This list is culled from a straight listing of the most popular posts that offered a Firefox extension for download in 2009. We're not including posts about configuring Firefox, or even our own hand-rolled Firefox add-on packs—even if they were pretty popular, too. Let's get to the good stuff.

Firefox 3.7 Theme Makes Your Browser Look Awesome

One of the greatest things about Firefox is that its development happens way out wide in the open. When the design workers start coming up with preliminary sketches of a new release, anyone can peek at them and even compile them into a theme, which does just what the headline suggests.

All-Glass Firefox Enables Slick Transparency Effects

Windows Vista and 7 feature some fairly nice looking transparency effects, but if your primary browser doesn't use them, it can feel a bit disconnected. All-Glass Firefox v2 tweaks your browser to look just, well, proper in its fancy-pants surroundings.

"Vacuum Places Improved" Speeds Up Firefox with a Click of Your Mouse

You can speed up Firefox by cleaning up its fragmented database, and the Vacuum Places Improved 0.3 extension automates that admittedly pain-in-the-butt process.

Gmail Redesigned 3.0 Focuses on Speed and Message Space

Google Redesigned, a multi-site suite that trades Google's blue/white/minimal look for a darker, sleeker feel, kept improving its transformative powers this year, adding a host of improvements in its 3.0 release, and later releasing a new version with GReader Redesigned for the RSS hounds.

Dislike 0.2 Adds a Disapproving Dislike Button to Facebook

"I'm having SUCH a bad day—the cleaning lady TOTALLY left her Pine Sol smell all over my bed linens!" That, my friends, is why clever JavaScript tweakers created the Dislike extension.

TinEye Adds Reverse Image Lookup to Firefox

Many of the pictures and illustrations you find across the web aren't in their original form—and many can be had at better, perhaps more wallpaper-worthy sizes. The TinEye extension makes it a simple right-click maneuver to search out similar copies of any image you come across.

SkipScreen Lets You Pass Go and Collect Your Download

Sometimes, great stuff has to be hosted on public download services, because the file—or the attention it's getting—is just too much for our meek little personal sites. And the download sites often make it as painful as possible to grab those files. SkipScreen acts as an automated intermediary, jumping through the necessary hoops and entering the key presses required.

FireFound Tracks Your Stolen Computer, Nukes Your Personal Data

This neat little extension, winner of the Extend Firefox 3.5 contest, utilizes lots of Firefox's built-in features, like geo-location and the extension framework, to offer wary laptop users a way to nuke their personal data, passwords, and history if necessary, track where their machine is logging on after a theft, and cull all kinds of data from the thief. FireFound is, in other words, a smart thing to install if your laptop ever leaves the home.

Gui:config Gives Easy Access to Hidden Firefox Settings

A lot of helpful stuff is tucked away in Firefox's about:config menus. Gui:config brings them into focus and offers a graphical way to manage them. As the How-To Geek puts it, it's amazing that this isn't something being considered for mainstream distribution in the browser.

Memory Fox Manages Firefox's Memory Use, Aims to Keep It Low

(Windows only): Firefox is decently light with memory on startup, but extensions and plug-ins drag it down as you actually use it. Memory Fox monitors Firefox's memory use and, once it reaches your pre-set limit, whips it back into shape.

Daum Blue Firefox Theme is Clean, Simple, and Elegant

(Windows only): Well, the headline and picture kind of say it all about Daum Blue, but it's worth noting that beyond looks, it's also fairly customizable, and looks even better on Vista and Windows 7 systems.

Decreased Productivity Helps You Browse at Work Without Getting Busted

Sure, kind of anathema for this site's stated mission, but giving your mind a break at work has real mental benefits, even if your boss doesn't think so.

UrlbarExt Adds Super Powers to the Awesome Bar

If you're likely to do more at a web site than just simply bookmark it, UrlbarExt is like a Leatherman for your AwesomeBar. Head to a site's root, search the site on Google, and do much more from a small array of address bar buttons.

