Best Firefox extensions

Tip 3: Get more from your tabs

Firefox is well-loved for its tabbed browsing, but these useful extensions allow you to take tabs to the next level. You can make your tabs multicoloured, duplicate them or save them into groups, all with these handy add-ons.

Tabbrowser Preferences
Tabbed browsing is quickly becoming the standard for most power users. If you want more control over your tabs and how they behave, this extension offers several options designed with you in mind.

IE Tab
Do you have a favourite site that only shows up correctly when you use Internet Explorer? Great for both users and Web developers who want to see how their pages look in Microsoft's browser, this plug-in lets you open a link in a new tab that uses IE Web standards and architecture.

SessionSaver
When you're doing research for work or planning a trip, you'll often have several Web sites open at once with all of the information you need. With SessionSaver, you can save the whole group of tabs so you can easily come back and open them all at once.

Duplicate Tab
This handy little extension adds the kind of functionality that you don't know you need until you have it. With Duplicate Tab, you can duplicate your currently tabbed site with all of the same history so you can use the Back or Forward buttons on the new Tab -- very useful when doing research.

Tab Mix Plus
There are a lot of Firefox extensions that customise tabs and a few good session savers, but none does both as well as this handy add-on. Edit everything possible about tab appearance and behaviour, and also save Firefox sessions in case of a browser crash or unexpected shutdown.

Reveal
Firefox Showcase is a strong competitor, but Reveal narrowly beat it with its polished look and additional features. Simply hit F2 or Alt+~ to see thumbnail images for all open tabs for a window. Hitting the Insert key brings up thumbnails of the history for any tab or all of them, and the Back and Forward buttons also provide small thumbails of each link.

Separe
Those who use a lot of tabs when they browse the Web will love Separe. This simple add-on lets you keep tabs tidy by adding a separator to the tab bar. In addition to being able to divide up your sites into groups, you can click on the separator to get a thumbnail of the pages in each tab so you can find what you need quickly.

Colorful Tabs
This elegant extension won't improve your workflow, but it's definitely easy on the eyes. Colorful Tabs automatically gives each tab in your browser a different colour for easier readability. You can also set unused tabs to fade while you're using the active tab.

Tab Catalog
If you like using lots of tabs, this extension was made for you. Mousing over the Tab Catalog icon or hitting Alt-Tab will display a page that shows each window's open tabs. From there, click the thumbnail you want and Firefox will snap to that page.