First off, if you aren’t using Mozilla’s Firefox to browse the Internet, it might be time to switch over. Available as a free download, Firefox comes loaded with features like upgraded tabbed browsing, live bookmarks and phishing and spyware protection that can enhance your Web browsing and help keep your computer more secure.

And with thousands of add-ons to choose from, you can customize Firefox to make it even more efficient.

Know Your Built-In Options

One of the first things you should do once you’ve installed Firefox is go through its Options menu. Read through each one of the choices, and change anything to better suit you.

If you have nosy roommates, turn off your browsing history (this will also help save memory space). If you’re spelling-challenged or just prone to typos, make sure you select “Check my spelling as I type”—you won’t need that word processor to spell-check your blog posts anymore.

Speed Up Your Browsing

There are some easy modifications you can make to increase your Firefox speed. If you’re stuck with a slow Internet connection, check out this list of ways you can update your Firefox settings to get pages to load faster.

Pick and Choose Your Add-Ons

Named one of PC World’s 100 Best Products of 2005, Firefox is already great as is. But if you really want to trick it out and make it your own, you’ll want to check out the huge library of Firefox add-ons.

Here’s a quick list of some of our favorites:

1.   Adblock Plus – Nobody really wants to name that celebrity or punch the monkey to win a free iPod. Get rid of ads, and not only will you be less annoyed with the Internet, but there’ll be less chance of you getting distracted by stupid games that let you procrastinate doing that research for your term paper.

2.   BugMeNot – Tired of having to log in to a zillion different websites each and every time you want to view your friends’ pictures or read a news story? Use BugMeNot to log in with a totally random user name and password to the majority of websites and never have to remember 500 different passwords again. Also check out RetailMeNot, to help keep you from missing out on money-saving deals when you’re shopping online.

3.   Webmail Compose – Do you use Gmail? Yahoo Mail? Tired of having Outlook open automatically every time you click on an e-mail link? Webmail Compose will start whichever Internet-based e-mail service you tell it to, whenever you click on e-mail links. Very useful.

4.   foXpose – If you’ve ever used a Mac, you’ve probably fallen in love with Exposé. Viamatic foXpose will display all your browser tabs in the same way, as neatly arranged thumbnails that you can look at all at once. Go ahead and smile, it’s okay, we know it’s pretty.

5.   FoxyTunes – Instead of slowing down your computer by running a separate application for everything, consolidate and run applications from within your browser. Control your media player right out of Firefox and listen to your music while you’re surfing the Web, without having to switch back and forth between your browser and your player.

6.   Hyperwords – Make all words on a Web page interactive. Don’t recognize a word, name or even a movie? Select it, right-click, and go straight to your choice of online references, like Wikipedia, Dictionary.com or the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). You can also highlight an address and just click to map it. Or select a paragraph, choose a language and get an instant translation. Hyperwords won’t even need to refresh the page! Watch this video of features.

7.   MeasureIt and ColorZilla – If you’re a graphic designer or an art student doing digital work, don’t leave home without these. MeasureIt allows you to click and drag a box around any element on a Web page to measure its pixel width and height. ColorZilla is an eyedropper that can grab the color of anything.

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