Foxmarks Becomes Xmarks, Adds Search and Suggestion Features

Another headline that pretty much says it all. We weren't a big fan of Xmarks' new "discovery" features, but its growing reach into Chrome and other browsers make the former Foxmarks' expansion a good thing.

Magnetiser Downloads Torrents When No Torrent File Is Available

Given the recent legal crackdown on BitTorrent-centered sites, magnet links (explained here) are increasingly popular. Magnetiser makes it easy to track down a working torrent link to grab the file you're looking for.

Integrated Gmail Updates with Improved Looks and Handy Features

It must be mentioned that, beyond smooshing together Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Reader into one neatly-arranged Gmail page, Integrated Gmail also customizes every niggling detail of those combined apps, making it worth the try-out, even if you think you like your Google spaces separated into different tabs.

Omnibar Extension Collapses Firefox's Address and Search Boxes into One

Omnibar is one of the clever ways Firefox can make itself into a Google Chrome clone, and we love that kind of openness 'round here.

Invisible Hand Subtly Shows Best Web Prices

If you're always looking at online purchases and wondering if you could save more before pulling the trigger, Invisible Hand affirms your hunches for you, dropping down and showing lower prices wherever it can find them.

Ubiquity Sees Major Update, New Look, Better Performance

Mozilla's future-facing automation and shortcut engine, Ubiquity, continued to get awesome-r in 2009.

App Tabs Creates Permanent, Icon-Only Tabs, Firefox 4.0-Style

We dug the idea of permanent, favicon-only tabs when a helpful reader explained it to us, but the App Tabs extension took a multi-step process and made it far more simple.

The main focus of this new design is the App Button, a space-saving touch which will feel familiar to Windows 7 users. In essence, it "provides a unified location for menu items" and cuts down on all the toolbar clutter.

You can check out Horlander's site for plenty of details about the design and explanations behind some of the new elements, but before you go, tell me: Do you prefer this App Button sort of element? Or do you prefer the plain ol' menus we're used to? [Stephen Horlander via Neowin]

Om Malik's got a little embryo of a theory, and it revolves around Mozilla's hosted services/browser sync service called Weave:

I sat around gabbing with Lilly and Jay Sullivan, Mozilla's VP of Mobile, talking about Weave and the Awesome Bar, which is a way to get access to all your browsing history and bookmarks by just typing them in the URL bar on your browser. And while we were talking about Weave, I asked them if it was going to be part of this new, mysterious iPhone app. Lilly and Sullivan smiled and remained silent. Interestingly, they didn't correct me.

It's a telling anecdote, and nearly enough to assume that Weave will be some part of the app, and if the alternative is a browser—which Apple probably wouldn't be too excited to approve—then maybe the whole app. But goddamnit, let's indulge our depressingly modest mobile Firefox fantasies anyway! Lifehacker flags a (cautious) thesis by Kevin Tofel at JKOnTheRun, who sees a Fennec hiding behind the smoke:

Apple did begin to approve third-party applications earlier this year, so a Mozilla browser does have a chance for approval. And that could open the door for the Weave service, as well. Apple's Mobile Me service doesn't sync bookmarks or web passwords over-the-air currently, although I suspect these functions could be added in the future. In light of that, I'm thinking we're about to see Fennec on the iPhone.

So in conclusion, Mozilla: ^This.^ [GigaOm and JKOnTheRun via Lifehacker]

Microsoft has deemed the hole to be a "critical" security threat, as it gives webmasters the ability to quietly install software on your PC. Last May, Microsoft released an update that made it possible to uninstall the .NET framework. They also released a patch earlier this week that supposedly fixes the problem. The vulnerability can also be exploited on users running any version of Internet Explorer. Needless to say, Firefox and IE users should employ one of those solutions ASAP. [Computer World Image via rootshell.be]

No, it's not Explorer. Originally, Microsoft wanted to order browsers from left to right in order of market share. That meant Explorer was going to go first, then Firefox, then Safari, Opera, and Google's Chrome. The EU objected, so Microsoft complied and offered a very reasonable solution: Alphabetical order.

