20 useless Firefox add-ons (slideshow)

There are more than 7,000 Firefox extensions in Mozilla's official catalog, and a good portion of them can drastically improve how you browse the Web. Then there are the stinkers. These add-ons that actually make the browser slower, or harder to use. We've compiled a list of 20 that you should steer clear from, if only for their lack of basic utility.

It's worth noting I went through more than 7,000 extensions to come up with this list and it was incredibly tough to even come up with 20. It can also be argued that some of the ones on this list are, in fact, useful to a select few.

Nearly all of the ones on this list are up to date, but there are a few that won't work with the latest version of Firefox. We've noted that in the description. Also, for the respect of your mouse clicks I've pasted in the full list, with links to each one on Mozilla's add-ons site after the page break.

20 Useless Firefox extensions

The full list (in no particular order):

Biorhythms
SayHi Bacolicious
Pimp's Load
IE8fox
Brisby
China Channel
Kyoote
AmIOnMySpace?
The JackassBar
Consciousness Bell
Remove Links
YouTube Auto Replay
Take me to this URL
Tab Killer
Fuzzy Time
Raed Tihs!
Back to Close
Beer Oclock
Bork Bork Bork!

[hansschmucker2]

I have to admit I'm a bit irritated... there are useless extensions and to a certain extend all themes are useless, but if you accept "pleases the user" as useful, then many of these actually are:

Bork, Bork, Bork is pretty much a humorous ad blocker
IE8fox is a skin like any other (I wouldn't use it, but some people find that look pleasing)
And Back to Close is simply an attempt to create a global history across tabs (it assumes that if you reached the first item, then that item must have been spawned by another tab and it makes sense to close the current tab and return to the opener)

I can't speak for the others as I have never used them, but while many of the addons listed are niche products, many of them aren't useless.

[Hunnter2k3]

Hm, i wouldn't say Take Me To This URL is useless, that can shave a few seconds off browsing for those sites that have unlinked URLs, which can pile up over the day.
I just wonder if it will send referrer information or not. (or if it is an option)
But, i can see why it is on the list because they could have just made the unlinked URLs linked, like several other add-ons do already.

Back To Close / Back Is Close, never saw the reason for having that, why not just middle-click the tab?
No middle-click? Hi pre-2000.

The others seem pretty useless, especially the Myspace one

[hansschmucker2]

(laughs) Back to Close isn't for me either. It doesn't work with the way I use tabs pretty much as a log of what I still want to read, but I can see it making sense for people who pretty much linearly go through web pages, following a single "thread" across multiple tabs. I just don't think it's fair to classify anything as useless because I don't have any use for it... if I used that criteria than 98% of all addons would be useless.

[queticomn]

Is there a 20 useless download.com articles list? Perhaps this is number #1?

So many of those add-on are just for fun.

I like my beer Oclock.

roflmfao

[WSC]

"Is there a 20 useless download.com articles list? Perhaps this is number #1?"

Amen, bother!

[wschumacher]

I also think that Take Me To This URL is not useless. I used to use Plain Text Links, but it doesn't work with Fx 3.0. Now I use Go to Selection. The fact that there are several extensions of this type suggests that lots of people think they're useful.

They let you highlight, right-click, and click to go to an address that's in plain text rather than an embedded link. The alternative is to highlight, copy,.move the cursor from the page to the address bar, paste, and press enter -- which involves more steps and, for most people, the annoyance of switching between the mouse to the keyboard.

I picked Go to Selection over Take Me To This URL because when you right-click on a highlighted plain text URL it gives you the choice to open it in the same tab, a new tab, or a new window. Gad, even more useless choices!!

[Angmarr]

lol nice list, its getting harder and harder to pick the good addons. But then again I get like a "high" every time I find a cool new useful addon. I have like 15-25 @ any given time. But this is what makes Firefox FUN for me, finding the Gold underneath the dirt!

[rob197]

IE8Fox. This can be useful for those running Firefox in a setting where it is frowned upon.

Are themes useful? That's open to debate, but this one is perhaps more useful than many others.

(I admit to using Personas to make it simple to darken up my screen.)

[Weeji]

I'd hate to be in a setting like that. Who frowns at progress? Oh wait...

