This is me nerding out. I've been forced to nerd out the company way all day, now I'm going to nerd out my way.

This is how I set up my browser.

Firefox

My browser of choice. I loathe IE7. It makes me feel like I'm trying to swim through molasses. Firefox is no speed demon either. I think Opera claims that. I just like Firefox because I've been using it for a very long time and love both how customizable it is and how many options are out there for it.

Adblock Plus

It's a banner-blocker, but one that allows me to selectively add to the list. I can right-click on an image and make it go away. This isn't just for advertisements: I've friends on another journal site which allows users to upload ... risque avatars. I sometimes browse from work, so I've blocked those avatar not out of personal distaste, but simply being work-safe.

Adblock Filterset.G Updater

Instead of finding all the advertisements personally and opting to block them, this add-on to Firefox + Adblock Plus centralizes that, so I 'subscribe' to a list of advertisement filters.

Tab Mix Plus

Allows me to fine-tune my tabs in Firefox. I like my tabs to be a given width, no matter how many or how few. This way, I know when I mouse over to that spot, I hit that tab, not another one that is going to spawn in that spot. Allows me to change the opening order, define that double-clicking on a tab reloads it, etc. It has so many switches that I can happily click an afternoon away tweaking it. Yes, I'm a geek.

No Script

Selectively disables Firefox's JavaScript engine (and Flash, and Plugins...) "Selectively" in that I can opt to add a site to the whitelist of sites allowed to run scripts, and do so either on a this-time-only basis or permanently (and easily remove it from the permanent list.)

This adds some complications to some sites, such a JournalScape that uses JavaScript to auto-fill in the time for new entries. Instead, all my entries are timestamped 1AM and I have to remember to update them. If you ever see one from me supposedly written at 1AM, it's probably me spacing.

Still, I never get popups, stupid flash animations, have annoying windows hide the status bar or menu bar, etc. It does have a whitelist built in of sites that require JavaScript for beneficial uses, such as Gmail. (And I can add to that whitelist for sites I like that use JavaScript and/or Flash in a responsible way.) It's just a way to stymie the sites out there that try to spring it on the user.

Basically, that's what I use to browse. I've found adding too many other add-ons makes Firefox slow and unreliable. Instead, this is just me tightening the suspension and tuning the spark plug timing. This keeps my browsing experience simple, lean and generally distraction-free.