Internet Safety Tools: How to add a firefox extension

One thing that always grinds my gears (or should I say that always did grind my gears) when viewing a website was seeing about 10% of the actual webpage and see about 90% adds on the rest of the window! This is why I am going to describe to all of my readers how to add a firefox extension (specifically Ad-Block Plus [ABP]), in an effort to make the internet more enjoyable for everyone. Unless, of course, you actually like adds. I will list them all in 6 very simple steps.


1) Install Firefox. Which can be downloaded at this website: http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/fx/
Firefox is another web browser like Internet Explorer. In fact, it's faster and more stable than internet explorer and can be set up to have a minimalist user interface (as little on the screen as possible, as to view more of the actual webpage). Please feel free to look around mozilla's website and find out for yourself the wonders of Firefox.

2) Once Firefox is installed and you have opened it up, you should notice in the upper left hand corner a big orange button that says "Firefox" with an arrow pointing down. This is your menu button. Click the button then click on "Add-ons".

3) A new tab should show up with the title "Add-ons manager". It should load the "Get Add-ons" page with a bunch of extensions listed. In the upper right hand corner of the page you should see a "Search all Add-ons" box. Use this like any other search engine and type in "Ad-Block Plus"

4) "Ad-Block Plus 1.3.9" should show up in the list and you should see the button that says "Install". Click the button and it will be automatically downloaded and installed for you. Some prompts might show up on the screen but they're just 'Are you sure you want to do this' prompts.

5) After the install is complete, Firefox will need to be restarted. Just close and reopen Firefox and the install should be complete. The first time you open Firefox after the install is complete, a webpage will open and ask you to chose a list to subscribe to. DON'T WORRY, no money is involved, it just uses subscribe as a phrase and nothing more. These are nothing more than lists used to tell ABP what to block on a webpage. I personally use Easylist. So just click ok, and forget about it!

6) That's it! Your Firefox extension is installed and ready for use. You will hardly remember what an ad looks like and pages will also load considerably faster too! Happy browsing!

For those that wish to see what this does to your browsing experience before going through the "hassle" of doing it, I have included a couple before and after pictures of a site I frequent.

With Adds

Without