Computerworld has published a list of the top 10 Firefox extensions to avoid. Usually I find a lot of use in “top 10” articles but this one was no help at all. I run six of the ten they tell me to avoid. (FasterFox, Video Downloader, PDF Download, ScribeFire, Greasemonkey, and TabBrowser Preferences) Granted most of the points they make are valid but they’re hardly reasons not to use them. As some of the commenters have responded, the article seems to be geared for you mom and dad with a computer at home. If you’re the person they call for help, you’re perfectly safe pretty much running any of these extensions.
Michael Sauers is currently the Director of Technology for Do Space in Omaha, NE. Michael has been training librarians in technology for the past twenty years and has also been a public library trustee, a bookstore manager for a library friends group, a reference librarian, serials cataloger, technology consultant, and bookseller since earning his MLS in 1995 from the University at Albany’s School of Information Science and Policy. Michael has also written dozens of articles for various journals and magazines and his fourteenth book, Emerging Technologies: A Primer for Librarians (w/ Jennifer Koerber) was published in May 2015 and more books are on the way. In his spare time he blogs at travelinlibrarian.info, runs The Collector’s Guide to Dean Koontz Web site, takes many, many photos, and typically reads more than 100 books a year.
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2 Replies to “Top 10 Firefox extensions to avoid?”
I like how they cautioned against adblock plus. They have a point, and they tell their bias, but I still don’t want to go back to looking at ads.
The funny thing is, they don’t mention the REAL reason not to use adblock- sometimes you miss out on legitimate content. Perfectly legitimate content (including links on my workplace’s website, which contains no ads!) disappears with adblock.
I use five of the extensions mentioned in the article, but their reasoning was not that clear–besides, most of these extensions have option menus where you can tweak the settings to your liking (including Fasterfox).
I love ScribeFire and yes, all blogging platforms have a blog editor, but c’mon, you can save your drafts (or notes), post to multiple blogs, and edit them later–one blog I contribute to does not allow saving draft posts so right there ScribeFire wins major brownie points.
I like how they cautioned against adblock plus. They have a point, and they tell their bias, but I still don’t want to go back to looking at ads.
The funny thing is, they don’t mention the REAL reason not to use adblock- sometimes you miss out on legitimate content. Perfectly legitimate content (including links on my workplace’s website, which contains no ads!) disappears with adblock.
I use five of the extensions mentioned in the article, but their reasoning was not that clear–besides, most of these extensions have option menus where you can tweak the settings to your liking (including Fasterfox).
I love ScribeFire and yes, all blogging platforms have a blog editor, but c’mon, you can save your drafts (or notes), post to multiple blogs, and edit them later–one blog I contribute to does not allow saving draft posts so right there ScribeFire wins major brownie points.