10 browser extensions that rock

Enhancing the Internet, one add-on at a time.

The humble web browser has become an integral part of peoples lives. It gives us access to the biggest pool of information available - the Internet - whilst providing the tools to navigate its unimaginably large scope with ease. It's for this reason that extensions/add-ons, additional software which adds extra functionality to the browser, have become very popular in recent years. People want software customised to facilitate their needs and wants, not what a team of developers think is best.

I've come to rely on many add-ons of late. In the interest of sharing these, I've chosen ten of my favourites for both Chrome and Firefox browsers.

1. Lazarus Form Recovery
Firefox | Chrome
This awesome extension does exactly what it claims - form recovery. Have you ever written a lengthy piece of text within a web form, hit submit, and had the server time-out? Or perhaps the auto-logoff 'feature' caught you off guard? Sometimes you can hit 'back' on your browser and have all your text remain intact. Other times, however, you're greeted with a black canvas, ready for you to re-type your message. Fortunately, Lazarus logs all the forms you fill out, and keeps them in an encrypted database for future reference. If you're concerned about privacy, you can set it to disable logging of secure https pages. It's a brilliant safeguard to have.

2. ChatZilla
Firefox only
ChatZilla is an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client based on the Mozilla framework. It's a neat add-on to have if you're still communicating via this 22 year old technology. I know I do, and so should you!

3. ChromoDoro
Chrome only
Chrome's answer to the Pomodoro. "What's a Pomodoro?" I hear you ask. It's an Italian kitchen timer. Now why would you want a kitchen timed in your browser? It's the perfect way to use the Pomodoro Technique whilst working within your browser, of course! For people who want a structured study/work system, this is a really cool way to go about it. The extension adds a timer to the browser that when activated, initiates a countdown from 25 minutes. When the timer's up, you have the opportunity to take a five minute break (also timed). Want to know the specifics? Read about it here.

4. Net Usage Item
Firefox only
Keep finding yourself capped due to heavy Internet usage? This add-on will provide you with a constantly updated percentage of your used quota, including a marker informing you where you should be that month. Go beyond that mark, and you're setting yourself up for being capped. It's a handy tool for managing your Internet usage in Firefox.

5. SmoothScroll
Chrome only
For some unknown reason, Chrome doesn't natively support smooth scrolling. Fortunately this has been solved with the arrival of SmoothScroll, a customisable smooth scrolling extension. The default settings are a little odd, but after some tweaking, the result is silky smooth scrolling. For reference, these are the settings I'm using:

Frames per second: 60
Animation time in milliseconds: 200
Stride size per scroll in pixel: 50
Pulse Scale: 2
Pulse Normalize: 1

6. Firebug
Firefox only
Unlike Chrome, Firefox doesn't support element inspection natively. Firebug allows Firefox users to inspect the elements of a given web page. This includes viewing and editing markup on a live page to quickly determine how changes will affect particular elements. It's a handy debugging tool for web developers.

7. UndoIt! (Firefox equivalent, Undo Closed Tabs Button)
Firefox | Chrome
UndoIt! is a simple concept. A one click solution to restoring the last tab closed. Accidently close a tab you needed? Just hit undo and you're set!

8. Flashblock
Firefox | Chrome
Flash can be a pain sometimes. It can be used for annoying purposes (automatically loading videos), malware (via Flash exploits) and uses up valuable CPU cycles in machines such as netbooks. Flashblock solves this by replacing flash content with an icon inside a blank box. If you want to see the Flash content, you click on the box to activate it. If you trust a site, you can add it to the whitelist so that Flash can run on that particular domain at any time.

9. Turn Off the Lights
Chrome only
Turn Off the Lights darkens the screen exposing Flash elements. This is handy when watching videos online, similar to the YouTube feature 'lights off'.

10. DownloadThemAll!
Firefox only
The download manager in Firefox is dismal. It's unreliable, often slow, and is limited in the amount of features it offers. DownloadThemAll! solves this problem by integrating a full-fledged download manager right into the browser itself. Batch, segmented and closely controlled downloading is no longer an issue with this brilliant add-on installed.

Now that I've shared my picks, I want to hear yours! Let me know what you use in the comments section below! :)