That puts Apple Safari in the number one position, followed by Google Chrome, Microsoft Explorer, Mozilla Firefox and Opera. Looks good enough to me, but Jenny Boriss—a Firefox user experience designer—disagrees:

This ordering is about the worst option possible. Microsoft wrote in their proposal that 'nothing in the design and implementation of the Ballot Screen and the presentation of competing web browsers will express a bias for a Microsoft web browser or any other web browser,' but this is exactly what the current design does. Windows users presented with the current design will tend to make only two choices: IE because they are familiar with it, or Safari because it is the first item.

The disproportionate advantage to Safari is what really makes this design poor," she said, citing several studies that claim first position in a ballot gives an advantage, in part because Western voters scan from upper left to lower right when they read.

She goes on and on and on about this, but her basic message is: If Firefox is not first, this design is BAD. She timidly proposes a random order every time the selection screen opens, but she argues that this is bad because "unfortunately does not provide users with any information about what browsers are preferred" (according to who, Jenny? Maybe user would prefer Safari over Firefox—I know I do. Or maybe they would prefer Chrome if they could try it, as it seems to be a lot faster than Firefox).

Then she shows her true colors, proposing the order according to market share—what Microsoft proposed—but excluding Explorer from that ordering and leaving it to the last position. Wouldn't that be unfairly helping Firefox and putting Safari, Chrome, and Opera in a bad position? And why discriminate Microsoft Explorer too?

Finally, she also proposes probability ordering by market share excluding Internet Explorer, which again gives Firefox the advantage over the rest 50% of the time.

In other words, Microsoft and the EU should help Firefox to become the new monopolistic browser, no matter what. Jenny, please: Stop. Saying. Words. [Boriss' Blog via Computer World]

Apple and Lenovo generally include the sensors as data protection tools: using readings from an inbuilt accelerometer, a laptop can recognize when it's in freefall, and spin down, or even cushion, its hard drive to try to minimize platter death. It works, sometimes! But on a hardware level, these accelerometers are just like the ones in your cellphone, meaning they can track orientation finely enough to play simple physics games, which you'll evidently be able to do in the next version of Firefox:

Originally built as something that we would include for our upcoming mobile browser release, we've made it available on desktop systems as well. Many modern Macbooks and Thinkpads contain devices and drivers that expose this information. We've added support for Linux, Macs and some Thinkpads where drivers and devices are available.

So it was an afterthought for Firefox proper, and you'll have to code special games and sites for it, and it'll only work on a few major laptop models. It's not exactly The Future of Firefox, but it's a cool trick nonetheless.

You can try the feature out yourself if you want; just download a nightly Firefox build from here, and try a few of these test pages. (Not safe for seasick types.) [Mozilla via DeepTech]

Seeing as most of the time spent on a laptop is spent online, AnandTech ran exhuastive tests on Windows machines, Intel and AMD, netbook and notebook, to see if switching browsers makes any difference in battery life. And hey, it does! In some tests, there was a 30% advantage between the worst browser—always Safari—and the best—Internet Explorer 8. Seriously.

In fact, Microsoft's browser came in front across the board, even inching out Firefox with Adblock by a few percent. It's hard to say why IE8 is so power-thrifty, but the most processor-intensive operations a browser does outside of running Flash content are in rendering Javascript, which IE8 kind of sucks at. So, mystery solved, maybe! Firefox, Chrome and to a lesser extent Opera held up fine, but depending on what kind of laptop you're running, and how willing you are to ditch your browser, there are quite a few sweet battery minutes up for grabs here. Full breakdown at [AnandTech]

Before we dive in, it's worth talking about exactly what we're going for here. What "theory of Chrome" are we planning to adhere to? Or perhaps more to the point, what the hell is Chrome? From Google:

"Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks" and "most of the user experience takes place on the web." That is, it's "Google Chrome running within a new windowing system on top of a Linux kernel" with the web as the platform. It runs on x86 processors (like your standard Core 2 Duo) and ARM processors (like inside every mobile smartphone). Underneath lies security architecture that's completely redesigned to be virus-resistant and easy to update.

