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10 Greasemonkey scripts you shouldn't browse without
One of the main draws for Firefox is how customizable it is, both in appearance and functionality. We've shown you some of our favorite Firefox themes, but if you're looking for more than a cosmetic change in your browsing experience, you should get to know Greasemonkey. In case you're not already familiar: Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that allows you to apply powerful user-created scripts to the sites you visit. Scripts do everything from drastically changing the layout of a site to adding new menus or doing common tasks automatically. Greasemonkey can change a font that annoys you, or it can change the way you use your browser.
Firefox isn't the only browser that can take advantage of userscripts. For Webkit-based browsers like Safari, check out GreaseKit. Opera is capable of running many userscripts through its own User JavaScript feature. Some of the scripts mentioned in this post might only work in Firefox, though.
Here are ten of my favorite scripts. If you're using some good ones that you don't see here, sound off in the comments.
1. Google Account Multi-login:
If you have more than one Google account, grab this script to replace the "log out" link on most Google services with a menu that lets you quickly switch from one of your accounts to another. A nice time saver for Gmail junkies.
2. Helvetireader:
I love the way Helvetireader cleans up Google Reader. Download it if you're interested in viewing Google Reader in a simple red and white layout, all in Helvetica. It gets everything that's not essential to reading your feeds out of the way.
3. Download YouTube Video as Mp4:
Does just what it says. Causes a download link to appear right under the embed codes to the right of the video on any YouTube page. This definitely beats pasting the URL into one of those YouTube Downloader websites.
4. OinkPLUS Music Torrent Site Enhancer:
With this script, you can see artist info (bio, similar artists, tags) on popular music torrent sites like Mininova and ThePirateBay. OinkPLUS gets info from Last.fm, and it's the same music info display that was used on the late, great music torrent site Oink.
5 . Nested Twitter Replies:
If you ever get tired of clicking on username links in Twitter to see what one of your friends just replied to, Nested Twitter Replies is for you. It displays Twitter conversations as threads, so you can follow the whole thing without leaving the page.
6. Twitter and Friendfeed Short URL Expander:
Don't get Rickrolled -- does anyone still do that? -- or sent to a malicious site by a shortened URL on Twitter or FriendFeed. This script expands them so you can see what you're clicking.
7. Remove All Facebook Ads:
Self-explanatory and essential. This even gets rid of those text ads that regular ad-blocker plugins have trouble with. If you use Facebook, don't pass it up.
8. Simplepedia:
Simplepedia strips Wikipedia down to the bare bones. Just elegant, easily readable text, the links, and the included images. All of the sidebars and other layout elements are gone, leaving just the information you're looking for. Simplepedia was also recently reviewed here on Download Squad.
9. Greased Lightbox:
This script makes browsing image sites like Google Image Search, Flickr, Wikipedia, MySpace, deviantART, and FFFFOUND easier by displaying linked images at full size in a lightbox when you click them. The lightbox display includes a link to the image in its original context, in case you want to click through after you've seen it.
10. Linkify Ting:
When this script runs across some plain text that's clearly the address of a website, it turns that text into a link. This is awesome for saving you from a lot of needless copying and pasting.
Comments
9
Subscribe to commentsBrianFeb 22nd 2009 2:45PM
omfg...i can't believe you did not include YousableTubeFix. It basically makes youtube much better.
* Download the video as FLV, MP4, High Quality FLV or High Quality MP4: click in the video title or use the download links in the right column1
* Resize the video manually and automatically
* Remove ads and any unwanted YouTube section; like the character counter, video annotations and captions, Also Watching Now, Embed, etc...
* Change the video format to the standard Low Quality FLV, MP4, High Quality FLV or High Quality MP4, manually or automatically. The video formats availability is autodetected and the script can change to the best available video format automatically
* Automatically expand the video description, category, tags and URL information. The collapse links can be removed if desired
* Display all comments in the video page (up to 500 comments)
* Prevent only video autoplay, or both video autoplay and autodownload substituting the player with a thumbnail until it is clicked
* Change the Flash Player Quality attribute to a lower one to play the video with less CPU use
* Automatically bypass YouTube age verification page for logged in users
* Autocheck for script updates once a day
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/13333
Eli GundryFeb 22nd 2009 6:53PM
Thank you so very much, what an awesome script.
ChoppasmithFeb 23rd 2009 3:28PM
Wow! Thanks a bunch for this script! I didn't think something like this existed. It seemed a lot of those "Force HiQuality" Youtube scripts were discontinued by people with them saying "Youtube has High Quality now, so these scripts aren't needed anymore" when it's not true (if a video bitrate isn't high enough, Youtube won't see it as a high quality video). This even beats the snot out of Lifehacker's Better Youtube extension.
Honestly the other Greasemonkey scripts mentioned in this article don't have a use for me.
EllenFeb 22nd 2009 3:56PM
Thanks so much for these scripts. I'm always looking for good greasemonkey scripts now that I have it in Firefox. The lightbox one will be very useful.
Marjolein HoekstraFeb 22nd 2009 4:27PM
Here's some of my favorites:
RSS Panel X: discovers all feeds on any web page and shows their content in a miniature drop-down panel in the top-left corner of the page.
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/6073
Twitter Favicon Changer: updates the favicon of any Twitter user's profile page to their avatar image
http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/14956
Google Time Search: adds a drop-down box right next to the Google Search input box, allowing you to refine your search results by the date Google indexed a page.
To keep track of which scripts you install and stick to, consider signing up for a Userscripts.org account. This allows you to favor scripts for easy reference. You can find a list of all my favored scripts, including Google Time Search, here: http://sn.im/cleverclogs_favscripts
teddYFeb 22nd 2009 6:45PM
Not to forget, the Greasemonkey script for buddy icon reply in Flickr ;) that's a great tool for Flickr users who reply others' comments, while adding a personal touch in their responses.
Fred ThompsonFeb 22nd 2009 9:09PM
GoogleMonkeyR http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/9310 - customize google (get rid of ads, set multiple columns, etc.)
Userscripts Updater http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/26062 - check for updates to scripts - should be a core function of Greasemonkey, IMNSHO
BrettJayFeb 23rd 2009 12:49AM
There are a lot of Youtube scripts available for GreaseMonkey.
I like Youtube Enhancer myself, as it adds a download link above the title (where the icon of four blue diamonds are), and adds a quality selector below the playback area, which has the option for Low Qualtiy FLV, High Quality FLV, High Quality MP4 and HD .mp4.
The ability to choose which quality setting (especially HD if it's available) really helps because most of those packet sniffers stubbornly don't find the higher quality versions (at least sometimes they don't for me), and those youtube download sites apparent 'high quality mp4' is just the .flv transcoded to .mp4.
Obviously a lot of scripts do this, I guess this was just the first one I downloaded.
tooleeMar 18th 2009 12:28AM
GoogleMonkeyR i like it