Firefox Extension Add-On Of The Day

A new addition to the blog, I wish to present to you my [somewhat] daily Firefox add-on suggestions. With this new addition I will be scouring the archives as well as the brand-spankin new add-ons for Firefox and Thunderbird on Windows platforms (sorry mac users, but I don't have a mac). I will also let you know if the add-on is compatible with Thunderbird. I recently switched to Thunderbird from Outlook 2002, so I would like to have the same add-ons between both programs and think that you would like the same.

And to start this off, I would like to suggest to you MinimizeToTray. It is with this add-on that you will be able to click on the minimize button, located in the upper right-hand corner of your Firefox browser, and have it go to the task tray, located at the bottom right-hand corner of your desktop where the clock is. It will minimize to a small, task-tray sized icon of the Firefox symbol where you can double click it to restore it to its former sized window, or you can right-click it for a shortcut menu with other options.

The only bug that is in this MinimizeToTray add-on that I found is that shortcut menu while Firefox is minimized. When you do the right-click that shortcut menu pops up as well as the shortcut menu for tinkering with the task tray. However, Minimize To Tray Enhancer, another add-on, fixes this as well as adds more customization to the new minimize functionality.


There are not that many options for this simple add-on, but feel free to go to tools -> add-ons and select the Minimize To Tray add-on, in the extensions tab, and click on the options to see how you can customize this add-on to your needs. This add-on does also work with Mozilla's Thunderbird, as well. Just right-click the big green "Install Now" button and save the file to your desktop. Then, in Thunderbird, go to the extension manager (tools -> extension manager) and click the Install button. Navigate to your desktop and select the file you downloaded and click "OK".