Being the big Firefox fan that I am, I am always searching for great plugins to further enhance my browsing experience and I’ve blogged about a few great plugins before.

I’ve come across this very cool plugin that adds a few extra icons to the URL bar of the browser. At first glance, it did seem mildly intimidating, but after using it for a few hours now, I think that its absolutely great!

I’ve found that the guys at LifeHacker also recommend it and I’ve included their review of the plugin below:

Firefox only (Windows/Mac/Linux): Firefox extension UrlbarExt adds 7 new buttons to the Awesome bar with a wide range of genuinely useful functionality to power up your browsing experience.

We’ve mentioned this extension before, but it has since updated with more functionality and upgraded from experimental to officially approved by the Mozilla Add-ons site (no longer requiring a login to install). The functionality of the default buttons include, from left to right:

1. Copy the current site URL or custom formatted URL.
2. Shorten the URL using your favorite service or right-click for more options.
3. Search the current site using Google for the selected keyword. Right-click opens a dialog for adding keywords.
4. Go up one level, or directly to the root of the current site with a double-click. Right-click gives you a list of levels to choose from.
5. Tag and bookmark the current page from a menu of tags.
6. Navigate through sequential URLs. (if the URL ends in a number, it will take you to the next numbered URL)
7. Surf anonymously using online phproxy servers. Right-click lets you view the Google Cache along with other options.

Once installed, the settings panel lets you fully customize which icons are displayed by default or hidden behind the “Grippy”, along with a ton of other options.

Clicking on the Shorten URL button will use your default service, but right-clicking gives you extra options to email or twitter the last shortened URL, or even switch to a different URL shortening service.

And a few other great features! I’d honestly suggest that you install it and give it a shot. Mozilla Firefox’s success is purely a result of its extensibility and the features in this plugin is certainly one that we all use daily!

Download URLBarExt from Firefox’s addon centre here!