Firefox plugins are such a great resource for improving productivity on the net. Here is a list of 11 such plugins which are very useful to improve your search experience and productivity.Each of them has been explained with detailed images (and even a video turorial created by us) so that you can have a feel of the plugins even before installing them.

1. WebMynd : Installing this plugin enables you personalize the right-hand side of your search results page with sources such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Twitter, Flickr, Amazon,Linkedin,CNN and a number of other sites. So you can actually see results from 5-10  search engines conveniently (can be more though) with one single query. It does not spoil the search experience of the original site (eg Google) since you are getting these results on the right side which is the ad area. It also enables Playback and full-text search your visual browsing history though you can this recording off and on. A very useful application for those who want to do multi-searching.
    

2. Drag and Drop Zones : This is a very powerful plugin which enables one to search multiple search engines of choice easily by dragging and dropping keywords on webpages. After installing it, when you are on a webpage and you want to search a word, just highlight the word – drag the highlighted word – you will see a the image grid of all your selected search engines- drop the word into that engine – get results for your query. See more details on Read Write Web . We have created a video (and put it on youtube!) to explain this plugin as it might take too many images to explain it . Hope you find it easy to understand.

3. Add Search box to Firefox Search bar :  You might have seen many sites which provide a  Firefox search plugin and adding the search box to your firefox search bar becomes easy with this plugin. However, there are many sites where these plugins are not provided. But with this plugin, you can search any site from your firefox searchbar. Just add this plugin and when you are on any site – just place your mouse in its search box  right click  add click on ‘Add to Search Bar. Thus within few seconds, you can search your favourite site from Firefox search bar instead of going to that site and then searching. Cool , isn’t it?  Now I have just right clicked on the search box of Techcrunch.com and added it to my search bar in 3 seconds flat !..And see  how it is done.
   

4. Cloudlet : Adding this firefox plugin enables you to get a Tag Cloud over the search results page of Google, Yahoo and Twitter. It suggest the tags on the basis of your query and provides multiple options . Eg in Google/Yahoo, it will also show you related sites ,clicking on which will search these sites for your query. Its functionality in Twitter is most useful as it enables you to find people who have tweeted about the query, provides a tag cloud over a twitter homepage and clicking on one of the tages  enables you to search that homepage for the keyword. Besides there are various other options to enable you play around. It can be easily turned off with a click.
    
   

5. Search Status : This is one of the most simple but useful search plugin especially for those who like to have a quick evaluation of a site . Once installed in the firefox, it sits in a corner and you can easily evaluate any webpage/website for its
   Alexa Rank  &
   Google Page Rank
   Though sounding simple, you can easily understand a lot about a site by using these two parameters. If the Google PR is high but Alexa Rank is low, it shows that the site is highly linked (and thus respected) but does not get too much traffic. Or if the ALexa Rank is high and the PR is low, then it shows that the site is getting popular fast but Google is yet to recognize it . If both are high, then it speaks high of that site. Alexa rank , however, tends to be more accurate for high traffic sites .And right clicking on the Alexa Rank image brings up many details about the site without needing to open Alexa.com
   

6. Cool Iris : With over 12 million downloads, this plugin provides  a very different search experience . What it does is that it enables you to watch the search results on a 3D wall and lets you scour through thousands of results in a few minutes. It is very pleasing to use and specially useful for those visually inclined.
   

7. Search Keys : Can you want to open Google search results without using the mouse ?
   Well, with this plugin  you can do it. Just install this plugin and you will see a number “1,2,3 etc..” against the search results. If you want to open the first result, just press ‘1’ on your keyboard and the first result will open. Now, one can do the exactly same with your mouse. But using keys is much easier on your hands and once you get used to this , its difficult to use the mouse!
   

8. Cybersearch : This plugin saves you one more step in searching. It makes your firefox location bar a mini search engine in itself. As you type the search query in the location bar, it starts showing search results in a drop down , which may save a good lot of time for quick searches.
   

9. FireGestures : Though this one is strictly not a search plugin , it is very useful for improving every aspect of Firefox usage and affects your search capabilities also.It has numerous functionalities which enable you to :
   -Move between different tabs absolutely easily .
   -Use your mouse scroller to scan hundreds of tabs in a few seconds.
   -Create your own mouse gestures to move back,forward,reload,stop and more…
   

10. Infoaxe : This plugin enables you to automatically bookmark all the pages that you have browsed on all your computers..Means, that you don’t need to bookmark pages , and can access the history of all pages that you have bookmarked , on all your computers and all your browsers.The advantage of this history storage is that when you make Google searches, it shows you results from your web history on the right side (see image below) . Thus you are actually getting results served to you from the web pages that you have visited in the past.But there is a catch. You need to install their toolbar on all your computers and create an account on Infoaxe. I personally do not like installing new toolbars and therefore do not use this plugin.But those who do not have such inhibitions may find it quite useful.  

