ONE of the cool things about Firefox is that you can customize the browser with third-party add-ons to make it work better for you.

Adding an extension is easy. On Firefox 3, simply go to the Tools menu and choose Add-ons. On the Get Add-ons tab, click on the “Browse All Add-ons” link. This takes you to the Firefox Add-ons Web site, which organizes more than 5,000 extensions that are organized into categories. Find one you like and click on the “Add to Firefox” button to install it.

If you really want to extend Firefox’s capabilities, you’re better off looking at these extensions (or others that work in a similar manner) that are available on the Firefox Add-ons site.

1. DownThemAll. This is the first extension I add on every new installation of Firefox. Two features make this a must-have: faster downloads—as much as double the speed, and the ability to resume downloads on many sites. Other users swear by another download accelerator, FlashGot, but I started with DownThemAll and never found the need to switch.

2. Fasterfox Lite.

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