[Dalkorian]

I'm with Weeji here, a setting where Firefox is frowned upon is called "hades" and is ruled by demons. It's a place to avoid.

[Bug_Slayer]

lol, IE8Fox won't always help. I know for a fact that some companies still REQUIRE employees to use IE6. I'm sure computers in these places are ruled by more than demons.

[rick hutchinson]

LOL. Some of these must have been a joke like 'Say Hi Bacolicious','Raed Tihs' and a few others. I only hope that those who created these programs don't climb over the fence to dwell among us;good grief.

[rick hutchinson]

I'll bet my last dollar that their cookies were spiked with some hallucinogenic.

[jabberwockgee]

I kind of like the youtube auto replay... Sometimes I like to listen to the same song over and over....

[Bug_Slayer]

...and over and over and over and over and over and over and over? Why would anybody willingly subject themselves to that?

[karthikveeramani]

I have not used any of these add-ons, but i will say that cnet's tech news is going more and more mediocre. Liking and disliking an add-on is highly subjective, so it is a very silly idea to even start writing a "20 useless add-ons" article.

I totally agree with one of the replies above that this will be among the top 20 useless articles.

[Joe845]

Leest ooff Sheme-a? Vhet sheme-a is zeere-a in prufeeding foon? Yuoo meeght feend sume-a ooff zeese-a useless tu yuoo, boot vhere-a is zee sheme-a in thet? Thees is a shemeffool leest und nut a leest ooff shemeffool edd-oons.

[Dalkorian]

Did I just have an acid flashback or are you trying to be cute?

[Dalkorian]

Did I just have an acid flashback or are you trying to be cute?

- Having reviewed the Bork Bork Bork! link above because others commented on it, I can now see I just didn't get it. Ignorance may not be an excuse, but unlike stupidity it can be cured!

[baddawg65]

You must be very bored to find all of these useless add-on and extensions.
The developers must be very, very bored to created these useless add-on and extensions.
I think that "youtube autoreplay" can be used as an torture tool if you get the "correct" clip and play it over and over...

[flatfilesoc]

I isn't boredom; just fun to code a little something of no consequence just because you can. Why climb Mt. Everest ... because you can.

I check Firefox periodically and do find the description does not match the execution. The popularity or ratings ican be misleading about usefulness for a specific user. Some of the most popular and highly rated add-on's were junk to me.

I found this article a total waste of space. A bit of explanation as to why you think they are totally useless together with a screen shot might be helpful otherwise pulling apart what others do for free is a bit crass

[RobertWFrei]

Hey, I can see some benefit to that AmIOnMySpace.com one - especially part where it disables that annoying sound effects and elevator music some websites like to foist upon unsuspecting browsers. I don't know why it is limited to MySpace.

[LiDoc]

There are thousands of articles on CNET.com, and a good number of them are interesting and useful. Then there are the stinkers. These are articles that actually waste your time and network bandwidth. We've compiled a list of 20 that you should steer clear from, if only for their lack of basic utility.

The list in order from worst to least bad:

<b>20 useless Firefox add-ons (slideshow)</b>
(and 19 others I don't remember off hand).

[Mrsone]

I think PayPal toolbar should be on the list. While the functionality it offered was great, the extension slowed my Firefox to such a crawl that it was unusable for such a long time I was about to stop using FF. I noticed that that and the ebay toolbar seems to wreck FF. Just my observations.

[mrmiran]

Personally... I get a kick out of Bork Bork Bork. I showed it to my girlfriend when I first discovered it and she loved it too! We laughed until we were blue in the face! We have now been happily married for 3 1/2 years. Turned out to be a great test of a prospective spouse's sense of humor. What does your wife think of it?

[spur9man]

What about STOP! Hammertime. It should of made the list for sure!

[Mr. Wilfred Padilla]

they are created because they do have a purpose, they are not useless, maybe it is useless for you, but for others it is not,

[Crash613]

wow. what a waste of time. did you put any effort into this article at all? I saw the topic and i thought, hum, this ought to be a good, witty jab at some junk add-ons that will give me a laugh. i get here to find only some lame list. No explanations no witty comments.

I agree with the above poster about this being the number one wasted URL/article i have ever read