Convert Firefox Into A Social Networking Hub With Add-ons and Extensions
Flock is a browser which makes social networking more easier than ever bringing to you a host of tools to interact with different social networking websites. Firefox on the other hand is not social networking ready but can be easily converted into a social networking hub by using extensions and add-ons.
In this post we will take a look at those useful extensions and add-ons which will help you convert Firefox into a social networking hub. Anticipating the Firefox 3 launch tomorrow we will only be talking about extensions that are compatible with Firefox 3 and above, those extensions will also be compatible with lower versions of Firefox.
StumbleUpon Toolbar
StumbleUpon is a great way to come across wonderful sites. The StumbleUpon Toolbar extension will help you discover websites in your selected categories. It will also let you share and connect with your friends.
Shareaholic
Are you a avid social networker? Shareaholic is one extension that will fulfill your addiction with social networks by allowing you to bookmark or e-mail pages to a wide array of social networks.
Shareaholic currently supports digg, del.icio.us, facebook, foxiewire, friendfeed, google bookmarks, google reader, healthranker, kaboodle, magnolia, mixx, myspace, pownce, reddit, simpy, stumbleupon, streakr, truemors, tumblr, twitter, ycombinator, bzzster and more.
ShareThis
Another extension similar to Shareaholic, ShareThis makes it more easier and efficient to share any type of content with anyone you want to share it with. ShareThis also makes it easier to share with your friends by providing you a mash up of address book from popular social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, AIM, Outlook and more.
Del.icio.us Bookmarks
This is the official extension created by Yahoo which will help you easily bookmark any site to your del.icio.us, you can also browse all your bookmarks in the sidebar.
Download Del.icio.us Bookmarks
Dashblog
What happens when you see a interesting image and want to quickly want to share it with your friends through your blog, twitter or tumblr? Do you want to quickly be able to share those videos, images and websites without having to go through much trouble. Dashblog is a extension that will quickly collect videos, images, text/quotes, songs and screen-captures from any web page and publish them to your blog (wordpress, blogger, tumblr) or twitter.
Piclens
PicLens transforms your browser into a visually stunning experience for enjoying online photos and videos. You can effortlessly search and zoom your way around thousands of images and YouTube videos faster and more immersively than ever before.
Piclens lets you search YouTube videos and discover videos and photos from various other sites. You can also browser products from Amazon with a 3D experience.
Piclens currently supports a host of services including Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and almost all of the popular image sharing websites.
Clipmarks
Clipmarks is like adding a pair of scissors to your browser, letting you capture exactly what you want others to see (text, images or video). Your clips are saved on clipmarks.com and can easily be syndicated to FriendFeed, Twitter, Facebook or other sites.
Meebo
Meebo is a popular online instant messaging service which allows you to chat with friends from multiple IM networks without having to install any client on your desktop.
We have made a exception to include Meebo in our list even though it is not compatible with Firefox 3 since it is a real must have extension and is definitely useful.
GMarks
GMarks allows you to sync and manage your Google Bookmarks from within Firefox.
Related Downloads: GBookmarks | Google Bookmarks Button
TwitterFox
The extension adds a tiny icon on the status bar that notifies you when your friends update their statuses. Also it has a small text input field to update your status from within Firefox without having to visit the site.
TwitterBar
Are you in hurry and want to post something to twitter? TwitterBar comes to the rescue by allowing you to post to twitter directly from the Firefox address bar. Simply type in your message and click on the icon to submit your post to twitter.
Digg Sidebar
Who can ever forget Digg when one talks about social networking? Digg sidebar is a useful extension that will allow you to see and Digg stories in the Firefox Sidebar.
View all the stories as they occur without having to refresh the page over and over again, you can also choose from various categories and topics and from popular/upcoming/all sections on Digg by just using a menu.
FlickrFox
FlickrFox allows you to browse and search Flickr photos in a sidebar.
Facebook Toolbar
The official toolbar from Facebook which allows you to easily access your Facebook account using the toolbar, without having to visit the website.
You can also access your Facebook account from the Firefox sidebar.
Email This! Bookmarklet
Email This! will send your recipient the link, title, & highlighted text of the page you are viewing using GMail, Google Apps GMail, Yahoo, and Stand-Alone Mail Clients like Outlook Express, Thunderbird, & More!
Download Email This! Bookmarklet
Other worth while mentions for bringing Social Networking into Firefox
We hope that these extensions will help you make Firefox your one stop hub for social networking. If you use any other extension or would like to recommend them to other readers feel free to tell us about them in your comments.
Nirmal
June 17th, 2008 at 6:33 am #
Awesome list Keith. I need to try out more from these. Stumbled.
K-IntheHouse
June 17th, 2008 at 10:45 am #
Excellent list of extensions, Keith. A couple more extensions that will bring Firefox closer to FLock would be Sage Too for feed reading and FireUploader for uploading pictures to different media sites. Also, ScribeFire makes for a nice blog editor that’s available in Flock.:-) Stumbled.
Joel Thomas
June 17th, 2008 at 11:08 am #
Yeah like Nirmal said, I havent tried all here…so have to try it out…
Syahid A.
June 17th, 2008 at 12:14 pm #
This is a cool list. Never heard of Dashblog before. Stumbled too.
Keith Dsouza
June 17th, 2008 at 12:54 pm #
@Nirmal @Joel I have using most of them and it definitely makes my life much more easier
Keith Dsouza
June 17th, 2008 at 12:54 pm #
Glad you liked it K-IntheHouse and thanks for adding to the list too
Ram
June 17th, 2008 at 4:12 pm #
Awesome list dude, i have to try some of them. All of these are compatible with FF3?
Madhur Kapoor
June 18th, 2008 at 12:29 am #
Amazing List Keith. I have started using FF now and so trying out a few extensions.
tom
June 19th, 2008 at 12:02 pm #
again — really nice list — am big fan of dashblog now –
gary katsevman
July 30th, 2008 at 11:22 pm #
hey, good list and cool stuff. however, if you really want a social browser, you should try flock. It is a decent browser based on firefox. the flock 2 betas are based on firefox 3. so, you get flock 2 beta 2, i believe that is the newest, it already combines a lot of the stuff like email twitter, facebook, all the really popular stuff, for the rest, you install the addons above, since almost all firefox extensions work in flock as well.
The Chetan
October 8th, 2008 at 1:30 pm #
If i will install that much of plug-ins in my browser, it will hide the websites that i am surfing !!!
BUT, Thanks for sharing this great list.
computer tweaks
October 17th, 2008 at 4:36 pm #
i have installed flock and it take cares of all these
Manan
October 25th, 2008 at 3:37 pm #
Argh! If only Firefox with only AdBlock+ would not consume 150MB RAM I would consider adding more add-ons.
gary katsevman
October 25th, 2008 at 3:42 pm #
Manan: use minefield, the nightly builds of firefox. It does take up a bit less memory, not significantly, but it is so much faster, it is actually even snappier than google chrome on my computer, which takes up just as much memory for the stuff i use my browser for, and it does not have any addons.