Image by Mozilla Corporation

On its own, fresh out of the box, Firefox is an awesome browser delivering a fast and safe web experience. Yet what makes Firefox stand out is its support for a huge number of extensions that let you spruce up your surfing. If you don’t know the best extensions to start with, be sure you check out this list.

Image by: Wladimir Palant

1. AdBlock Plus – if you’re like me who’s easily annoyed with ads taking more than 50% of the page load time, then you’ll surely love this one. AdBlock Plus is an awesome extension that cuts down bandwidth by stripping out all unnecessary ads on a page using filters contributed by the community. It removes all kinds of ads, starting from text links to image ads, or even pop-ups. A nice feature lets you disable blocking on a webpage/site too, so you can show ads on a site you support or develop. Another awesome tweak allows you to hide only certain elements from a web page, especially useful if someone’s watching you from behind.

Image by Giorgio Maone

2. FlashGot Download Manager Integration – if you’re a big internet junkie who likes to download hundreds of different stuff everday, this is an extension for you. FlashGot is an awesome extension that allows you to simultaneously integrate all your different download managers to Firefox.

Be it IDM and FlashGet side by side, FlashGot takes care of the heavy lifting. It even allows you to download embedded media within a page, such as .flv files and MP3’s. One click downloading allows you to take a file and download it, or take a hundred different files together and download them in one instant bulk. This is specially awesome if you don’t want your different download managers grabbing downloads you don’t want.

Image by Christopher Finke

3.) ScribeFire Blog Editor – this one is a very effective tool for bloggers and online journalists. ScribeFire is a fully-featured blog editor that lets you work with your blog without leaving Firefox.

Publish posts, make edits, or upload pictures — all with one box. It even features a full-WYSIWYG editor so you don’t have to memorize a single bit of HTML. Plus Flickr and Zemanta support allows you to insert images related to what you’re writing, and YouTube integration allows you to pull videos directly from YouTube. Newer versions of ScribeFire feature an integration with inLinks, so you can make money even at the comfort of your home. It’s free, it’s fast, and it’s genius.

Image by Coolbuster

4. FasterFox – this is another old plugin that’s still worth mentioning. FasterFox is an extension designed to boost your surfing speed. Literally.

It works by applying numerous tweaks to your browser configuration without you having to dig under the hood yourself. It increases load to web servers, allowing your browser to work like a download accelerator. It gives Firefox more breathing room by increasing the cache size. It has the Advanced Prefetching technology that allows your browser to load linked web pages while the bandwidth is idle, cutting down load time whenever you visit another web page. FasterFox was only available for older versions of Firefox, but thanks to Coolbuster, a version for Firefox 3 and above is available now too.

Image by Xmarks Inc.

5. Xmarks Bookmark Synchronizer – Xmarks (previously Foxmarks) is an awesome cross-browser bookmark synchronizer that does all the bookmarking work while you’re enjoying your daily surf.

It works by syncing all your local bookmarks with an online server (requires free registration), which in turn syncs with every browser you use (be it Safari, Internet Explorer, or Firefox). It’s very slim and easy to use, so you won’t have to worry about excess bulk. It’s very smart too, it syncs at moments where bandwidth usage is low. If you’re a cross-browser type of netzy, you need to have Xmarks.

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