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: Mozilla Firefox, a hugely popular browser that enjoys a market share only less than Microsoft Internet Explorer, is lean and very fast. But what makes this browser all the more useful are the free extensions created by the Firefox developer community.

These extensions, also referred to as plug-ins or add-ons, are small applications that anyone can download and install into their Firefox browser to add brand new features or enhance existing functionality.

But the problem is how to make a start?

There are thousands of Firefox extensions and picking the most useful pieces from this large heap may take some effort and experimentation. I am an ardent Firefox fan since its early days, and have played around with a few hundred Firefox extensions during this period. Here are some of the gems that I recommend. They improve your browsing experience and make Firefox even better:

Aardvark: If you regularly print web pages, this is a must-have add-on. With a simple shortcut key, Aardvark lets you remove any elements from that web page that may not be required in the print version. This could include advertising,

HTML tables, banner graphics, etc. Start Aardvark, hover the mouse over areas of the web page that you don’t want to print and press erase.

LinkAlert: When you click an hyperlink on a web page, you normally expect it to point to another web page but that may not be the case always as links can point to PDFs, Office Documents, MP3 files, zips, email addresses, etc. You know the frustration when you click a PDF and it starts to load Adobe Reader causing your browser to freeze for some time. Or you click an email address accidentally and Outlook opens up. With LinkAlert, such accidents may become a thing of the past as it appends a small visual icon next to links on web pages that are not HTML documents.

BlogRovR: As you are surfing the web, this extension will quickly show you what your favourite bloggers have said about the web page that is currently open in your browser. You just have to pass a list of your favourite blogs to BlogRovR and it will automatically fetch articles/commentary from those blogs which link to whatever web page you’re viewing.

HyperWords: When you select any word or phrase on a web page, HyperWords lets you explore the web without leaving the current web page. For instance, you view pictures on Flickr related to that selected word, read the Wikipedia entry (if there’s one), convert currency, translate text, view dictionary meanings and so much more right from the Firefox menu without having to click anything.

Morning Coffee: With Firefox, it is possible to set multiple homepages (separated by ‘pipe’) so all your favourite sites will open in different tabs each time you launch Firefox. But imagine a scenario where you want a different set of websites to launch depending on the day.

For instance, one of your favourite website may not be updated on weekends, while another one (like PostSecret) posts new content only on Sunday. With Morning Coffee, you can organise websites by day and open them up simultaneously in tabs.

IE Tab: Firefox is popular but we routinely encounter so many websites that are designed for Internet Explorer only. A good example is the Microsoft Windows Update. IE Tab brings the Internet Explorer rendering engine inside Firefox so you don’t have to leave Firefox in order to view those IE only websites.

CustomizeGoogle: With CustomizeGoogle, you get to repeat the same search on other popular search engines from the Google website. It will also let you filter websites that you do not want to see in Google search results.

Scrapbook: This is like OneNote for Firefox as you can save clippings, images or even entire web pages to the local disk with a simple right click or a drag-n-drop. Scrapbook lets you search through the clippings and it also saves the original links in case you need to cite or revisit the original source.