While Firefox is considered a safe browser by most people, it can never hurt to add more layers of security in this day and age. And while you're at it, there are a number of ways to increase your privacy online. Here are over 20 extensions that can provide you with useful ways to protect yourself, your identity and your family on the Internet.

As with any list of Firefox tools, please do not install all of these at once unless you'd like to slow down your browser.

Child Controls







FoxFilter - You can keep others who are using your computer from stumbling into inappropriate content, or you can use a whitelist to set which sites different people are allowed to access.

Glubble Family Edition - Glubble allows families to communicate and share information with one another in a child friendly environment. It also gives children 2,500 pre-approved sites they can visit, allowing parents to approve more as they see fit.

ProCon Latte - You can set ProCon Latte to filter websites for certain words or content, or you can choose to block all websites, allowing visits only to those that are approved.

Suricate - Suricate is a collaborative parental control tool. Whenever a user stumbles upon a non-child-friendly site they click the Suricate button which automatically blocks the site on your computer and adds it to the global blacklist the addon uses.

Privacy Browsing







Click & Clean - Allows you to clean out your browser history with one click of a button in the toolbar.

Close'n forget - Once you close a tab in Firefox it is immediately "forgotten" by the browser's history.

Distrust - Turn on Distrust while you surf, and when you turn it off it will delete all history and cookies that were collected during the time it was activated.

FoxyHistory - Allows you to edit out just selected bits of your browser's history.

Stealther - Stealther temporarily disables your system keeping track of browsing history, cookies, disk cache, downloads, referrer header and saved form information.

TrackMeNot - TrackMeNot hides your search history by randomly inserting search terms into search engines.

Script & Program Blockers







Controle de Scripts - Controle de Scripts allows you to control what JavaScripts can do with your browser automatically and what is blocked.

Flashblock - Blocks all Flash from automatically loading in your browser, and marks where it is so you can choose what to load. Also blocks Macromedia Shockwave and Macromedia Authorware.

NoScript - NoScript adds more protection to your browser by blocking things such as JavaScript, Java and Flash from running on your system, except from websites you approve. This will lower your risk of malicious scripts running on your system.

QuickJava - Gives you easy button access to enable and disable Java and JavaScript from running on any page of your choice.

Tab Privacy





Page Title Eraser - Allows you to erase the site name and favicon from any tab in your browser so no one can read them over your shoulder.

Panic - Allows you to quickly close all the tabs you currently have open and replace them with one of something you wouldn't mind people seeing.

Panic Button - Quick! The boss is coming! Hit the panic button and you can hide all of your Firefox windows so no one will see you were surfing or what sites you were going to.

TabRenamizer - TabRenamizer allows you to rename a tab from a possibly embarrassing one to one that is a whole lot more innocent.

Warning Systems







Dr. Web - Right click on the link for a site you want to visit and select "Scan with Dr.Web,” it will then scan the site for any potential viruses.

Interclue - Interclue allows you to hover your mouse over a link and get a summary of what is there and whether it's a dead link. It will also warn you of malware and phishing sites.

Netcraft - The Netcraft toolbar will provide you with a risk warning for each site you visit as well as show you the IP address and location of the site.

PhishTank SiteChecker - Users can warn the central service that a site is a phishing site, and this will warn you if you accidentally surf into it. You have the option of continuing onto the page, but it will initially block you.

WOT - WOT combines information from spamming and phishing blacklists, along with ratings from users, to warn you of the threat level of over 20 million websites. Also has reputation rankings for trustworthiness, vendor reliability, privacy and child safety.