I can hardly believe how far browser technology has advanced over the time I've been connected to the net. From the early GUI days of Mosaic, through to today, there's been a tremendous amount of progress. Installing a new update for Firefox today made me think back to all of the different browsers that Sun has standardized on internally since I started work here four and a half years ago.

When I first started, the standard was Hot Java, believe it or not. It wouldn't render most of the sites I wanted to visit, was dog slow, and had next to no customization possibilities. Shortly after using Hot Java for the first time, I moved to Netscape 4.x, and internal software standards changed to use this version of Netscape as well. Once nearly everyone had transitioned to NS4, NS6 was released. The big march includes many points of interest, including NS6, Mozilla 1.2, 1.3, 1.4beta, Mozillas with Gnome integration, and those without, NS7.1, and finally Firefox. Firefox is the future. Love it.

The best feature of Firefox is the ability to write extensions for the browser, which can be downloaded, installed and managed directly by the browser. No need to muck about with plugin directories, etc. Also, extensions use the same language (XUL) that the browser uses for it's UI. Extensions written by 3rd parties integrate with the browser seamlessly, like they were part of the base package. The first thing I do when I install Firefox is add in a good set of extensions.

Top 10 Firefox Extensions

1. AdBlock - Best... extension... ever. Allows you to wildcard sites which serve ads, blocking the graphics, but wait, there's more. It will even collapse and remove the HTML elements in which the ads were embedded -- no more ugly whitespace where that half page banner ad used to be!
2. BugMeNot - This was in stiff competition with AdBlock for #1 on my list. Ever want to read a New York Times or Washington Post story, but didn't want the hassle of submitting your 'free registration'? BugMeNot generates random form data for you, and submits the form for you.
3. All-in-One Gestures - A very comprehensive mouse gestures extension. Allows you to assign complex gestures to a variety of tasks, such as basic browser navigation, bookmarking, tab management and more.
4. SwitchProxy Tool - Configure more than one web proxy, including anonymous redirectors, and switch between them using a toolbar interface. For Sun users, this is handy, as you can set up a Sun internal proxy on your home browser, and switch to it when connected via the VPN.
5. Web Developer - If you do any work authoring web pages or dynamic content, install this extension. It adds a toolbar, context menu, and sidebar with a myriad of web features, such as viewing and editing page CSS, converting form GETs to POSTs (and vice versa), and showing content as if it were displayed on a different size screen (e.g. parent screen is 1280x1024, but you can browse at 800x600 to see how your site would appear). Too many features to mention here (read: I'm too lazy to type them all out).
6. Java Script Debugger - This extension, known as Venkmann, is the JavaScript (or is it ECMAScript) debugger for Firefox/Mozilla. Very handy when used along with the Web Developer extension.
7. Duplicate Tab - This is a great extension. It allows you to open a new tab which is the exact duplicat of another, including forward and back history.
8. Diggler - Ever wish there was a button to clear the location bar contents? Diggler does that, and also gives you a menu of options for dealing with tabs, popup and image blocking. I'm sure Dirk would be proud.
9. Sage - Sage is a RSS and ATOM feed aggregator. I've yet to really put it to task, but I've seen enough people raving about this one that I had to add it to the list (and my installation). It would probably work well for aggregating feeds from blogs.sun.com.
10. Basics - This very simple extension adds a 'new tab' button to the tab bar. Very handy

That's the unabbreviated list. It just so happens I only install 10 extensions, so it's perfect for a Top 10 list. Give Firefox 0.9.3 a try today!