11 Powerful Firefox 3 Add-ons That Can Replace Standalone Applications
Firefox add-on developers have created some impressive applications that can replace larger, bloated programs. These add-ons can help if you have a small amount of precious hard drive space or you are on a tight budget and don’t have cash to fork out for applications. All, of which, can be accessed right from your Firefox browser window.
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- Easy to use IRC client that runs outside of the browser. I prefer this application over mIRC and Trillian.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- Get the feel of the Dreamweaver IDE in a Firefox extension. Edit your documents right next to your web pages as you surf. I still use the full edition of Dreamweaver, but this is a great way for clients to change their own content without dropping the bucks for a full version of Dreamweaver.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- I have been using this as my FTP client of choice. It’s a FTP client in a browser window. This a great for moving a files to and from servers without firing up any applications. I’ve been running it for over a year and have not had any problems.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- Graphing Calculator toolbar. Enter up to 5 equations into this toolbar, then view the graphs using Firefox native SVG support. The toolbar allows rescaling the x and y coordinates and redefining the domain of x. Can be used as an alternative to your TI-85.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- I just found this GUI prototyping and diagramming add-on and totally love it. I have begun to do mock-ups for a large project I am working on from inside of Firefox. It saves me loads of time and I don’t have to fire up Fireworks or Illustrator. It has tons of features I still haven’t played with yet.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- Full-Screen, 3D — PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for finding and viewing online photos and videos. Our “3D Wall” lets you effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images, videos, news feeds, sports feeds, and more. An absolutely stunning GUI experience.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- Regular Expressions Tester offers developers functions for testing their regular expressions.
The Tool includes options like case sensitive, global and multiline search, color highlighting for found expressions, a replacement function incl. backreferences, auto-closing of brackets, testing while writing and saving and managing of expressions. A free alternative to RegEx Buddy.
- developer home
- install add-on (correct link)
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- Nice and compact RSS / XML feed reader which resides in your sidebar. I was one of the first add-ons I installed when I first got Firefox. Can be a replacement to FeedDemon.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- An email client for Firefox that handles POP3, IMAP, and SMTP. Not as powerful and all-encompassing as Outlook, but very impressive. Very nice to have a lightweight client in a broswer tab.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- Microsoft Word is suppose to be able to post to Wordpress blogs, but I have never have it work to my liking. However, there is ScribeFire. It is a full-featured blog editor that integrates with your browser and lets you easily post to your blog.
- developer home
- install add-on
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- I’ve been working with Adobe AIR lately and have needed to do data management in SQLite. This add-on gives me all the necessary tools and wizards to view and alter my SQL databases whether they are local or remote.
- developer home
- install add-on
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Know of any Firefox add-ons that can replace larger applications? Let me know in the comments.
I’ll have to check out Codetch, thanks for bringing it to my attention. Looks like their wiki has been taken over by spammers, though
I liked SQLite Manager when I tried it too, but they must update it three times a week. Whenever I restarted my browser, there would be an update for it. Made me a little unsure of the code quality, so I ditched it in favour of a desktop tool.
Thanks for the list - I’ll try out Regular Expressions Tester and SQLite Manager.
Hi Jason,
Thank you for posting about PicLens! We truly appreciate it. We’re delighted to hear that you are enjoying PicLens 1.7.
For interested readers, please check out http://piclens.com/demo/ and http://blog.cooliris.com to learn more.
Thanks again,
Luna and The Cooliris Team
Thanks for dropping by Luna. PicLens is a wonderful application! I’ve shown it to about ten people around the office they ran over and installed it for themselves.
Keep up the great work!
I love PicLens… it is so very handy at work when i’m looking for pics and ideas. thank-you
Piclens - looks great - as a Linux user I’m looking forward to a version I can use!
Too bad PicLens is Windows only.
That’s funny, it is installed on my mac right now and is beautiful in all its 24 inch glory.