From our own Matt Buchanan:

If I had to guess, I'd say Chrome OS is somewhere in between an entirely browser-based OS and a generic Linux distro, though leaning toward the former.

In other words, Chrome, as we understand it, and as Google describes it, is a Linux OS that lives on the web, depending almost entirely on Google's suite of services, which are served through a special, Google-designed interface. We have no way of knowing what this mysterious window manager, menu system or desktop environment will look like, so we can't replicate that. The web half of Chrome OS, though, is already in place, and ready for us to clumsily unify. So, we'll make our own stripped-down operating system. Here's how:

Get Yourself Some Linux
Before embarking on this goofy afternoon software project, we need a launchpad. Specifically: Linux. You could go with almost any distro and accomplish the same effect, but this guide will be focused on a distribution called Xubuntu. Why Xubuntu? Because it strike a perfect balance between being extremely compatible and easy to install—on both counts, it really is—and, since it's essentially just a version of the uber-popular Ubuntu Linux distro with a stripped-down, super-fast desktop environment called XFCE, it's quick, and lightweight. Anyway, head over the the Xubuntu website and start downloading. (Go with 9.04 the latest stable version.)

There are a few ways to handle this. If you're planning to install Xubuntu on a netbook—Chrome's first and most natural target—you're probably going to need to create a bootable flash drive. Ubuntu provides some fairly fantastic instructions for doing this on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. If you're trying to do this on a regular laptop or desktop, or you have an external optical drive, you're going to want to burn your downloaded ISO to a CD and install from there. Alternately, you can order a free install disc from Xubuntu. Lastly, if you're like me, and you just want to test this out in a free virtual machine like VirtualBox, all you need to do is boot a new system from your downloaded ISO. At any rate:

During the installation, you'll be prompted with a number of options. Make sure to check the "Log In Automatically" radio box—it'll make your boot-to-browser experience a little smoother later on.

Once you've finished the installation—this should take no more than a half-hour, really—you'll find yourself with a pretty, fresh new Xubuntu desktop. It's really nice! But now, it's time to start replacing it.

Choose Your Browser
So obviously, you'll need a browser. This is the center of the Chrome experience—the window through which you'll access Google's suite of services, and which you may never leave. It needs to have support for all the web's various technologies, be it Google Gears—a plugin that lets Google services store data offline, so they can load faster and function offline—or Flash, which makes the internet significantly less boring. Chrome OS will ship with Google's Chrome browser, obviously, but the Linux port is a little sickly right now. Gears, for example, doesn't really work right now, and Flash, though technically available, crashes constantly. But if you really want to stay as Googly as possible on this project, you can get Chrome for Linux (Chromium, it's called) by adding these lines to the "Sources" list in a program called Synaptic, which manages Linux applications through one, unified interface, and is accessible in your System menu.

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main
deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/chromium-daily/ppa/ubuntu jaunty main

You can find out how to enable Flash here. Pro tip: don't bother with this.

Counterintuitively, the best way to get the Google experience on Linux is with Firefox. Xubuntu comes with Firefox, but you're going to need to spruce it up a little. Ok, a lot.

Make That Browser Work
First, you'll need Flash. Open Synaptic—mentioned above—from your Applications>System menu, and search for an item called "Flashplugin," (it's Flash Player 10) or navigate to the item as shown in the below screenshot.
Click "Apply" and let the installer run its course. Now, Firefox should support sites like YouTube, Pandora, et al.

