Browser Hacks: Last Week's Top Five Greasemonkey Add-ons (Firefox)
Your browser doesn't have to be the boss of you - if you're a Firefox user there are a wold of different ways you can change how it displays your favorite websites. One of the most powerful is Greasemonkey, a plug-in that lets you install other little plug-ins ("scripts") that change the functionality or appearance of a wide variety of sites.
Greasemonkey is easy to use, fast and powerful. Most scripts are hosted and discussed at Userscripts.org, but that site can be a little overwhelming. In the past week, 375 scripts were added or updated. We looked through them all and picked out the best 5. Below we've also posted a screencast that will get you started harmlessly hacking your browser with Greasemonkey in under 5 minutes.
How to Use Greasemonkey
RSS readers can click here to view the video below.
Thanks to Screencast.com for hosting the video above. (Here's a Flash version, if you prefer it.)
Now What?
There are a lot of must-use Greasemonkey scripts that have been published before this week. Some of our favorites include:
Autopagerize - continuous scrolling from page to page on many websites.
Twitter Search on Google Results Pages - add real-time search to Google.
Memeorandum Colors - color code links on political blog aggregator Memeorandum by the politics of each blog's linking history.
Those are oldies-but-goodies but more and more scripts are available every day. Here are our favorite 5, in no particular order, out of the 375 that were added to or updated on Userscripts.org last week.
1. Gmail 3.0 Productivity Package - adds links to create new Google Docs and integrates other Google services into the GMail interface.
2. Alltop Topic Search and OPML
Guy Kawasaki's Alltop has aggregated the top sources on a long list of topics. This script makes it even more useful by allowing you to search inside each category's archives and export the RSS feeds for all the selected sources into another RSS reader.
3. Google Search Sidebar with Youtube , Wikipedia, Dictionary.com and Flickr Results
In the image above you can see the Twitter Google script results at the top of the page (described above) and this Wikipedia, etc. script on the right hand sidebar. The script works well.
Sick of having to log back in to sites all the time? This script rewrites the expiration date on all cookies in your browser, making them live for 50 years!
5. Vidzbigger
This script makes a bunch of changes to YouTube video pages. It displays the largest video player available, moves the comments into the right sidebar so you can view them while watching the video and it inserts links to download a copy of all videos. It isn't the prettiest thing in the world and has the audacity to insert an ad overlay after videos are completed. It may not be pretty, but it's useful.
Those Are Our Favorites, What About You?
We'd love to hear about your favorite Greasemonkey scripts, too. There are so many of them out there that it's hard to unearth the best. There's nothing quite like it though, when you find a way to change the very browser you look at the web through.
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Once I've tried a "Cookie Injector" script, which was a really naughty companion to WireShark and Ettercap. Script was working very well and as advertised.
If anybody wants to see how insecure is an unencrypted connection, he should give this trio a chance.
I picked a few of the ones. I did not already have. I always enjoy reading and employing your posts. Mr. Kirkpatrick.
Two other great scripts that I use are Gmail - Seamless Integration (Google Calendar, Reader, Notebook, etc...) with Collapsible Inbox for Standard GMail and GMail Apps Which is now an Experimental add-on apparently here.
http://www.integratedgmail.com/
and
Gmail Tweaks: Multiple Signatures http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/1592
Great post! I use some scripts very useful too:
Long URL Mobile Expander
BugMeNot GreaseMonkey Scripts
Google Reader Subscriber Count
AJAX Twitter Refresh
Twitter Fantastico
Google Maps Zoom
Greetings
Interesting, I haven't seen that FriendFeed MT Plugin before, Juanito. #laterzheenu
Posted by: Mohomed Abdullahi
|
March 21, 2009 4:59 PM
If anybody wants to see how insecure is an unencrypted connection, he should give this trio a chance.
While not a greasemonkey extension, I use Yawas every day to highlight and bookmarks web pages.
See the video and download the extension here http://yawasweb.appspot.com
This information is good to know. We will let our users know about it. Thanks.
We will let our webmaster know about this since some of our clients have indicated to us the problems that they are having with their browsers. We know that this would be usefull information to know and to share with others.
On an unrelated note: What's that Google icon in the bottom right corner of your screen? Wouldn't happen to be some awesome google reader client I've never heard about?
My #1 by far is Twitter Search integration with Google. Best add-on for years : Or article is in Dutch : http://www.dutchcowboys.nl/twitter/16404 but I'm 100% sure there are so many sites with this information in plain Englisch ;-).
Original link is found here : http://mt-hacks.com/20090302-realtime-twitter-search-results-on-google.html with all the advices how to install the Greasemonkey script.
I have a bunch of helpful Greasemonkey scripts for Twitter here:
http://userscripts.org/users/5204/scripts
enjoy
Al
This is my first time to know about that 3rd Add-On. I like it and actually, I'm now downloading it and install right away.
I'm using this greasemonkey script (Better Mobile Twitter http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/35396) and is turns to be my favorite twitter client
Another greasemonkey that's useful to display delicious search results in Google: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/43784