Flash Block (Plus). https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noflash/. Unfortunately, the original FlashBlock (which I love) never got upgraded to be compatible with current versions of Firefox. This version is good enough. Selectively blocking Flash content on a per-object basis (vs per-site, as Mozilla's "click to activate" feature implements) is an important security feature.
User-Agent Switcher. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher-revi…. Allows your browser to impersonate some other browser. Very useful when trying to access sites that claim (incorrectly) that they only work with some kind of browser that you aren't using. Also good for testing web sites by faking different kinds of browsers (e.g. to see how the page looks on mobile devices).
It's an interesting question. I tend to prefer stable LTS releases, because I don't like the idea of massive upgrades more than absolutely necessary.
I grew up on RedHat and I still have a fondness for it and the RPM system, but I don't like the fact that upgrading to new releases (e.g. RHEL6 to RHEL7) doesn't have any easy path. They recommend a complete erase-and-reinstall, which should not be necessary.
Fedora's "fedup" tool seems to work well, so hopefully RedHat will incorporate something similar in their future releases.
But because of the upgrade issue, I've pretty much migrated over to Debian's "stable" branch. Although learning the dpkg/apt system took some time, it works well. And upgrading to new releases is much easier - just change APT's sources file and do a normal package-upgrade (then wait as it upgrades thousands of packages).
I will select Ubuntu if I need something more on the cutting edge (e.g. for VMs, not my main desktop), but I really don't like the Unity desktop. Fortunately, the Xubuntu (Xfce) variation is easy to get, which takes care of that situation.
Authored Comments
You and I clearly have different priorities :-). Here's the list of Firefox extensions I use:
Adblock Plus. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/adblock-plus/. We all need ad blockers. This is the one I like.
Cisco WebEx Extension. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cisco-webex-extension/. If you use WebEx conferencing a lot (as I do), this allows you to launch it via your web browser, which is very convenient.
Flash Block (Plus). https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/noflash/. Unfortunately, the original FlashBlock (which I love) never got upgraded to be compatible with current versions of Firefox. This version is good enough. Selectively blocking Flash content on a per-object basis (vs per-site, as Mozilla's "click to activate" feature implements) is an important security feature.
GMail Checker Simple. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gmail-checker-simple/. Puts an icon in the toolbar to indicate when I have unread mail in my GMail account.
Google Analytics Opt-out Add-on. https://tools.google.com/dlpage/gaoptout. A Google add-on to tell its JavaScript to not send information back to Google.
hccbe Google Bookmarks Extension. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/hccbe-google%E3%83%96%E3…. Reads my Google Bookmarks and presents them as a hierarchical menu on my tool-bar.
Navigate Up WE. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/navigate-up-we/. Adds a simple button to the tool-bar to navigate "up" through a URL. Pop the last term from the current URL and visit the resulting page.
User-Agent Switcher. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher-revi…. Allows your browser to impersonate some other browser. Very useful when trying to access sites that claim (incorrectly) that they only work with some kind of browser that you aren't using. Also good for testing web sites by faking different kinds of browsers (e.g. to see how the page looks on mobile devices).
It's an interesting question. I tend to prefer stable LTS releases, because I don't like the idea of massive upgrades more than absolutely necessary.
I grew up on RedHat and I still have a fondness for it and the RPM system, but I don't like the fact that upgrading to new releases (e.g. RHEL6 to RHEL7) doesn't have any easy path. They recommend a complete erase-and-reinstall, which should not be necessary.
Fedora's "fedup" tool seems to work well, so hopefully RedHat will incorporate something similar in their future releases.
But because of the upgrade issue, I've pretty much migrated over to Debian's "stable" branch. Although learning the dpkg/apt system took some time, it works well. And upgrading to new releases is much easier - just change APT's sources file and do a normal package-upgrade (then wait as it upgrades thousands of packages).
I will select Ubuntu if I need something more on the cutting edge (e.g. for VMs, not my main desktop), but I really don't like the Unity desktop. Fortunately, the Xubuntu (Xfce) variation is easy to get, which takes care of that situation.