Now, you'll need Google Gears. This is a simple Firefox extension, which you can download here. This'll help make living online feel a little less like, you know, living online—think offline archived email. Most of Google services can use Gears, so you'll want to go through each site's settings page to enable as many "Gears" or "Offline Access" options as possible. Docs and Mail are where you'll see the biggest differences, since Gears turns them from web services into full-fledged offline apps, transparently. Pretty amazing stuff, and one of the few features we know will be in Chrome OS.

Next, you'll need the Google Toolbar. This, in absence of whatever interface voodoo Google is sitting on, will serve as a sort of constant dashboard for Google services in the meantime. Along with providing shortcuts and notifiers for services like Gmail and Googel Caldner, it's got a few little tricks that'll make your browser feel more like a proper OS. For example: in the Google Toolbar preferences, you can check options that enable both automatic Gmail-ing or Mailto: links, and automatic opening of many document formats in Google Docs. You'll want to enable these, since we're trying to create the illusion that the rest of the OS doesn't exist, which an errant OpenOffice window or email client could shatter, God forbid.

Lastly, grab yourself a copy of an extension called Speed Dial, which will give you a Grid-based homepage of favorites which you can populate with all the core Google Services you're going to need—Gmail, Reader, Google Docs, Google News, etc—and which will be the first thing you see when you open your browser, and eventually, your OS. Set the initial configuration as I have on the left.

And if you're really into this idea for some reason, you can download a Firefox skin that looks like Google Chrome here.

Getting Rid of Everything Else
Now that you've got everything you need to live wholly within Google's ecosystem, a la Chrome OS, you need to remove everything else—that means excess browser clutter, system menus, and pretty much anything else that stands between you and your Google suite.

The first step will be to strip out your Firefox interface, which is probably looking a bit bloated by now. I've posted my small-screened solution below, which you can replicate by dragging and dropping icons however you please in Firefox's View>Toolbars>Customize menu. The above configuration lets you totally remove the Bookmarks and Navigation bars, which saves a good deal of space. Feel free to play with this for a while—you might find that you don't need one input box or the other, or that you can get away with much less of an interface than I have.

After grinding down Firefox's interface to an acceptable size, you'll need to go to work on your desktop. Before you can kill all the menu bars and shortcuts you don't need, you'll need to make sure Firefox automatically loads at startup, so you're basically booting into the browser. You can do this by navigating to Applications>Settings>Session and Startup, and adding a new startup item with the values seen below. (The last one if the only one you can't change—it's the one that launches Firefox).

Now, it's time to murder everything else. Right-click on either the top or bottom system panels—the Start Menu-like things on the top and bottom of your desktop—and click "Customize Panel." From here, you can remove the top panel, and set the bottom panel to "autohide." Once you're done, restart. Upon boot-up, this is about all you should see:
Welcome to Chrome! Kind of!

See What You Think
As I said before, what you've just slapped together here is not Chrome, and Google's final product will probably look nothing like this, superficially. But this little web-savvy Frankenstein OS does, I think, capture something of Google long-term vision, in which everything we store, use and experience on our computer is based online—preferably on their servers—and native applications are nothing more than a small, necessary evil. This experiment is less about guessing the specifics of Chrome OSes interface, under-the-hood workings or usage model (three things which I'm fairly sure this fails at) than it is about deciding whether or not the the idea of Chrome OS suits you, and how you use your computer. That, at least, you can get a taste of. So, how do you like it?

So that's about it! Please add in your experiences in the comments-your feedback is a huge benefit to our Saturday guides. Good luck with your OS impersonation, and have a great weekend!

As with any marketing statement, I'd encourage people to be somewhat sceptical about large number claims. It's an interesting number and I have not seen the math [but] how many internet connected users are there? 1.1 billion, 1.5 billion, something in that area.

She described the number as "interesting math," even while that 1 billion figure includes every download and update since Firefox launched since 2004. Repeated downloads too. And people having multiple computers.

