firefox
getfirefox.com
and its’ accompanying email client thunderbird
i love these programs. secure, fast, unbloated. perfect! here’s a list of extensions i use in all my firefox installs
- adblock plus – goodbye annoying ad banners and frames!
- download statusbar – better than the original download manager
- favicon picker 3 – set the icons in your bookmarks
- fission – puts the progress bar in the address bar, probably the only useful thing about safari
- gmail manager – companion for keeping an eye on new messages to your gmail
- net usage item – for tracking isp download limit
- stylish – useful for skinning pages, get styles from userstyles.org
- speed dial – a direct ripoff of opera’s speed dial. awesome
- tinymenu – shrinks menus down to a configurable minimum (i have Menu and Bookmarks)
- toolbar buttons – handy stuff like restart, toggle styles, toggle proxy
- video downloadhelper – best one i’ve found for saving un-saveable embedded videos
- noscript – useful under windows, have never bothered keeping it under linux
i don’t really like many themes that people come up with, but here are a couple of ok ones
- whitehart firefox thunderbird
- rein