Personally, Chatzilla does not replace a traditional IRC program, at least for me. It’s too feature limited, and just drives Firefox’s resources up too much….FireFTP…well, most OSes have integration with FTP, don’t they? Sage is nice if you only use one computer or have it one a portable device…And Scribefire has a nasty way of formatting your blog posts. You mention Word, but their Live offering does indeed post to blogs, and does it decently.
Although not as fully featured as free download manager, Down Them All is a nice download manager extension.
PicLens is not Windows only…. I’m running it on my (Leopard) MacBook Pro.
this should be the link for the regex tester: http://sebastianzartner.de/new/downloads/RExT/RExT_1.1.5.6.xpi
the posted one is not for ff 3.
codetch did not install because of browser incompatibly. with ff3… hmmm
Dude FireFTP is DaBomb! I have been using CuteFTP for 10 years or more. Not any longer. Thanks man.
JT
PicLens Looks nice and sounds nice. However, i seems couldn’t get it to work on my W2K desktop firefox 3.0
Great - a couple of nice new little add ons that will speed things up
chatzilla all the way.
a “irc:// “” uri has been missing from the browser world
for a long long time …
also, hopefully, with more TESTERS, it will become more stable/secure
not. after all IRC is where all the sharks swim …
A couple of nice little apps there that will increase productivity - well done
you forgot about adblock plus
I’m a big fan of Zotero. Library/Bibliography management placed straight into your browser. An EndNote killer if ever I saw one.
(More for the humanities though than developers.)
Daniel,
Thanks telling us about Zotero. Looks like it has some potential for compiling data.
You have chatzilla covered
but no sameplace (great for jabber, and using jabber just about every other IM protocol)
I am totally into the Pencil idea. Exactly what I have been looking for to help update the site.
You forgot Firebug !
Also, stylish is great toooo~~
FireFTP and Sage are GREAT! Love these tools and they save me a a lot of time. Never went back to IE since I installed FireFox, that’s for sure.
Another one for Zotero - a really brilliant citation and journal article manager. Beats EndNote hands down.
Piclens is really really cool.. i like photography, and this is one tool that helps me browse my friends/contacts pics very neatly.
And yes firebug is another add-on that’s a must if u yourself wanna try a few web tricks or play with html/css/etc
Wonderful list, some I haven’t heard of… @nick what application does Firebug replace? It is definitely one of the best extensions for FF, but it doesn’t replace a standalone application which is what this article is about…
nice list, i have been a fan of scribefire, simplemail, fireftp, and codetech and use them all the time. going to try the pencil project and sage.
Hey Jason,
Your FireFTP link is waaay out of date (that version is from 2 years ago). Get the latest here: http://fireftp.mozdev.org/
Cheers!
Mime
Thanks for bringing that to my attention, Mime. I updated the link to point to the site instead of the plugin itself.
Also, thank you for FireFTP. It’s a great add-on that saves me the effort of having a separate FTP client. Clients like it too.
I tried to download and install this ChatZilla. Downloaded fine, but it would not install. My Firefox 3 said it was not compatible.
Hi Thanks for putting the list together, I’m so glad I cam accross it. Its the Scribe Fire that interested me here - certainly going to be a great help.
Hmm, Opera does most of these out of the box, and a couple of them can be achieved in Widgets..
no doubt some nice finds there… Also two I would go crazy without…
Colorzilla
MeasureIt
Screen grab is another nice one
Great list. I can definitely use some of these add-ons. Thanks!
Very useful addons for Internet users.
Thanks
http://www.toputop.com
Since I didnt include a link in my last post
http://www.sameplace.cc/
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3633
Very cool stuff. I like piclens.
I would like a tool that replace firebug
I’ve used Scrapbook for some time. Somewhat like Zotero, but saves to a plain file structure, so items are not locked within a database. Very reliable and very useful (except for the backlog of “to read” items I now have!).
I’ve also been a big fan of Mozilla and have been using it for quite some time. I’ve also used different to enhance my Mozilla experience. And yes, chatzilla and fireftp has also been one of my favorite add-ons.
Great post, I have had your blog in my google reader for quite some time, and you always produce quality articles. Great job, keep up the great work!