Knowing that, it doesn't seem that crazy to me. What do you think about Amy's claims? And about Firefox figure? [The Guardian]

These numbers are based on Javascript benchmarks, which don't give a total view of a browser's speed but do tell us how adept a browser is at dealing with intensive code. Chromium scored 657ms on the test to Safari's 886ms. Firefox scored 1,508ms and Opera 10 Beta 3 (my personal browser of choice) lagged way behind with 5,958ms. Keeping in mind that Chromium is pre-alpha and thus better seen as a fun dev project than an actual candidate for a primary browser, we're pretty excited. Once Google irons out the bugs and gets some damn extensions, Chrome on Mac is going to be a stiff challenger to Firefox. [CNET]

Say you want to buy a new Sharp LCD. You pick out a model on Amazon or Best Buy, and while you're inspecting the product page, a small drop-down may inform you that Buy.com (or one of 50 other comparison stores) has the television for 1% cheaper than where you were shopping.

It's not the only plug-in of its kind, and I was able to beat that tested deal pictured above by searching myself, but the visually quiet interface may keep you from uninstalling the thing by the end of the week.

As an Amazon addict (on small purchases), I've basically sold my soul for convenience, accepting that 5 minutes of googling may have saved me 20 cents. But having the comparison shopping cruising in the background...we'll see whether or not I reassess that position (whether I'm cheaper than I am lazy). [Invisible Hand via Red Ferret via LifeHacker]

The one billion downloads milestone includes users downloading multiple copies for different computers as well as any manual downloads for upgrading purposes, though not any automatic updates. With so many users, it's now holding about 31% marketshare, second only to that ornery old dinosaur Internet Explorer at around 60% (Opera, Chrome and Safari are all below 5%). Once Firefox Mobile and the oddly Chrome-like Firefox 4.0 come out, we can expect that number to skyrocket even more. Congratulations and mazel tov, Mozilla. [BBC]

Internet Explorer isn't mandated in every governmental department, and Firefox has been vetted and cleared as just as secure as IE (duh), so it's a legitimate question: Why not use the faster, safer, more customizable and more reliable browser? Clinton has no idea why Firefox is barred, which is totally fine with us—we really are happy she's spending her time on other things.

But Undersecretary Patrick Kennedy chimes in that it's "an expense question," at which point he is promptly and rightfully shouted down that Firefox is free, for god's sake. He goes into a lot of nonsense about "patches" and how even things that are free aren't really free, which sounds to us like a lame attempt to explain away his first answer—he probably didn't know Firefox was free when he cited expense in the first place. If Firefox has already been implemented in other sectors of government, it stands to reason that it could be adopted by the State Department fairly easily and quickly, and with minimal expense.

The rest of both his and Secretary Clinton's answer is mostly impenetrable, metaphor-laden government-speak about cutting costs that, sorry guys, isn't going to make us forget that you just claimed a free and vastly superior program, one that's already in wide use in other sectors of government, is too expensive to implement.

Pat Kennedy, you're officially on my bad side. [State Department via Switched]

Luckily, as Crunchgear explains, the multitouch trick can be reactivated! You can read the very simple instructions over at their site, then realize that you can actually modify the settings to use gestures beyond the twist (like a three-finger swipe). But until we see incorporation of middle-finger-activated autotrolling, we're holding our excitement at bay. [Crunchgear]

Newly added treats include updated themes and a tweaked UI, improved add-on support and numerous bug fixes. We gave the alpha a quick spin and found that while a bit slow, it shows plenty of promise. The interface and overall experience is actually pretty usable, and it renders pages beautifully.

A corresponding Maemo release for Nokia's N810 has also been made available. If you want to know what all the fuss is about (or you're one of those add-on writing folks we love so much), then you can experiment with the desktop versions for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

Update: And it looks like there may be some reprieve coming to neglected Android users as well, eventually. [Mozilla—Thanks, Tim!]