Firefox's rich add-on ecosystem allows us to bend the browser to our will and deck it out with features to do almost anything. If you are a blogger, there are quite a few add-ons that can turn Firefox into a great tool for drafting posts, saving Web snippets, finding topical content, and more. We're going to look at just a few of these to help inspire your inner wordsmith.

ScribeFire for blogging



To start blogging with Firefox, you will probably need a tool that actually lets you blog. Most blogging platforms these days—be they hosted like Blogger or self-installed like Movable Type—offer some kind of easy blogging tools and bookmarklets, but the ScribeFire add-on for Firefox has some powerful features for those who cannot pen by AJAX alone.

A longtime reigning champion among Firefox blogging add-ons, ScribeFire is compatible with a wide variety of services, allows users to manage published entries, and offers a handful of features typically found only in desktop software.

You can right-click a chunk of selected text to create a new post with it already inserted, or even drag photos from a webpage into ScribeFire's editor window. A wealth of text tools, the ability to save drafts, and integration with blog directory services like Technorati and Ping-O-Matic, make ScribeFire the first stop on any blogger's Firefox add-on list.

Zemanta for collecting content on the fly



One of the most fundamental aspects of blogging is writing about both what is going on in the world, and what your peers are saying and creating. Zemanta is designed to help you collect all that content on the fly while you write by integrating with web-based dashboards from a variety of services, including WordPress (both hosted and self-installed), Blogger, Ning, MySpace, Movable Type, and even my personal favorite, Tumblr.

Zemanta is basically a hyperactive secretary (the good kind), constantly watching the words you write and finding photos, links, tags, and other resources you can use to spice up your post. It can also be filtered for specific keywords not found in your post as well.

This add-on adds a few panels to the layout of your blog posting window and allows you to drag in photos or simply click tag suggestions to use them in your post. Links for keywords in the post are displayed below the post area, and simply clicking one of these links will automatically add it to the word Zemanta found in your post. It's one of the best ways to make Firefox and your computer do half of your blogging work for you.