11. Google Preview : This plugin, though mentioned at the last, is one of the most popular and useful search plugin(with over 100,000 weekly downloads). It inserts preview images on the left side of Google results . It also shows popularity ranks of the websites alongwith so that you can immediately know whether you are opening a  very popular site or not so popular one .
     

results sorted by viewcount.This would save a couple of steps and time.Therefore, I created this Firefox Plugin to search Youtube Videos with the highest viewcount on any topic.Just click on the link below and you will be prompted to add the same to Firefox searchbar. On selecting yes, you can instantly start searching for Most Viewed Videos on Youtube on any topic.

Firefox Searchbar plugin for Top Viewed Youtube Videos

Well another new feature of Youtube Videos I like is the High Quality HD videos. I thought it would be a good idea if there was a firefox search plugin for searching just these high quality youtube videos. So here it is – it also sorts the results by viewcount.

Youtube HD Videos Firefox Search Plugin with Viewcount sorting

Let me mention here a couple of things. These plugins have nothing to do with Youtube or Google. These were just created by us to enable better searching of Youtube Videos.

Step 1: Get search URL ready
Lets search for ‘ebooks’ from the search box above and we get the URL  http://www.bestonlinetools.org/?s=ebooks&x=0&y=0  -A

Now replace ‘ebooks’ with {searchTerms} and the URL looks like this
http://www.bestonlinetools.org/?s={searchTerms}&x=0&y=0  – B

Step 2: Keep your favicon ready
You just need a 16×16 pixel image  which will appear in firefox search bar. If you don’t have the image, just use any image for test and reduce its size to 16×16 pixels in photoshop or any other image editor.

Step3: Visit Mycroft
Reach this page on Mycroft site

Step 4: Enter details in the Mycroft form
You will see the details . Enter the same  as per your requirements.  Use the URL – B that we have created above (as per your site url). Also provide the link to upload the favicon in the form.

To clarify if image is not very clear , you need to enter the URL -B that we created in the boxes ‘Search URL’ and ‘Search Form URL’ boxes. Rest of the things are simple.

Step 5: Install Plugin
Click on ‘Generate Code’ and you will find the code of the search plugin. Click on ‘Install Plugin’ and you will get this message
“Add “Tech Tools” to the list of engines available in the search bar? “
Click on ‘Add’ and you can immediately start searching your site from the firefox search bar.
However, we are not yet finished. We need to install this plugin on our site .

Step6: Copy the code and alter it
The code will look something like this

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″?>
<OpenSearchDescription xmlns=”http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearch/1.1/”                       xmlns:moz=”http://www.mozilla.org/2006/browser/search/”>  <!– Created on Sat, 21 Feb 2009 05:59:43 GMT –>  <ShortName>Tech Tools</ShortName>  <Description>Tech Tools Search</Description>  <Url type=”text/html” method=”get” template=”http://www.bestonlinetools.org/?s={searchTerms}&amp;x=0&amp;y=0  “/>  <Image width=”16″ height=”16″>http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/.</Image>  <Developer>Tech Tools</Developer>  <InputEncoding>UTF-8</InputEncoding>  <moz:SearchForm>http://www.bestonlinetools.org/?s={searchTerms}&amp;x=0&amp;y=0  </moz:SearchForm> <moz:UpdateUrl>http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/.xml</moz:UpdateUrl>  <moz:IconUpdateUrl>http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/.</moz:IconUpdateUrl>  <moz:UpdateInterval>7</moz:UpdateInterval></OpenSearchDescription>
Favicon : The favicon you created needs to be uploaded to your site. Lets say the icon image url on your site is www.yoursite.com/images/favicon.jpg . Replace  http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/. in the code
<Image width=”16″ height=”16″>http://mycroft.mozdev.org/updateos.php/id0/.</Image>
with your favicon image URL. Now your code is ready to be uploaded to your site.

Step 7: Upload XML file
Create a file /page on your site – say yoursite.com/search.xml
Copy the final code that we created above and put it on this page and save it as xml file.

Step 8. Adding javascript to your page
You now need to add a javascript on the page that you need to provide the link to your users to add the search plugin .
Add this script to your page :
<script type=”text/javascript”>
function ffPlugin()
{
window.external.AddSearchProvider(“http://yoursite.com/search.xml”);

}
</script>

Step 9. Provide the link to add your search plugin

You may provide the option to add this plugin to your users through text or an image link. Lets see how a text link would look like

<a href=”javascript:ffPlugin()”><font color=”#008800″> Search our site from Firefox</font></a>
This code has to be added in the html of the page and at the place you want to provide the link to your users to add the firefox search plugin.

Step 10. You are done !
Just check the link on your page and see if your search plugin is working well.
It should work and if you find any problem , just let me know and I will help you out.