My favorite way to capture entire web pages as screenshots are now through a couple of Firefox add-ons, FireShot and Screengrab. Read on for more details on these add-ons.

Fireshot Add-on for FireFox (and Internet Explorer)

This is a comprehensive add-on with a free and a pro version that not only captures screens but allows the user to annotate, and edit the screenshot before making it available for copying to clipboard or saving. It also has an upload to web function that uploads the image to the web and makes the link available for use.

After installing Fireshot, a button is made available beside the search bar on the top toolbars that activates the screen grabbing functionality. This opens up a new window with the editor available and presents the user with the screenshot and options.

Note, the first time you click the Fireshot button on the toolbar, you will get a choice to also add it into Internet Explorer.

Above is a screenshot of a longer then a screen web page with some of the features from the free version of Fireshot shown. It has basic image editing filters that you can make to any selection that includes Greyscale, Blurring, Inverting colors, Outer Glow, Crop and Fill that gives the user a lot of flexibility to really make a screenshot pop.

You can get the free version from here: http://bit.ly/FireshotAddonPage 

Screengrab Add-on for Firefox

A much simpler version that provides simple capture methods without the editing components. This application is also an excellent way to capture entire web pages or parts as screen grabs.

When installed it presents a button at the bottom right of your Firefox window that you can left-click to see its options.

It allows for saving or copying (to the clipboard):

• The entire Webpage or Frame
• The Visible portion only
• A Selection (the window will go pink and you use your mouse to select the area)
• The window itself

A simple application and one that works well. Very popular if you want effectively a single click method to screen capture your sites.

You can get Screengrab from here: http://bit.ly/ScreengrabAddonPage

Related Posts

I love the development add-on’s that I can get for Firefox so most of my design type browsing is performed on there. However, there is one thing that I would love to have seen on Firefox that Chrome does really well. The New Tab functionality in Chrome results in a webpage dashboard that lays out my most common websites, recent book marks and recently closed web pages all in an easy to read manner. I miss that the most in Firefox.

Well, obviously someone else did too, and there is now an experimental add-on called JumpStart for Firefox that does exactly that!

To Install The Add-on:

Step 1

Navigate to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8914

You will notice that this is an experimental release and as such is not guaranteed to work. These are add-on’s that are still to go through a public review process and may be in beta or prototype form. You can get more information about Experimental Add-on’s here: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/pages/faq#experimental-addons.

Step 2

In order to authorize the install of this add-on, tick the “Let me install this experimental add-on”. The “Add to Firefox” button will then become active. Click it.

You will see the add-on window pop up to ask again for authorization. Click on Install.

Step 3

When the install is complete, it will ask you to restart Firefox.

Click the button to restart Firefox. Firefox will restart and display you your Add-ons window. Close this now to get back to Firefox.

Step 4

That’s pretty much it now. Whenever you open a new tab, you’ll get to see a screen similar to what Chrome displays

There is a button on the top right that allows for further personalization if you wish. The Searches button allows you to search through your history.

Conclusions

There are few things still not working correctly for me. These include:

• The ability to pin a website to the dashboard doesn’t seem to work as well as the ability to remove the website from the grid (you get these options by mousing over a website thumbnail).
• The Recently Closed items apply only to the current session, so if you have multiple windows open and you close Firefox, the recently closed items reset
• It may have some issues working with some existing add-ons so use at your own discretion.
• It does consume some memory so keep an eye on that and if it’s not to your liking, then feel free to disable the add-on.
• Its an experimental build, so it may not be compatible with the latest versions of Firefox. However, this should get better as it moves towards a more stable build.

For an experimental build, its certainly better than looking at a blank page :) And it gives me a few more options to play with to personalize Firefox as a web browser. For the brave amongst you, feel free to try it out and let me know what you think :)

Alternative Solutions

Updated: June 11th 2009:
As JumpStart is still an Experimental Addon, there are a couple of alternatives that can serve a similar purpose (though they don’t go to the lengths of emulating Google Chrome’s functionality completely). These include New Tab King (thanks shelly!) and Speed Dial. I’ve put links to their home pages below for your reference.

Relevant Links

• JumpStart Add-on Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/8914
• JumpStart Add-on Home Page: http://digitalmihailo.blogspot.com/search/label/JumpStart
• New Tab King Add-on Home Page: http://www.newtabking.com
• Speed Dial Add-on Page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4810  (Home Page)