Best Firefox Extensions in 2024: A Curated List by Use Case
Most "best Firefox extensions" lists are enormous and include things like "download manager" extensions that overlap with built-in functionality. This list is organized by what you're actually trying to solve.
If you need to save and restore tab sessions
Tab Manager & Session Saver — Save named groups of tabs and restore them later with one click. Useful for context switching between projects or recovering from crashes. Local-only storage, no account needed.
What's different from bookmarks: One-click restore of the entire session in the original order. Bookmarks require opening each tab manually.
What's different from Firefox's built-in session restore: Firefox's session restore only works automatically on crash/restart. This gives you named, permanent snapshots you control.
If you need dark mode on stubborn websites
NightOwl — Forces dark mode via CSS inversion on any site, with per-domain toggle. Sites that ignore prefers-color-scheme: dark will have dark mode applied regardless.
Why per-domain matters: Sites with excellent native dark themes (GitHub, Figma, VS Code online) should use their own — they're better. Sites that haven't implemented dark mode (or did it poorly) benefit from CSS inversion.
Alternative: Firefox's own about:config flag ui.systemUsesDarkTheme=1 tells sites you prefer dark mode. Only works on sites that actually check the CSS media query.
If you want to block trackers and ads
uBlock Origin — The standard. Block ads and trackers via filter lists. Runs entirely locally. "Easy mode" works fine for most users; "Medium mode" for more aggressive blocking.
Note: Firefox still supports Manifest V2 extensions, so uBlock Origin runs at full capability here (unlike Chrome, which is phasing out MV2 and will limit ad blocker power).
If you want to isolate cookies between contexts
Multi-Account Containers — Mozilla's own extension. Creates separate "containers" where each site's cookies are isolated from other containers. Social media stays in one container, banking in another — they can't track you across contexts.
Works especially well combined with the Facebook Container extension (also from Mozilla) which automatically opens all Facebook pages in an isolated container.
If you want to read long articles distraction-free
Firefox has a built-in Reader View (F9 key, or the book icon in the address bar when available) — no extension needed. Strips the page to text + images, lets you adjust font size and background.
For saving articles to read later: Pocket is built into Firefox (look in the toolbar's "..." menu → Save to Pocket). Requires an account but it's integrated.
If you want to inspect what a site is loading
uBlock Origin's Logger (built into uBlock Origin, not a separate extension) shows every network request a page makes, color-coded by whether it was blocked. Useful for spotting trackers or understanding why something is broken.
Firefox's Developer Tools → Network tab (Ctrl+Shift+I → Network) does the same thing more granularly without needing an extension.
If you want keyboard-based tab management
Vimium-FF — Adds Vim-style keyboard navigation to Firefox. f shows links with letter overlays you type to follow them. x closes tab, d scrolls down, T searches open tabs.
Steep learning curve, but highly efficient once learned.
What Not to Install
Tab suspenders — Tools that suspend inactive tabs to save memory. Can cause reliability issues and data loss on web apps. Firefox's own memory management has improved enough that this is usually unnecessary.
Multiple privacy extensions that overlap — uBlock Origin + Privacy Badger + Disconnect + Ghostery all do similar things. Pick one main tracker blocker (uBlock Origin) and avoid the redundancy.
Extensions that need "Access your data for all websites" and sync to their servers — This is a large permission with data privacy implications. Check what data an extension actually sends before installing.
Top comments (0)