10 Must-Have Firefox 4 Add-ons

The new released Mozilla Firefox 4 is a great improvement over the previous versions of its browser. But those improvements are not enough to make the browser perfect. So, adding some add-ons can help you get more out of Firefox 4. Not all the old add-ons are compatible with the current browser, but every add-on in the list are surely working well with Mozilla Firefox 4. These freebies can help you to power up search, better management of information you find on the internet, keep yourself safe or do various other tasks.

Power Up Search

A great part of your browsing day got only one main tasks - web searching. These three add-ons can help you make searching in Firefox even better and easier.

Apture Highlights

You might usually happen to come across some words or phrases on a Web page and feel like wanting to dig deeper then you should get Apture Highlights.

This add-on will allow you to highlight the word or phrase and click a 'Learn More' bubble to get information from Wikipedia, youtube links, search results on Google and Bing, and images related to the words.Google Maps will give you a map if you've highlighted a location. Click Here to download Apture Highlights

InstantFox

Conduction a comprehensive search often involves having to search in different places around the Web like Google and so on. If you're tired of that routine, InstantFox solves the problem, allowing you to use Firefox's address bar to perform searchs using keywords for different sites.
For examples, to seach Google for Microsoft, type g Microsoft into the address bar. You can add other letters before a search term to search other sites, such as a for Amazon, b for Bing, yh for Yahoo, and y for YouTube. Click Here to download InstantFox

KwiClick

Pretty similar to Apture Hightlights, KwiClick lets you highlights a word or phrase to get more information. But in this case highlighting shows a cloverleaf icon with four leaves - one for each search and information provider, set by default as Google, Wikipedia, YouTube, and Google Maps. Click any icon you like and you'll see information from that site in another window. You can customize the icon with many other providers, as well. Click Here to download KwiClick.

Since Apture Highlights and KwiClick work the same way, they conflict with each other when they are installed together. If you'd like to keep both, you'll need to use a workaround to make both add-ons work perfectly. Apture Highlights takes precedence over KwiClick; when you highlight a word or phrase and hover your mouse over it, the Apture Highlights 'Learn More' bubble appears, while the KwiClick cloverleaf remains hidden and in accessible in background. But if you highlight a word or phrase and right-click, you'll see KwiClick option on the menu. Choose that item to bring KwiClick window.

Manage Online Information

Are you suffering from information overload? Well, most people do. The following Firefox add-ons make you gather information easier and keep it organized easier once you've found it.

Feedly

With Feedly, you can create your own personalized newspapaer by gathering stories and blog posts from news soucres across the Internet. It can constantly self-update, so whenever you check it, the latest news is always available for you. Feedly uses RSS technology and starts off with a pre-built set of feeds, but you can easily customize them. It also integrates with Google Reader, so if you've already built up feeds there, it'll grab those for you as well. Click Here to download Feedly.

Read It Later

If you're looking for an excellent way to save articles and pages on the Web so that you can refer to them in the future, Read It Later is for you. This, my personal favorite, add-on will let you save the article or page you want by simply clicking a small '>' icon at the right end of the Firefox address bar while you're on a page that you want to save. You can then go back and read the saved item whenever you want, via the Firefox add-on, from the Web itself, or on another computer or mobile device with a Read It Later add-on.

To read saved articles and pages, you click a Read It Later icon that's seperate from the one you use to save the pages. There's a chance that the icon won't initailly appear, however. To make it show up in Firefox 4, click the orange Firefox button at the upper-left corner of the screen, select Options -> Toolbar Layout, and then drag the Read It Later icon to the Firefox toolbar. Click Here to download Read It Later.

Protect Yourself Online

The Internet can be dangerous, with malicious softwares and hackers trying to get your private information. But you can fight back those threats with these two Firefox add-ons.

NoScript

Many of the things that make the Web a great place to visit but JavaScript, Flash, and other interactive technologies also make it a risky place to visit. In addition to delivering useful information and services, such technologies can be vulnerable to exploits.

With NoScript, you can block them from runnng, permit them to run just once, or allow them to run every time you visit web sites that you know and trust. Click Here to download NoScript.

BetterPrivacy

If you are an intense Web-user,  your hard disk is most likely to filled with so-called supercookies, also known as Flash cookies or LSOs (Local Shared Objects), which gather information about your browsing histories to multiple sites. These flash cookies can't be cleared with normal cookies removing options embedded with the browser. BetterPrivacy can hunt them down and zaps them to erase your trail. Click Here to download BetterPrivacy.

Miscellaneous Add-Ons

Check out these three handy tools to find out about the weather, block ads, and more effectively mangae multiple Web pages.

ForecastFox Weather



You want to know which way the wind is blowing, or to learn about current conditions anywhere? ForecastFox Weather delivers weather reports staright to Firefox.

After you install it and choose your area of interest, the appropriate weather information appears at the bottom right of your browser. Just hover your mouse over the display to see even more details. Click Here to download ForecastFox Weather.

Adblock Plus

If you're tired of annoying ads that pop up whenever you surf the Web, make them disappear with Adblock Plus.

It gives you control over which one to block and which one to let through, so you can block ads on some sites and enable some ads on others. You can also fine-tune the add-on so that it only blocks ads and doesn't interfere with site functionality. Click Here to download Adblock Plus.

FoxTab

Are you bored of using same old tab switching option? If so, you can control browsers tabs through a 3D interface with the tab tamer FoxTab. In addition to being pretty, the interface gives you greater control and includes a Safari-like feature that shows your favourite sites every time you open a new tab. Click Here to download FoxTab.