Firefox add-ons may help increase the security of your computer

I am a diehard Firefox junkie and I have countless plugins that just make my life better each and every day that I surf the net. Recently I have been plagued with various spyware infections obtained from different websites. It looks like many of the sites were running scripts such as ActiveX scripts or a site that forced me into downloading a so-called update to my flash player. So I set out to see if there were any Firefox plugins that assisted me in adding some additional security to my web browser.

If you are like me then you are in luck. Below are 5 of my favorite security and privacy plug-ins/add-ons for Firefox that assist you in keeping your computer secure.

1. Dr. Web anti-virus link checker: This is an excellent plug-in tool where it actually checks any download that you initiate via the Firefox web browser. If you find yourself downloading files from a source that you are not too sure of this may ease your mind by scanning the file for viruses before download.
2. NoScript 1.7.8: A great tool for limiting websites from running active content

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When visiting a web page, Mozilla FireFox caches data for quicker display. You can control how much of the available RAM memory, FireFox uses for this cache.The steps for this tweak is given below:

1. At the Mozilla firefox address bar, type about:config
2. In the Filter bar, type browser.cache.memory.enable
3. Ensure that the value is set to true
4. Right-click within the main body and select New | Integer
5. Name the item browser.cache.memory.capacity
6. The table below shows the defaults for FireFox. You can raise or lower the about of memory used by changing the integer value. The more you specify, the faster load times of previously visited pages, the less, the slower. To calculate how much to use, determine the number of MB you wish to give to FireFox, and times that by 1024. Example: 256 MB = (256 * 1024) or 10240).
7. Restart FireFox

To return Mozilla FireFox to the default state, set this value to -1, or delete the entry.
Possible Values:
-1 allows FireFox to decide the maximum memory to use.
0 instructs FireFox not to cache data in memory

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With Firefox, you can do much more than simply browse web pages. Pencil is a free add-in that lets anyone sketch complex GUI screens or web page prototypes in Firefox without even being a graphic designer. 


Pencil includes a set of stencils that you can place on the drawing campus. Right click a shape to edit basic properties like color, border, opacity, etc. Alternatively, you may also drag images from the desktop.
Like other illustration software, these shapes can aligned with each other or can be grouped to prevent accidental edits. The drawing can be exported as a PNG image.

Link : The Pencil Project

MHT is a very useful file format for saving HTML web pages and all embedded graphics into a single file (also known as web archive).

The format is supported on IE, Opera, Microsoft Word, OneNote, etc. and comes handy if you need to attach an entire web page as an email attachment.

Now your favorite browser Firefox 3 cannot export web pages to MHT format by default but there’s an excellent add-in called UnMHT that makes MHT support in Firefox better an IE and Opera.

With Un-MHT, you can read any MHT files in Firefox just like any other HTML or text page.

Other than viewing MHT files, this add-in adds a “Save all tabs as MHT” feature that lets you save the current window or all open websites as separate MHT files in one go taking the file name from title of the web pages.

Considering that Windows Desktop Search can index content stored in .mht files,…