Firefox Extensions no-one needs?

Computerworld published its “Top 10 Firefox extensions to avoid” (of which Computerwoche.de published its German version, naming it “…which no-one needs”(!), which I read first) – some of the criticism, in my opinion, rather questionable, some rather okay (the list numbers link to Computerworld’s article pages):

1. Fasterfox (prefetching of linked pages): I don’t like that that much either.

2. NoScript (en-/disable JavaScript and plugins per site, additional security features):

“If you really have a need for this kind of control, then you’re already using the extension and will continue to do so. But for the average Web surfer, constantly having to whitelist sites so that scripts can execute in order to give you a fully formed Web experience gets tedious very quickly.”

The German article skips the first sentence quoted above – a major point in my criticism of them.

“Is it worth the hassle? No. […] Most typical Web surfers who install this extension remove it after the novelty wears off.”

Disagree. I wouldn’t want to miss it even if it takes 2 clicks to make some sites work.

And I’d like to know where your “statistics” are coming from…

3. Adblock and AdBlock Plus (remove ads): Sure, CW, you and others like to get money to finance yourself and hardly anyone would like to pay for all the web sites (s)he reads occasionally, which might be necessary without advertising. And as long as the ads are not that annoying – however, Computerwoche.de has a giant and a normal banner on top and a higher, narrower inside the article, all of them animated GIFs (that can be easily stopped) often using annoying Flash (I probably was lucky in my first test), and something more in the sidebar’s bottom, only seen in long articles. You, Computerworld, are more also annoying with Flash animations. And I can completely agree to

“We’ll be the first to admit that there are some horribly annoying ads out there.”

But are you really serious about the sentence

“But we prefer using Nuke Anything Enhanced to zap the annoying ads while continuing to support the sites we love by allowing most ads to appear. “

that directly follows? Nuke Anything can modify web pages in the current browser display, but only temporarily. So you want people to manually click away every single ad element every time, ad elements that get on your nerves at first and maybe even cover the page content?

Moreover, blocking annoying Flash and other ads saves bandwidth resources, the waste of which you complain about with Fasterfox and TrackMeNot…

4. PDF Download (popup window with info, selection of what to do): Don’t know it, can’t tell anything about it. So I assume the problems CW mention are correct.

5. Video Downloader (download of videos from YouTube & co.): Right, it’s a pity this runs through another server that is often overloaded.

“Perhaps the extension is a victim of its own success, but until the server issues are addressed, save yourself some aggravation and skip this one.”

Aha. Avoid it, because it’s popular and used by many people. Sure. (And CW doesn’t mention an alternative.)

6. Greasemonkey (executing custom JavaScripts per web site): When you create the scripts yourself (and with security in mind), it can be useful, and, yes, running unverified third-party scripts can be dangerous.

7. ScribeFire (blog editor as browser extension): With all the web-based blog systems, they are rightfully questioning its usefulness.

8. TrackMeNot (protection from user profiling by search engines by additional random searches): Questionable, I agree.

9. Tabbrowser Preferences (more settings for tabbed browsing):

“It works fine. The problem is that if you uninstall the extension, it doesn’t reset your tab settings, leaving you with tweaks that you have to undo by going to the about:config page, which many users don’t understand or even know about.”

So you should avoid it (German article, of course, titled “no-one needs it”), because it “works fine” and only causes some hassle when uninstalling it?

10. Tabbrowser Extensions (weitere Funktionen fürs Tabbed Browsing):

“It is buggy and conflicts with many other extensions. In fact, even its developers suggest that you not install it!”

If that’s correct: agreed. I’ve actually heard about some problems myself.

Bottom line: Ask 5 experts, and you will get 6 different replys. At least. But not all of these are worthy of a real expert…

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