Part 1

There are a couple of catches. Installing extensions violates the premise of many user-interface gurus who want to clear away too many options. If you get confused by lots of options, you will want to be very selective about which options you want. Another minor problem is that their model has been so successful in generating extensions, the design for the extensions area could use an overhaul. Also, their Search engine would probably do a better job in helping you find what you want if developers had to enter a mandatory description field with a minimum of 100 characters.

The interesting aspect of this is that no competitor can maintain any kind of advantage for a significant amount of time. If someone comes up with a new bell or whistle, it will be added by a Firefox extensions developer in short order. It looks as though open source is the future of browsers.

To add extensions to your Firefox browser, go to the “Tools” menu, then select “Extensions.” Once the “Extensions” window pops up, select “Get More Extensions” on the lower right. The Extensions window also is useful, because it lets you uninstall extensions that you decide you don’t want later.

You don’t have Firefox???? Upgrade your browser to Firefox.