using useful firefox add-ons and plug-ins, beautiful interface using themes and persona . But if we have to reinstall our operating system ( windows/linux/mac ) or want to move to a new PC/mac or laptop, moving all our personalized settings, add-ons and themes can be a real hassle and can cost significant time. Thanks to multiple utilities and Firefox extensions this problem is solved and we can create complete and partial backups of Firefox profile, add-ons, extensions and themes and restore it anywhere we like.

Let’s look at few automated tools for performing backups.

Well we all know Firefox is five years old now. Humans are toddlers at this age but this Browser is flying if not galloping. Sometime back I wrote about Firefox add-ons which are great and worth trying out. Besides all this FF certainly gives users a chance to pep up the looks of the browser itself. Personas, may be applied by a single click. And the numbers are literally running in hundreds if not thousands.

Applying Personas is a simple process, visit the persona page, select the Persona you want to apply, mouse-over it and click apply. That’s it. However, if you want to go a step further and design your own Persona, it’s not all that difficult either. It can be done online as well as offline.

Creating a Persona. There are four steps to creating a Persona.

1.  Create a Persona header image. Dimensions should not exceed 3000 pixels (width) x 200 pixels (length). The file size should not exceed 300 Kb and the image has to be in Jpeg or Png format.

2.  Create a Persona footer image. Dimensions should not exceed 3000 pixels (width) x 100 pixels (length). The file size should not exceed 300 Kb and the image has to be in Jpeg or Png format.

3.   Test you Persona Image. This can be done on your own PC browser or by using the Cross-Platform Photoshop PSD Header Template. The detailed procedure is available at the Firefox Persona Page.

4.    Finally Submit your Persona. After you have tested the images it is now time to submit your Persona to FF. The will be a 24 hours delay at the most after which you will be contacted via e-mail in either case.

A few things to remember are: Do not use images that are highly graphic in nature. Use preferably soft colors. Make use of an Image Editor like Adobe Photoshop, Gimp etc. Or you may as well use of Online Image Editing Resources available on the FF persona page. It’s a good feeling when you make your own Persona and even better when you can share it with the world by uploading it to Firefox repository.

For more info head on to the Firefox Persona Creation Demo Page.

Firefox is not only my favourite browser, millions share this passion with me. This browser since its birth has been growing and attracting attention worldwide. Its small in size, fast and best of all free. Few years back Firefox add-ons started appearing and now there is huge library with thousands of add-ons covering various categories like appearance, toolbars, social networking, dictionaries and plugins etc to name a few. Five very useful ones are listed below.

DownThemAll. This add-on is the Firefox equivalent of leading Download managers like Download Accelerator Plus etc. Since its inception various versions and updates have been released. The latest being DownThemAll 1.1.7.Simply add to your Firefox browser and enjoy uninterrupted downloads.

Converter 0.9.3. If you want to make conversions while browsing a webpage there are easier ways then using a separate application for the purpose. Converter 0.9.3 makes it easy for users to make conversions while being online. Simply select the text and right click to view the converted value in a pop-up menu. Besides this the whole page can also be converted to various units and this app also allows users to make custom conversions. Install it now from here.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Add-on. Everyone of us needs to use a dictionary quite frequently and if one is online then opening up the book version seems such a big chore. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary add-on makes searching for words and terms from within a page easy. Simply type the word in the search window and select the Merriam Webster dictionary tool to find its meaning. The add-on is available here.

Facebook User Search. Users can search for old friends and acquaintances on Facebook using this Firefox add-on. Searches can be made using their names or email addresses. Very handy and easy to use. Install from this location.

TwitterBar. Twitter-aholics who can’t live without tweeting several times a day will find this add-on unavoidable. Users can make posts on twitter from Firefox’s address bar using the TwitterBar. It also allows users to see how many characters are left. The add-on is available here.

As the title of my post shows, Firefox is out celebrating its fifth birthday today. Being my favorite browser from the very beginning, I have always admired its browsing experience as compared to the Internet Explorer. Firefox now shares almost 24 percent of the market with Safari being on 4.4, Google’s Chrome on 3.6 percent, Opera on 2.2 percent and Internet explorer still leading with 65 percent of the market.

The Firefox team celebrates this occasion with the beautiful cake. Yummy, isn’t it?

Moreover it has been discovered that Firefox users has swelled to over 330 million worldwide; almost a quarter of Internet users worldwide choose Firefox. Today, Firefox ships in more than 70 languages and offers users more than 7,000 add-ons to help customize their browsing experience.

Some shining achievements of Firefox are as follow

1- The ubiquitous RSS icon, which was originally created for the Firefox browser and given away by Mozilla, now exists on millions of web sites offering users the ability to get updates on their terms.

2- Led by Firefox’s add-ons system there’s been an explosion in the number of people who are customizing their experiences – both in browsers and on the web. Anywhere from one third to one half of Firefox users have some kind of add-on installed.

3- Firefox’s presence was a large factor in Apple being able to ship a browser to its user base as the Mac came back to the market.

Way to go Firefox….!

Facebook provides four options for content displayed on users pages these are “like, comment and share”. Now there is unofficially a dislike option, thanks to a Frenchman Thomas Moquet. The evil genius worked out a smart way to display this feature for users through a Firefox extension. This obviously means that you will have to use Firefox browser to avail this facility.

To do this he had to use his own server, one which logs a users “disliked” clicks and stores them. So users will be able to see who disliked a particular item or content, till the time the Frenchman’s servers are up. So if you’re not using Firefox or the servers are down you won’t be able to see this nifty mark, which happens to be a thumbs down image, quite similar in proportion to the like but exactly its opposite.

The add-on is available at the Mozilla add-on page. What is Facebook’s response? Well it will simply send out a message to the person who’s post you did not like, informing him/her so, cool isn’t it? See the screenshot below.